Trump pardon of ex-labor boss from LI draws political buzz

As with dozens of similar recent actions, President Donald Trump has not volunteered an explanation for his latest pardon of a Long Islander, James T. Callahan, 65, who had led the high-powered International Union of Operating Engineers. Callahan, of Lindenhurst, had pleaded guilty to charges he received at least $315,000 in free tickets to sports events and concerts, and other gifts, from a company with which the union did millions of dollars in business. His clemency arrived days before he was due to be sentenced in federal court

The IUOE, a powerful construction union, has been a key player on the New York development scene for decades and thus has a political profile. In a detailed story last year, the right-leaning Washington Examiner highlighted the fact that the union spent more than $10 million backing Democrats in the 2024 election cycle.

Indeed, Republican Trump’s corruption pardons and other favors have been somewhat bipartisan. Among the Democratic pols he famously got off the hook were New York City Mayor Eric Adams and former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. But motive for those waves of the presidential wand was easier to speculate upon. Adams was "incentivized" to go along with the new administration’s deportations and Blagojevich had appeared on "The Apprentice," suggesting a mutual personal fondness.

With Callahan, the possible connections are not so clear. Was it the president’s old New York relationships with the industry when, as Fred Trump’s son, he became well known himself as a developer nearly half a century ago? One insider versed in city real estate politics speculated Callahan or associates in the union might have been known to the Trumps from private business. But it wasn’t even clear who recommended the pardon.

As described on an AFL-CIO website, he was a maintenance foreman in 1993 when his team worked on the World Trade Center site after the first terrorist bombing. After 9/11, as a business representative, Callahan was among those in the union who responded, "working throughout the recovery efforts at ground zero," the description says.

This was part of the biography distributed when he was named grand marshal of the 2022 New York City St. Patrick’s Day Parade.

As the Examiner’s story describes it, Callahan, "who himself takes home nearly half a million dollars a year in union compensation, employs family member Thomas Callahan as the vice president of the union on a salary of $113,000 per year. James J. Callahan, meanwhile, makes about $250,000 annually as a director, and John Callahan receives roughly $215,000 per year for his work as an equipment assistant."

"Tax forms only identify the three as "family member[s]" of Callahan, not divulging their specific relationships."

The situation was put into a partisan framework by Mark Mix of the National Right to Work Committee which opposes "forced’ unionization laws and supports so-called "right to work" laws. Dues payers lose out on such huge expenses for resorts, hotels and meals paid with union funds, Mix said only two months ago. And he asserted that despite widespread membership support for Trump, the "bosses" didn’t hesitate to back Democrat Kamala Harris for president.

That’s a sharp party line contrast to what Ed Martin, a Department of Justice official now heading the pardon process, had to say on Monday in an online posting: "No MAGA left behind." He applied it not to Callahan, but to a former Virginia sheriff, Scott Jenkins, who’d been convicted of bribery. Closer to home, Martin’s quip would suit former GOP Staten Island Rep. Michael Grimm, who pleaded guilty in 2014 to felony tax evasion. Trump backers have called the case against Grimm a "witch hunt" not unlike Trump’s own.

— Dan Janison dan.janison@newsday.com

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