Investigation Into Alleged Bribe For Pardon Scheme -- The Crime: Social Security Fraud

      From the New York Times:

The Justice Department investigated as recently as this summer the roles of a top fund-raiser for President Trump and a lawyer for his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, in a suspected scheme to offer a bribe in exchange for clemency ...

A billionaire real estate developer from the San Francisco area, Sanford Diller, enlisted their help in securing clemency for a Berkeley psychologist, Hugh L. Baras, who had received a 30-month prison sentence on a conviction of tax evasion and improperly claiming Social Security benefits, according to the filing and the people familiar with the case. Under the suspected scheme, Mr. Diller would make “a substantial political contribution” to an unspecified recipient in exchange for the pardon. He died in February 2018, and there is no evidence that the effort continued after his death. ...

[T]he case relates to the conviction of Mr. Baras, 77, who was sentenced in 2014 and ordered to pay restitution of about $594,000 for tax evasion and illegally claiming disability insurance benefits to which he was not entitled from the Social Security Administration. ...