Four men involved in Baghdad massacre among 15 people pardoned by Trump

President Donald Trump has granted a full pardon to George Papadopoulos, a former campaign aide who pleaded guilty as part of the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 US presidential election.

Mr Trump also pardoned Alex van der Zwaan, 36, the Dutch son-in-law of Russian billionaire German Khan. Van der Zwaan was sentenced to 30 days in prison and fined $20,000 for lying to US Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigators about contacts with an official in Mr Trump's 2016 campaign.

Their names were included in a wave of pre-Christmas pardons announced by the White House.

Mr Trump granted full pardons to 15 people, including three former Republican politicians, and commuted all or part of the sentences of five others.

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The pardons were part of a flurry of such actions expected by the outgoing Republican President before Democratic President-elect Joe Biden takes office on January 21 (AEDT).

Mr Trump, who has refused to concede, has made unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud and pursued a series of unsuccessful lawsuits to overturn the result.

Last month, Mr Trump pardoned his former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who had twice pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI during the Russia investigation.

The pardons drew criticism from top Democrats.

Representative Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said the President was abusing his power.

Papadopoulos attended meeting that sparked Russia investigation

Mr Papadopoulos, 33, was an adviser to Mr Trump's 2016 campaign.

He pleaded guilty in 2017 to lying to FBI agents about the timing and significance of his contacts with people who claimed to have ties to top Russian officials.

Before the 2016 election, he famously attended a meeting at the Kensington Wine Rooms with Australia's High Commissioner to the UK, Alexander Downer, where Papadopoulos bragged that one of the reasons he was confident Mr Trump would win was because Russia might release information damaging to Hillary Clinton.

Mr Downer reported the meeting to the Australian Government, who passed the information to US intelligence agencies. It was later included as part of the reasoning for an investigation of Mr Trump's campaign and its ties to Russia.

"The defendant's crime was serious and caused damage to the Government's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election," a sentencing recommendation memo from then-US Special Counsel Mr Mueller had said.

Mr Papadopoulos served 12 days of a 14-day sentence in federal prison, then was placed on a 12-month supervised release.

The White House said Mr Papadopoulos was charged with "a process-related crime, one count of making false statements," as part of the Mueller probe, which Mr Trump had denounced as a witch hunt.

"Today's pardon helps correct the wrong that Mueller's team inflicted on so many people," the White House said.

Contractors involved in massacre, fraudsters also win pardons

Among the group that received pardons were four former government contractors convicted in a 2007 massacre in Baghdad that left more a dozen Iraqi civilians dead and caused an international uproar over the use of private security guards in a war zone.

Supporters of Nicholas Slatten, Paul Slough, Evan Liberty and Dustin Heard, the former contractors at Blackwater Worldwide, had lobbied for pardons, arguing that the men had been excessively punished in an investigation and prosecution they said was tainted by problems and withheld exculpatory evidence.

All four were serving lengthy prison sentences.

"Paul Slough and his colleagues didn't deserve to spend one minute in prison," said Brian Heberlig, a lawyer for one of the four pardoned Blackwater defendants.

"I am overwhelmed with emotion at this fantastic news."

The pardons also included former Republican Congressmen Duncan Hunter of California and Chris Collins of New York.

Mr Trump commuted the sentence of former representative Steve Stockman of Texas.

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Mr Collins, the first member of Congress to endorse Trump to be president in 2016, was sentenced to two years and two months in federal prison after admitting he helped his son and others dodge $800,000 in stock market losses when he learned that a drug trial by a small pharmaceutical company had failed.

Mr Hunter was sentenced to 11 months in prison after pleading guilty to stealing campaign funds and spending the money on everything from outings with friends to his daughter's birthday party.

ABC/AP/Reuters