President Trump was in a merciful mood this week, quietly handing out a raft of pardons.
Among the lucky recipients: a man whose daughter had given millions to a Trump-backed super PAC, a former governor of Puerto Rico, a former F.B.I. agent who had pleaded guilty in a political corruption case and a California woman whom the president had granted relief once before.
The woman, Adriana Camberos, was initially convicted in 2017 for her role in a scheme to sell millions of counterfeit bottles of the caffeinated drink 5-Hour Energy. After her sentence was commuted by Mr. Trump in 2021, she was convicted again in 2024 in an unrelated fraud. When she was pardoned in the new case this week, it marked the second time Mr. Trump had opened the prison gates for her.
The pardons, most of which have not been previously reported, were supported by people with close ties to Mr. Trump’s orbit, including lawyers who had previously worked for him.
They continue a trend in which the president has used the unfettered presidential clemency power to reward allies and those who have paid his associates or donated to his political operation. They stand in contrast to Justice Department guidelines that prioritize the clemency applications of people who have completed their prison sentences or demonstrated remorse and a lower likelihood of recidivism.
A White House official justified the clemency grants in a statement as rectifying excessive sentences or prosecutions that were politically motivated to target Trump supporters. The official, who was not authorized to discuss the clemency grants on the record, suggested that Mr. Trump made the clemency decisions on the merits, not whether the recipients had political connections or had made donations to groups supported by the president.
Three of the recipients were scheduled to be sentenced this month in a political corruption case related to accusations that Julio Herrera Velutini, a Venezuelan-Italian banker, had tried to bribe former Gov. Wanda Vázquez of Puerto Rico in 2020.
In late 2024, while Mr. Herrera was facing felony charges in the case, his daughter, Isabela Herrera, donated $2.5 million to MAGA Inc., a super PAC devoted to Mr. Trump and run by his allies.
In May, her father’s lawyer, Christopher M. Kise, who had served on Mr. Trump’s legal defense team, negotiated an unusually lenient deal with the Justice Department. Under the deal, which was authorized by a top Trump appointee, Mr. Herrera agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor campaign finance charge, disappointing career prosecutors who had pushed for a harsher sentence.
In July, Ms. Herrera donated another $1 million to MAGA Inc. She did not respond to a request for comment.
Mr. Trump this week pardoned Mr. Herrera, Ms. Vázquez and Mark Rossini, a former F.B.I. agent who had worked as a consultant for Mr. Herrera. All three had pleaded guilty in August to misdemeanor campaign finance charges.
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The White House official denied that Ms. Herrera’s donations had played any role in her father’s pardon. Instead, the official suggested that pardon and the others related to the Puerto Rico case were motivated by a belief that the investigation into the matter was retribution for Ms. Vázquez’s endorsement of Mr. Trump in 2020.
Mr. Kise, and lawyers for Ms. Vázquez and Mr. Rossini did not respond to requests for comment.
As for Ms. Camberos, she was among a number of people granted clemency by Mr. Trump who have been charged with new crimes after receiving a second chance.
Ms. Camberos began serving a 26-month prison sentence for her role in the 5-Hour Energy scheme in December 2019. Mr. Trump freed her by issuing a commutation in the final days of his first term after she enlisted two lawyers with connections in Mr. Trump’s orbit. One of them, Stefan C. Passantino, had been a deputy White House counsel in the first Trump administration. Another, Adam Katz, represented Rudolph W. Giuliani in a defamation case related to his effort to overturn Mr. Trump’s loss in the 2020 election.
But soon after her release from prison, she and her brother Andres embarked on a new fraud, federal prosecutors in California said. The siblings were charged in 2023 in a complicated scheme: They bought consumer goods from manufacturers at a steep discount, purportedly to sell them in Mexico — a legal practice. Instead, prosecutors said, the siblings sold the goods in the United States at higher prices and then committed bank and mail fraud to cover their tracks.
They were convicted in 2024. In April, Ms. Camberos was sentenced to more than one year in prison — 12 months for the new conviction and additional months for violating her probation on her earlier conviction — and Andres Camberos was given one year of home confinement. Ms. Camberos had begun serving her sentence.
They were ordered to pay millions of dollars in restitution to the companies they defrauded.
The White House official did not respond to a question about whether the pardon would wipe away the Camberos siblings’ restitution payments, but pardons typically erase financial penalties.
The siblings’ supporters had argued privately that they were targeted by prosecutors because Mr. Trump had wiped away Ms. Camberos’s sentence from her earlier conviction.
Mr. Passantino and Mr. Katz had worked to secure pardons for the siblings, according to a person familiar with the matter.
They did not respond to requests for comment.
Mr. Katz also had supported clemency, granted by Mr. Trump this week, for Terren S. Peizer, a former business executive who had been convicted in 2024 of insider trading and sentenced last year to 42 months in prison. Mr. Peizer was also ordered to pay a fine of $5.25 million and forfeit more than $12.7 million.
His lawyer did not respond to a request for comment.
The White House official said that Mr. Peizer’s case was an example of excessive prosecution and that he had properly disclosed the trades.
Mr. Trump also commuted the sentence of Jacob Deutsch, who had been sentenced to 62 months in prison in 2024 for mortgage fraud.
Kenneth P. Vogel is based in Washington and investigates the intersection of money, politics and influence.
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