★ Private Action
Elizabeth Fago attends $1M MAGA Inc. dinner before son's pardon
Donations In, Favors OutThe Pardon List
Filed April 2025$1,000,000
★ The Brief
What happened
In early April 2025, Florida Republican fundraiser Elizabeth Fago paid $1 million for a seat at a candlelight dinner at Mar-a-Lago hosted by MAGA Inc., the pro-Trump super PAC, where the advertised draw was face-to-face access to Trump as the featured speaker.
Who enabled it
Who benefits
Deal or steal?
Three weeks later, Trump pardoned Fago's son, Paul Walczak, wiping an 18-month prison sentence and $4.4 million in restitution for unpaid payroll taxes; Walczak's clemency petition had pointed to his mother's Republican fundraising.
★ Cast your vote
In early April 2025, Florida Republican fundraiser Elizabeth Fago attended a candlelight dinner at Mar-a-Lago hosted by MAGA Inc., the pro-Trump super PAC. Attendance required $1 million per head and the dinner promised face-to-face access to Trump as a featured speaker. Three weeks later, on April 23, 2025, President Trump pardoned Fago's son Paul Walczak, a Florida nursing-home executive who had just been sentenced (April 11, 2025) to 18 months in federal prison and roughly $4.4 million in restitution for failing to remit more than $7 million in payroll taxes withheld from his employees.
Walczak's clemency petition explicitly invoked Fago's history of Republican fundraising — including her hosting of at least three Trump campaign fundraisers and her VIP attendance at Trump's 2017 and 2025 inaugurations — as evidence that his prosecution had been political payback. A White House spokesperson said donations played no role in the pardon. The donation-then-pardon sequence is captured in two linked actions on this site: this dinner attendance, and Walczak's pardon.
Sources
- U.S. House Judiciary Committee Democrats · June 17, 2025democrats-judiciary.house.govDemocratic Staff Memo: President Trump's Pardons and the $1.3 Billion Cost to Crime Victims
- Washington Examiner · June 17, 2025washingtonexaminer.comTrump's pardons cost crime victims $1.3 billion: Democrats
- New York Times · May 27, 2025nytimes.comTrump Pardons Tax Cheat Whose Mother Attended $1 Million Mar-a-Lago Fundraiser
Further reading
- ★ Private ActionSeptember 2025Greg and Anna Brockman donate $25M to MAGA Inc.
- ★ Government ActionMay 2025Trump commutes donor Imaad Zuberi's foreign-lobbying sentence
- ★ Government ActionApril 2025Trump pardons Paul Walczak weeks after mother's $1M Mar-a-Lago dinner
- ★ Private ActionJanuary 2017Imaad Zuberi routes $900K to Trump inaugural via shell company
- ★ Private ActionJuly 2026FIFA reverses a US player's World Cup ban after Trump's call
- ★ Private ActionJune 2026Trump owns private-prison stocks his deportation drive is enriching