Donald Trump granted only one pardon during his first year in office when he last served as president.
Now, just days into his second term, Trump has averaged one pardon for every few minutes he’s been back in power.
Follow live politics coverage here
The pardons and commutations have stood out in Trump’s first week back in the White House, even as a flurry of executive orders covering everything from tech policy, diversity initiatives and the federal workforce have blanketed Washington. They have been a way for Trump, with a simple flourish of his pen, to reward groups of people who supported him.
“There were campaign promises that President Trump made,” a Trump official said. “That’s what you’re seeing now. I’m not sure you’ll see rounds of pardons throughout [his term], but what I can say is it was important for him to keep his promises.”
The vast majority came during Trump’s first day in office, when he surprised even some of his own supporters and aides by pardoning virtually every person charged in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol — including those convicted of committing acts of violence against law enforcement.
We’re looking to hear from federal government workers. If you’re willing to talk with us, please email us at [email protected] or contact us through one of these methods.
But Trump didn’t stop there. On Tuesday, he pardoned Ross Ulbricht, a bitcoin pioneer who was sentenced to life in prison for creating and running Silk Road, a black market on the dark web that sold illegal drugs. Ulbricht’s cause had been championed by libertarians, and Trump pledged to pardon Ulbricht during his campaign.
The next day, Trump pardoned two Washington, D.C., police officers who were convicted for their roles in the death of a young man on a moped in 2020.
And on Thursday, the president pardoned 23 anti-abortion activists one day prior to the March for Life, an annual anti-abortion demonstration. Their cause was championed by conservative lawmakers who argued that President Joe Biden’s administration overreached in its prosecutions.
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., was one of those advocates. He tweeted Tuesday evening urging the president to quickly pardon the activists. On Thursday, just prior to Trump issuing those pardons, Hawley spoke directly with the president on the matter.
“When we talked, he was familiar with the general situation already,” Hawley said. “It’s very fair to say he was up to speed on it. And we had a really good conversation that left me with a very distinct impression that he was going to do what he ultimately did do.”
Hawley said he noted the timing of Friday’s March for Life in his pitch to the president on why he should expedite the pardons.
“I just said, ‘Listen, these folks have waited a long time,’” Hawley said. “Some of them are quite elderly, and this would be a great thing to do now. He left me then with the distinct impression that he was going to move sooner rather than later, which he did.”
Presidents rarely use their king-like power of clemency in their first few days in office, typically saving the vast majority of the oft-controversial decisions until the very end of their term. Biden, whose White House touted that he had offered far more measures of clemency than his predecessors for groups of people like nonviolent drug offenders, saved his most controversial pardons for his final weeks in office, including pre-emptive pardons for some of his family members.
During his first term, Trump issued only slightly more than two dozen pardons prior to losing the 2020 election. He issued dozens more during his final days in office.
“He’s already broken with past presidents by doing so many in the first 48 hours,” said Angela McArdle, chair of the Libertarian National Committee, which advocated for Ulbricht’s pardon. “It’s incredible. I mean, he has set a new precedent.”
Trump allies say not to expect a similar pardon spree in the coming weeks. But several others see an opportunity and want to promote their cause before a president who proclaimed “I love freeing people,” as McArdle recalled him saying in a conversation at Mar-a-Lago in December 2023.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. plans to seek a meeting with Trump to deliver a list of proposed pardons compiled by various organizations, including the Congressional Black Caucus, former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. — one of the people his father wants Trump to pardon — said in an interview with NBC News on Friday.
The younger Jackson, who served time for misappropriating campaign funds for personal use, sought a pardon from President Joe Biden but did not get one. Jackson suggested that if Trump meets with his father, it could be the 83-year-old civil rights leader’s final visit to the White House.
“While Rev. Jackson strongly disagrees with the pardon granted by the president on Jan. 6 [offenses], Rev. Jackson acknowledges that … the president has an absolute right to pardon whom he chooses,” the former congressman said. “And Joe Biden had an absolute right to pardon only his family. And he had an absolute right to ignore everybody else.”
Biden was expected to grant pardons to at least several former elected officials after fellow Democrats had lobbied him to take such action, according to a person with direct knowledge of the effort.
Among them were former members of the Congressional Black Caucus, including Jackson, this person said. The Biden allies who pushed for them to receive clemency were stunned when he didn’t grant it before leaving office; some of them viewed his inaction as selfish, given Biden made sure to issue pre-emptive pardons for members of his family minutes before Trump was sworn in as his successor.
Meanwhile, one lawyer who represented several clients seeking clemency from Biden said part of their calculus was that being rejected by Biden could make their cases more appealing to Trump.
Former Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., is also among those seeking clemency from Trump through unofficial channels. Menendez has used allies to get his case in front of the president to ask for a sentence commutation or pardon, according to multiple people familiar with the matter. Menendez sought and failed to obtain a pardon from Biden before he left office.
Menendez has been advised to ask Trump directly for clemency before his sentencing that’s scheduled for Wednesday, according to one person familiar with his efforts. The crux of the former senator’s argument would be that he has been politically targeted by the Justice Department like Trump believes he was, this person said.
Menendez pleaded not guilty to federal corruption but was convicted in July. He resigned from the Senate in August and is facing potentially years in prison. Menendez’s wife, Nadine Menendez, faces similar charges and has pleaded not guilty. Even before Trump won the November election, the former senator told people close to him that he may have a better chance of getting a pardon from him, NBC News has reported, given his contentious relationship with Biden and his position that his prosecution was political.
At the same time, Menendez joined all Senate Democrats in voting to convict Trump during his two impeachment trials. He has reviewed Trump’s clemency in 2020 for former Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich of Illinois, who was serving a 14-year prison sentence after he was convicted on federal corruption charges, to help inform his efforts to receive one from the president as well, NBC News has reported.
Advocates know to appeal to Trump’s disdain for federal law enforcement, particularly after he was charged in multiple jurisdictions during Biden’s time in office. When announcing his pardon of Ulbricht, Trump wrote on social media: “The scum that worked to convict him were some of the same lunatics who were involved in the modern day weaponization of government against me.”
Trump was first turned on to Ulbricht’s case amid an effort to court libertarian support, as McArdle laid out, saying that Ric Grenell, who was recently tapped as one of Trump’s special envoys, reached out to start a dialogue on how Trump could win this demographic.
During her meeting at Mar-a-Lago, McArdle said that pledging to free Ulbricht from prison “would make a big impact.” He ultimately promised to do so at last year’s Libertarian Party convention.
“I even talked with his staff … right after the inauguration, and they assured me that the president was going to deliver on his promise,” McArdle said. “And sure enough, it was like 36 hours after he’d been sworn in.”
Grenell and the White House did not return a request for comment.
McArdle suggested another pardon that may be on the horizon: Roger Ver, a former California resident and bitcoin investor facing charges of fraud and tax evasion. Trump ally and confidant Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, has taken up Ver’s cause.
There is a formal process for receiving a presidential pardon as laid out by the Justice Department. It involves submitting a petition through the Office of the Pardon Attorney, which then reviews the case before determining whether to elevate it to the president. But that process is not always followed.
Hawley, however, said his sense is that “there’s a fleet of lawyers who are working on” the pardon cases that get before the president.
“I imagine his team of lawyers has spent a lot of the last two and a half months since his election working on these different things,” he said. “I mean, to draft an executive order, you don’t just do that in 10 minutes. You’ve got to be very, very careful.”
A senior Senate GOP aide said that in his first few days, Trump “kind of hit everyone” he needed to with his offers of clemency, and it remains to be seen if there will be more.
“He got the pro-lifers,” this person said. “They got the libertarians their guy. They got the J6ers their guy. I don’t know if there’s anyone left really who’s a priority. But who knows.”
The post Trump storms Washington with hundreds of pardons — and he might not be done appeared first on NBC News.
