On the night of Friday, July 3, 2026, President Trump pardoned a man named Adam Kidan.

Kidan is a convicted fraudster. He pleaded guilty in 2006, alongside super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff, to fraud and conspiracy in the crooked purchase of the SunCruz casino fleet. He was sentenced to 70 months in federal prison and served less than half of it, walking out in 2009.

He was also ordered to pay $21,701,015.45 in restitution, plus interest that has been running since 2006. His victims include Aristotle and Alexander Hren-Boulis — the now-grown sons of Konstantinos "Gus" Boulis, the man Kidan and Abramoff bought SunCruz from.

Boulis was shot to death on a Fort Lauderdale road on February 6, 2001, by a Mafia hitman. Kidan's mob associate later pleaded guilty. Kidan's own conviction was for the fraud, not the killing.

Florida Bulldog, which reviewed Kidan's Miami court file, found no indication he ever paid any of the millions he owed those sons.

Trump's pardon made the debt disappear.

Four weeks later, one Pennsylvania Republican gave Kidan's campaign money back. Lloyd Smucker is not that Republican.

What Smucker's campaign said

U.S. Rep. Ryan Mackenzie of Allentown returned a $2,600 donation from Kidan, his spokesperson telling The Morning Call it was to "avoid even an appearance of impropriety."

Smucker's campaign went the other way. Spokesperson Jenna Reath put out a statement Friday defending Kidan:

"Adam Kidan paid his debt to society and has been a longtime supporter of conservative causes and charitable efforts in Lancaster County. America is the land of second chances, and Congressman Smucker respects the accountability and honesty Adam has shown regarding his past actions."

Asked directly whether Smucker would follow Mackenzie's lead and return the money, Reath didn't answer the question.

Read that statement again with the court file in front of you.

"Paid his debt to society." He served under three years of a 70-month sentence and, per the court record, paid none of the $21.7 million he owed his victims. Then the president wiped the debt out entirely. That is the precise opposite of paying a debt. That is having it forgiven by someone you gave a lot of money to.

"The accountability and honesty Adam has shown regarding his past actions." Kidan didn't even go through the normal process to earn this. Florida Bulldog searched the Justice Department's Office of the Pardon Attorney clemency records and Kidan's name isn't there — meaning he appears to have skipped the department that vets pardon applications and asked Trump directly.

The size of the relationship

This isn't a $2,600 problem for Smucker. It's not close.

Kidan has given at least $350,000 in direct or in-kind contributions to political committees affiliated with Smucker since 2017. Back in 2023, LancasterOnline published a full investigation into the relationship under the headline "Smucker & the ex-con" — documenting travel together and, at that point, nearly $250,000 in campaign cash and donations.

The money kept coming. According to FEC records, Kidan's most recent contribution to Smucker was a $21,808.88 in-kind donation on January 30 — catering and an event space. Kidan's partner, Cris Kidan, gave an in-kind contribution of exactly the same amount, the same day.

So: about $43,600 in a single day, from a household, to a congressman — five months before that household's felon got a presidential pardon.

Where Kidan's political money goes

Kidan's giving isn't confined to Lancaster County. Federal records show that since 2017 he has given millions to Trump's campaigns, Trump committees, the RNC, the NRCC and Republican candidates nationwide.

• More than $1.13 million to Trump's 2024 campaign and committees supporting him.
• Just under $1 million in the current 2025–26 cycle, through June 30 — all of it to the NRCC and to Republican House and Senate campaigns and PACs.

And there's the money paid directly to Trump's business. In February 2023, Kidan got married at Mar-a-Lago, with Trump and Melania Trump attending. Mar-a-Lago requires membership to host a wedding; the initiation fee that year was $700,000, with annual dues around $15,000. Weddings there run $200,000 to more than $500,000.

Then, three and a half years later, the felony conviction and the $21.7 million restitution went away.

You don't need to prove a transaction to see the shape of the thing. Kidan gave enormous sums to the man with the pardon pen, and got the pardon. Smucker took enormous sums from Kidan, and now won't say a word against either of them.

He's not the only one being asked

Democratic leaders are also calling on Republicans Scott Perry and Rob Bresnahan to return Kidan's donations. Kidan has given to gubernatorial candidate Stacy Garrity as well.

Mackenzie, who is in a genuinely competitive race, handed the money back within days. Smucker sits in a Republican-friendly district and has been challenged by Manheim Township nurse Nancy Mannion this November — a race Democrats haven't targeted as hard.

That's the real explanation here, and it's worth saying plainly. The Republicans who gave the money back are the ones who could lose. Smucker thinks he can't. So he doesn't have to care what Lancaster County thinks about a congressman funded by a man who owed $21.7 million to a murdered man's children and never paid it.

What this is really about

Everybody deserves a second chance. That's a genuine American value, and Smucker's campaign is right to invoke it.

But a second chance means serving your sentence and making your victims whole. It does not mean serving a third of your time, stiffing the victims for two decades, spending millions on the politician who can erase it, and then having him erase it.

Aristotle and Alexander Hren-Boulis were owed $21.7 million by a court of law. Their father was murdered. As of July 3, they are owed nothing, forever.

And their debtor's money is still sitting in Lloyd Smucker's campaign account.

We deserve better.

Source

Jade Campos, Rep. Smucker defends major GOP donor pardoned by Trump; another PA Republican returns contribution, LancasterOnline, July 31, 2026. Additional reporting: Dan Christensen, Florida Bulldog. Photo: Lynne Sladky / Associated Press.