It's Trump corruption 101.

Trevor Milton, the convicted founder of EV startup Nikola, just proved that you can fleece people to the tune of millions of dollars and get away with it these days if you give money to Donald Trump and stroke his ego.

From Associated Press:

The pardon of Milton, who was sentenced to four years in prison for exaggerating the potential of his technology, could wipe out hundreds of millions of dollars in restitution that prosecutors were seeking for defrauded investors.

Milton, 42, and his wife donated more than $1.8 million to a Trump re-election campaign fund less than a month before the November election, according to the Federal Election Commission.

…

Milton, convicted of fraud, was portrayed by prosecutors as a con man six years after he had founded the company in a basement in Utah.

Prosecutors said Milton falsely claimed to have built its own revolutionary truck that was actually a General Motors product with Nikola’s logo stamped onto it.

When asked about the pardon, Trump pretty much acknowledged he was motivated by the fact that Milton “liked Trump.”

From The New York Times:

“They say the thing that he did wrong was he was one of the first people that supported a gentleman named Donald Trump for a president,” Mr. Trump said in the Oval Office. “He supported Trump. He liked Trump.”

“I had these fantastic recommendations about him from people that you know very well, all top-of-the-line people,” Mr. Trump said. “They thought it was a horrible thing.”

The Times didn’t report any concern from Trump for the victims. According to The New Republic, shareholders had been due $680 million and a wire fraud victim $15.2 million as part of Milton's punishment. Thanks to Trump, Milton just wriggled out of compensating them along with his four-year prison term. Not a bad return on that $1.8 million investment, eh?

Unfortunately for Milton, Trump’s pardon will not help him in civil court. The Times noted the pardoned felon “still faces civil lawsuits.”