The Pardon Project
THE PROJECT
This project is meant to document the abuses of presidential clemency during President Trump’s second term, with a focus on cases that raise concerns about the administration’s exploitation of the power to reward political allies, supporters, and individuals with direct access to the president. It also highlights the inherent contradictions in granting pardons to narcotraffickers, drug dealers, and the longest-sentenced Medicare fraudster in American history while publicly advocating for tougher criminal penalties and framing their broader agenda around eliminating government “waste, fraud, and abuse.”
THE POWER
The ability to grant pardons is an undisputed power of the presidency. The Constitution clearly establishes the president’s authority to grant clemency, including pardons and commutations at the federal level. A pardon represents legal forgiveness, ends further punishment, and can restore rights such as the ability to vote or run for public office. Historically, this power has been used symbolically to correct injustices, but in recent years it has increasingly been used controversially. Today, the concern is not simply the number of pardons granted, but the pattern that has emerged: clemency used to reward allies and supporters of the administration.
THE PATTERN
During his first term, President Trump granted 237 acts of clemency, including pardons for high-profile political allies such as Michael Flynn, Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, and Charles Kushner. Now in his second term, that pattern has continued. This year alone, roughly 10,000 people filed federal petitions for pardons or commutations — only 10 have been granted. While thousands of applicants follow the formal Department of Justice process and wait years for review, many of Trump’s most high-profile pardons have gone to political allies, business associates, or individuals with direct access to him.
On the first day of his second term, he issued sweeping pardons for individuals, largely supporters, convicted or charged in connection with January 6. In the months that followed, he granted preemptive pardons to allies such as Rudy Giuliani and Mark Meadows, despite neither facing federal convictions at the time. Clemency has also extended to wealthy donors with lobbyists, a crypto billionaire who helped the Trump family establish their multimillion-dollar crypto empires, local Republican officials convicted of fraud, and a Florida businessman convicted of tax evasion after his mother attended a million-dollar-per-plate fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago.
One through line is clear: not only is he publicly helping his allies, but he is aiding the type of criminals he claims to want stricter punishments for.
President Trump has long promised to crack down on cartels “waging war on America,” proposing the death penalty for traffickers, and even deploying military forces against them. Despite this, pardoned Juan Orlando Hernández, former Honduran president sentenced to 45 years for taking millions in bribes — including $1 million from Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán — and using his government to traffic more than 400 tons of cocaine into the U.S., as well as pardoning the creator of the Silk Road dark web marketplace, which facilitated hundreds of millions of dollars in drug trafficking.
His administration has also claimed a commitment to rooting out “waste, fraud, and abuse,” yet commuted the sentence of a Medicare fraudster who orchestrated a $205 million fraud scheme and received a 50-year sentence, the longest in American history for Medicaid fraud, eliminating both his prison time and financial penalties. In total, Trump’s preferential pardons in white-collar cases have erased more than $1.5 billion owed to victims and over $100 million in federal fines, undermining his stated dedication to combating fraud.
As President Trump enters the second year of his second term, additional acts of clemency continue.
The reports below document just some of the most egregious cases:
Disclaimer: The Constitution establishes the President’s authority to grant clemency, encompassing not only pardons of individuals but several other forms of relief from criminal punishment, as well. Presidential action related to clemency – be it a pardon or commutation – flows from the same constitutional authority. The term “pardon” is the most well-known and widely used term for the broader scope of powers, and is used interchangeably with clemency in the above Pardon Project document.