Trump forgave him. Now he will no longer have to reimburse $ 660 million

According to the New York Times, the SEC has abandoned civil law affairs against many people forgiven by President Donald Trump. One of these cases was against Trevor Milton, the founder of the company of electric vehicles and hydrogen now missing Nikola, who was sentenced to prison for fraud at the end of 2023.

Milton was sentenced in 2022 for lies to investors about the ability of technology that his business developed and sentenced to four years in prison. Milton sadly produced a video in 2016 showing a prototype Nikola truck which, according to his company, was led on a highway. In reality, the truck was shot down from a strange angle and was towed to a hill before being sent to roll to give the impression that the vehicle was moving under its own power.

Milton, who was estimated by Forbes, worth $ 1.1 billion in 2021, was found guilty of fraud of investors and the United States Ministry of Justice wanted to obtain more than $ 660 million in restitution for its victims. But the forgiveness of Trump destroyed this monumental sum. And this week, the SEC has abandoned all chance that the government recovered money from civil sanctions. It is not known how much money was able to continue with Milton.

In May, Gizmodo spoke with Liz Oyer, the lawyer for Doj Pardon who was dismissed for refusing to restore Mel Gibson’s firearms under the political pressure of Trump’s nominees. She noted that the DOJ has a set of directives that set the criteria for the recommendation of pardons. The directives indicate that people should not even be considered for a grace until they have served their sentence and that five years have passed. Trump’s pardons did not follow this process at all.

“So, historically, the stands are generally considered to be something that has served their sentence, have paid their debt, demonstrated in rehabilitation and good conduct in the time that has passed. And these criteria are all absent in each of the stands that Trump has granted to date,” said Oyer in May.

Why are regular rules not followed? Oyer underlines that Milton and his wife made a donation of $ 1.8 million to a re -election campaign fund for Trump shortly before the 2024 presidential election. And as the New York Times noted, Milton also hired prosecutor Brad Bondi, the brother of the prosecutor General Pam Bondi, although he previously declared that he had challenged the case.

Oyer made a tiktok video on the Milton case explaining what a good investment that $ 1.8 million turned out to be. According to Oyer, more than a billion dollars of debts have been destroyed by the many Trump’s pardons.

Trump said earlier this year that Milton’s only crime was to love Trump too much.

“They say that what was wrong with is that he was one of the first people to support a gentleman named Donald Trump for the president. He supported Trump. He loved Trump. I didn’t know him, but he loved him,” said Trump after forgiveness. Yes, this is the quote.

Needless to say, Milton was not convicted of having loved Trump. He was found guilty of having fraud hundreds of millions of dollars from his investors. A SEC spokesperson told Gizmodo that the agency refuses to comment on Milton’s case. Milton did not immediately respond to a request for comments. We will update this article when we hear.