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COLUMBUS, Ohio—The U.S. Justice Department is moving to fulfill PG Sittenfeld’s attempt to erase his 2023 corruption conviction – but not in the way the Democratic former Cincinnati City Councilman is seeking. Justice Department attorneys asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday to overturn PG Sittenfeld’s corruption conviction. That would allow a lower court in Cincinnati to grant federal prosecutors’ request – also filed Monday – to dismiss the indictment against Sittenfeld, given that President Donald Trump pardoned him in May. Despite his presidential pardon, Sittenfeld has – unusually, if not unprecedentedly – continued to appeal his conviction, arguing that the Supreme Court needs to resolve lower-court confusion over two prior court rulings regarding the line between a legal campaign contribution and an illegal bribe. Dozens of political, business, and government leaders on both sides of the aisle – including three former U.S. attorneys general – have backed Sittenfeld’s request to provide such clarity, saying it’s needed so that overzealous (if not politically motivated) prosecutors can’t indict politicians for accepting everyday campaign contributions. The Justice Department’s actions to have Sittenfeld’s case dismissed indicate it would prefer to avoid having the Supreme Court weigh in on those larger issues. Vacating Sittenfeld’s convictions, the Justice Department’s brief stated, “is the most that petitioner could ever obtain in this litigation” and “will avoid any needless litigation about petitioner’s now-pardoned convictions and the scope of the pardon that he has received.” If the Supreme Court accepts the case and agrees with Sittenfeld’s arguments, it could – among many other repercussions – lead to the release of former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder, a Perry County Republican serving a 20-year prison sentence for accepting $60 million in bribes from Akron-based utility FirstEnergy to help pass and preserve House Bill 6, a 2019 energy law. Sittenfeld, a 2016 Democratic U.S. Senate candidate, was convicted in 2023 of bribery and attempted extortion after accepting $20,000 from undercover FBI agents in exchange for lining up votes for a Cincinnati development project. Sittenfeld pleaded innocent, arguing – among other things – that the $20,000 was a political contribution that he had a right to accept under the First Amendment. A jury sentenced Sittenfeld to 16 months in prison, but he only served about 4½ months before Trump, a Republican, issued him a full pardon in May. Sittenfeld argues that the Supreme Court should accept his case not just to clarify federal bribery law, but so he can get back the $40,000 fine he paid and avoid other “collateral consequences” stemming from his conviction. Monday’s Supreme Court brief filed by the Justice Department argues that Trump’s pardon makes Sittenfeld’s case moot. Federal prosecutors also conceded that Sittenfeld should get the $40,000 back and cited a past court case holding that presidential pardons “obliterate” collateral consequences. It remains to be seen when and how the Supreme Court will rule on Sittenfeld’s request to take up his case. However, U.S. Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas have indicated in the past that they want the court to take a fresh look at one of the past court decisions that Sittenfeld is attempting to challenge: Evans v. United States, a 1992 ruling that public officials can be convicted of extortion by merely knowingly accepting a bribe, even if they don’t actively push for one.
