In July of this year Timothy Leiweke was indicted by the Trump administration Antitrust Division for bid rigging on a multi-million dollar project for the Moody Center at the University of Texas at Austin.  At the time, the Antitrust Division hailed the indictment stating: “The Antitrust Division and its law enforcement partners will continue to hold executives who cheat to avoid competition accountable.”  Not so fast. The trial was scheduled for early 2026, but yesterday President Trump issued a full and unconditional pardon to Mr. Leiweke (here). There was no explanation.

            While I am glad for Mr. Leiweke, this was not a good development for my rapidly expiring writing career. For several months I have been working on an article (footnotes and everything!) that discussed the ways Mr. Leiweke might beat the rap and avoid a possible ten year prison sentence. I did not have a pretrial pardon on my bingo card. The article deals mainly with how the defense might have attacked the per se rule on the facts alleged in the indictment. Well, not every indicted antitrust defendant will be so fortunate to get a pardon so I may rework the article using a hypothetical defendant who will have to face trial and be held accountable if a jury convicts.

PS  I moved back to Palm Springs (final move) and yesterday (December 4th) I walked about in shorts in a tee shirt. I don’t blog much these days (would you?). But the Leiweke indictment caught  my attention—not likely to make that mistake again. I am going to rework my article and post it in segments on the blog which I’m still paying GoDaddy for so I may as well.

Thanks for reading.

Bob Connolly    bob@reconnollylaw.com