This story is part of “Trump Two: Six Months In,” our series taking stock of the administration’s efforts to reshape immigration enforcement and criminal justice.
Their cases were different. One faced a four-year prison sentence in a $675 million fraud case for marketing an electric truck that wasn’t drivable. Another tried to overthrow the government. A tax cheat avoided prison and $4.4 million in restitution after his mom donated $1 million to the president.
Their cases have two things in common. President Donald Trump pardoned them all in the early months of his second administration. And those pardons violated long-standing Department of Justice policies that reward people who show remorse, pay restitution and can contribute to society. Since returning to the White House, Trump has pardoned more than 1,600 people and at least two corporations in his first six months in office. Many of those pardons have violated standards designed to ensure fairness and to protect the public, attorneys and legal experts say.
The changes began immediately. Hours after taking the oath of office, Trump pardoned more than 1,500 rioters who attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. That included men who used bear spray, bats, batons and poles to assault police officers.
Past presidents have issued controversial pardons, usually in their last days in office: Bill Clinton pardoned financier Marc Rich, Joe Biden pardoned his son Hunter despite promising not to, and George H.W. Bush pardoned six prominent officials for their roles in the Iran-Contra scandal.
But legal experts say no president has started a term with so many pardons that violate long-standing policies and norms.
Lee Kovarsky, a University of Texas law professor, describes Trump’s Jan. 6 action as “patronage pardoning” — highly publicized actions that send the message that Trump will protect allies who break the law to advance his agenda. “It’s mafia stuff,” Kovarsky said. “They won’t break your legs, but they’ll publicly pardon the person who does.”
Article II of the Constitution gives the president the power to pardon anyone for federal crimes. The Supreme Court’s 2024 decision about presidential immunity made it clear that the president has broad leeway when exercising core powers of the office.
“The Supreme Court decision makes it hard to even get a grasp on just how blatantly corrupt presidential conduct would have to be to overcome immunity,” said Brandon Garrett, a Duke University law professor.
In her dissent in the immunity case, Justice Sonia Sotomayor specifically cited pardons when listing crimes that future presidents could commit without consequences. “Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune.”
The Justice Department has housed the Pardon Attorney since 1894. Over the years, the practice of processing applications for pardons and commutations has been codified in the Justice Manual, which lays out how clemency is supposed to be administered.
One of the two main purposes of the Justice Manual is to ensure that all applications are judged by the same set of rules regardless of who you are or who you know, said Liz Oyer, who served as Pardon Attorney for three years. The second is to “ensure that it is granted to people who are truly deserving of a second chance and who will not present a danger to the community in the future.”
In March, actor Mel Gibson, a friend of Trump, sought to have his criminal record cleaned up so he could own a gun again. Oyer declined to recommend a pardon due to Gibson’s history of violence against women. She was fired several hours later, with no reason given. She is suing to get her job back.
The Justice Department issued a statement saying that it follows the Justice Manual in reviewing pardon applications and making recommendations.
One of the pardon office’s first tasks is to seek input from the people with a stake in the conviction: prosecutors, sentencing judges and crime victims. The office can request an FBI background check. The Jan. 6 pardons were announced hours after inauguration, so no input was solicited in the 1,500 cases.
Among the people Trump pardoned for Jan. 6 was David Daniel of Mint Hill, North Carolina. Had the rules been followed, the pardon office would have learned that Daniel faces charges of child pornography and the sexual assault of a preadolescent girl.
In serious crimes — violence or expensive white collar crime, for example — the Justice Manual recommends that a suitable length of time should elapse before a pardon is even considered to avoid denigrating the seriousness of the offense.
That stipulation didn’t apply to Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the Oath Keepers — a far-right anti-government militia — who was sentenced to 18 years for trying to overthrow the government. He served less than two years before Trump commuted his sentence to time served. Trump has also pardoned at least nine people before or shortly after they reported to prison, including one person before sentencing.
Another important policy in the Justice Manual on pardons is whether the person has accepted responsibility and is remorseful: “A petitioner should be genuinely desirous of forgiveness rather than vindication.”
Trump pardoned Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the Proud Boys and an architect of the attack on the Capitol, who had been sentenced to 22 years. Afterward, Tarrio and other Proud Boys sued the Justice Department for $100 million, claiming they were the victims of wrongful prosecution.
Another important condition for a pardon is restitution: Have the pardon seekers paid money to make their crime victims whole?
This brings up what Kovarsky, the Texas law professor, calls the “open for business pardon,” in which Trump grants pardons to people who have politically supported him or who may owe large sums in restitution.
A jury convicted Trevor Milton, the founder of electric truck startup Nikola, on fraud charges; a judge sentenced him to four years in prison. He notably had made a video in which a prototype truck that appeared to be driving down a highway was actually a nonfunctioning truck rolling down an incline.
In October, Milton and his wife each donated $900,000 to Trump political committees. In March, federal prosecutors urged the trial judge to order Milton to pay $675 million in restitution. Two weeks later, shortly before Milton was to report to federal prison, Trump granted him a pardon that eliminated his prison sentence and wiped away his restitution to the victims of his fraud.
Milton has maintained that he is innocent, that he was the victim of dishonest Biden administration prosecutors, and that his political contributions had nothing to do with the pardon. He said he donated to Trump out of opposition to Biden’s economic policy. “I just wanted some fiscal responsibility,” he told a Phoenix TV reporter.
In late 2024, Paul Walczak, a Florida nursing home executive, was sentenced to 18 months in prison and ordered to pay $4.4 million in restitution for stealing his employees’ tax payments. Just three weeks after Walczak’s mother attended a $1 million-a-head fundraiser for Trump at Mar-a-Lago, the president pardoned Walczak, wiping out the prison term and restitution.
Trump’s pardons have proved costly for taxpayers and crime victims. Besides the group pardons of Jan. 6 defendants and anti-abortion protestors, the president has pardoned 46 individuals. Of those, more than half have been freed of fines and restitution.
Oyer, the former pardon attorney, has set up a “pardon tracker” on her website that tallies the price of Trump’s pardons of people and companies that owed restitution and fines. As of July 23, the cost to taxpayers and crime victims is more than $1.3 billion.
Oyer’s tracker also shows a growing backlog of pardon applications from ordinary Americans. The queue was just under 5,000 when Trump entered office. The count on July 15 had more than doubled, to 11,664.
