President Donald Trump has pardoned former Alabama State House Ed Henry shortly before leaving office. The former state chairman of Trump’s 2016 campaign pleaded guilty in 2019 for his role in a health care fraud case. Henry’s pardon was one of the dozens of pardons and clemency grants Trump announced during his final day in office. Henry made headlines back in 2016 when he led the charge to remove Alabama Governor Robert Bentley following an alleged scandal involving a female aide.
“I don’t believe him,” said Henry of Bentley’s apology that claimed no affair had occurred with Rebekah Caldwell Mason.
“One of the articles we can impeach him on is incompetence,” said Henry back then. “To stand before an industry that we’re trying to recruit into this state and say what the state of Alabama means and how we’re going to be here, and supportive of their business…it’s not believable.”
Bentley resigned in 2017. Ironically, Henry pleaded guilty in 2019 to aiding and abetting theft of government property. He was sentenced to two years of probation, but no jail time. Prosecutors say Medicare paid for pain management services provided by Henry's company that patients didn’t need.
Perhaps the highest profile pardon Trump signed in the final hours of his Presidency was for former chief White House strategist Steve Bannon. Federal prosecutors charged him back in August for allegedly defrauding donors out of more than a million dollars to help build Trump’s border wall.
