Trump issues pardon for husband of East Tennessee U.S. Rep. Diana Harshbarger

President Donald Trump pardoned the husband of U.S. Rep. Diana Harshbarger of Tennessee’s 1st Congressional District.

(Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

President Donald Trump pardoned Kingsport Republican U.S. Rep Diana Harshbarger’s husband, amid a string of Tennessee-related clemencies issued last week. 

Robert Harshbarger pleaded guilty in 2013 to distributing an unapproved dialysis drug in Kansas. Harshbarger, a pharmacist at the time, bought the cheaper drug from China and sold it as if it were a drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. 

He was sentenced to four years in prison and ordered to pay restitution of $848,504, a $25,000 criminal fine and forfeited $425,000 in cash.

“My husband paid his debt both personally and financially to society,” Diana Harshbarger told Johnson City television station WHJL. “We are thrilled and grateful that the President looked kindly upon Bob’s application.”

Trump’s pardon of Harshbarger came the same day as his pardons of former state House Speaker Glen Casada and his former chief of staff, Cade Cothren. 

Casada and Cothren were convicted of setting up the secret company that tapped into the state’s constituent mail services program. Casada and former state Rep. Robin Smith, who pleaded guilty and worked with prosecutors, steered lawmakers’ business to a company secretly run by Cothren under a fake name. 

In late September, Casada was sentenced to three years in prison, and Cothren to 30 months. Smith has not received a pardon and was sentenced to eight months for her role in the scheme. She is seeking a presidential pardon, according to the Chattanooga Times Free Press.

Trump has been known for using his pardon power to benefit his allies. In October, he pardoned Changpeng Zhao, a Chinese-born Canadian founder of the cryptocurrency exchange Binance. Zhao’s company helped facilitate a $2 billion purchase of a cryptocurrency in the company that Trump’s sons own and operate.

Trump then told CBS News 60 Minutes that he had no idea who Zhao was, and only pardoned him because he was convicted as part of a “Biden witch hunt.”

Diana Harshbarger has received Trump’s endorsement in all three of her congressional elections. The president also endorsed Bobby Harshbarger, the couple’s son, in his 2024 race for a state Senate seat he won. 

Diana Harshbarger is also a pharmacist and was a corporate officer at American Inhalation Medication Specialists, where her husband sold the misbranded drugs.