So, even assuming that that magic pardon comes (and there are all sorts of ways that it might not; Trump is not, y'know, the most _reliable_), there would still be a huge _optics_ problem (actually, the pardon would make it worse). People are currently annoyed about corruption. If this had come out when a congressional investigation poked at it, then there would have been a very obvious narrative that would be extremely bad for Trump and more broadly for Republicans; rich guy gives $25m for Trump's vanity project, and rich guy's little problem just... goes away. I mean, it is very obvious how that could be framed.

And that narrative's still there, but I think probably subsumed a bit by the "nvidia kicks out CEO" story. Like, if I was a republican I'd definitely prefer to see this version of events than the "congressional investigation finds it" one.