Attorney and contributor to conservative website TheHill Alan Dershowitz reportedly urged Donald Trump to give a convicted child pornographer and sex trafficker presidential clemency, one in a series of clemency pleas Dershowitz pushed through his access to the former president, the New York Times reports.

Himself accused of improprieties with children, Dershowitz used his access to persuade Trump to issue 10 sentence commutations and two pardons for his wealthy clients or acquaintences, as well as a lessening of sanctions against an Israeli mining billionaire.  That amounts to five percent, or one in twenty, of all the clemency requests granted by Trump.

Dershowitz’s plan to secure clemency for George Nader, a former associate of Trump henchman Lev Parnas, for his child pornography and sex trafficker convictions, despite a stipulation that Nader would immediately leave the country. 

Some of the clients Dershowitz worked for included two New York real estate developers who swindled investors out of $23 million and a New Jersey man who ran a $200 million Ponzi scheme.

In one other case, Dershowitz secured a commutation of sentence of a drug trafficker who had received a ten-year sentence.  Trump issued the commutation in the last hours of his presidency even though the convict, Jonathan Braun, had a history of violence and threats.

Dershowitz claims he worked on half of these cases without accepting fees, and his efforts were mostly for existing clients of his, even though he describes himself as semi-retired.

It appears that Dershowitz circumvented the accepted clemency-request process of submitting statements to the Office of the Pardon Attorney in the Department of Justice.  The OPA typically reviews applications and if the applicant meets the criteria for endorsing a presidential order of clemency.  Convicts typically must accept responsibility for their crimes and demonstrate remorse for their actions.  Dershowitz’s clients did not do that, and Dershowitz apparently went directly to Trump with the requests, exceptional access for a lawyer who had a personal lawyer-client relationship with the now-former president.