President Donald Trump has issued a full pardon for Steve Buyer, a former Indiana Republican congressman who was convicted of insider trading in 2023, following appeals from Republicans who claimed he was the target of a politically weaponized justice system.
The president has sought to use his second-term pardons as a way to address what he sees as weaponization by the Justice Department under President Joe Biden. This latest act of clemency marks his 13th pardon to a current or former member of Congress across his two nonconsecutive presidential terms.
The Securities and Exchange Commission in 2022 accused Buyer of abusing his role as a corporate consultant by using nonpublic information to inform his investments. The SEC said he used his position to purchase shares of companies ahead of significant announcements in 2018 and 2019, then sold them at a profit after the information became public and the stocks rose. All told, the SEC said he accrued more than $300,000 in illegal profits.
When Buyer was convicted by a jury in 2023, Judge Richard M. Berman said their decision was not a close call because the evidence “screams guilty.” Later that year, Buyer was sentenced to 22 months in prison.
A federal appeals court upheld Buyer’s conviction last year, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up his effort to toss the charges in May. Buyer has continued to deny any wrongdoing.
Buyer, 67, is an attorney and Persian Gulf War veteran who served in the House of Representatives from 1993 to 2011. While in Congress, he served as a House prosecutor during then-President Bill Clinton’s 1998 impeachment trial.
In a statement announcing the pardon dated Thursday, Trump cited endorsements from several current and former Republican lawmakers, writing that Buyer’s career “was distinguished and highly productive.”
The list of signatories supporting the pardon included Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham (South Carolina) and Roger Wicker (Mississippi) and former House Speaker John A. Boehner. Other supporters included former senator Rick Santorum (Pennsylvania) and former House majority leader Tom DeLay (Texas).
A spokesperson for the Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe law firm, which represents Buyer, said the firm is “very pleased” about the pardon.
“The Presidential Pardon appropriately recognizes that the charges against him should never have been brought and marks an important step in clearing his name and obtaining full relief,” said a spokesperson for the firm, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
This month, Trump also shared on social media a pair of letters from former and currentRepublican members of Congress petitioning the president to pardon Buyer. The letterfrom former members of Congress argued Buyer was “the victim of lawfare conducted by the Biden Administration.”
The president has also faced scrutinyrecently for a flurry of stock trades in his latest financial disclosure. The form showed, for example, that Trump purchased stock in leading companies such as Microsoft and Amazon months before the Pentagon announced deals to deploy their technology in classified computer networks.
Government ethics watchdogs also sounded the alarmover Trump’s recent purchase of stock in Dell Technologies valued between $1 million and $5 million. After repeatedly praising the company at public events and encouraging his supporters to “go out and buy a Dell computer,” the Pentagon announced that the tech company has been granted a $9.7 billion government contract.
The Trump Organization has said the president’s investment holdings are managed exclusively by independent third-party financial institutions.
Presidents are exempt from a conflict-of-interest law barring federal employees from taking official actions in their jobs that benefit their personal finances. Sitting presidents are not legally required to give up a financial benefit because of a potential conflict.
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