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‘Hell’ vs. Truth on Federal Clemency – Update for November 24, 2025

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We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

GIVING ‘HELL’ TO THE CLEMENCY POWER

President Harry S Truman’s supporters liked to shout, “Give ‘em hell, Harry!” at his rallies. However, as Truman explained it, ‘I never did give them hell. I just told the truth, and they thought it was hell’.”

I once again heard from a reader last week that some of the guys at his facility thought I was too negative about President Trump. Seven years ago, I wrote glowingly about his support for the First Step Act, still the most consequential piece of criminal justice reform legislation in the last 30 years. But Trump has done nothing for federal criminal justice reform since then, and that’s the truth. To my critics, it just seems like ‘hell’.

‘Hell’, you ask? Minnesota constitutional lawyer Marshall Tanick last week aptly described the hellscape of Trump clemencies:

In addition to the unconditional pardons issued on the first day of his current term to all 1,500-plus January 6th rioters, as he promised during the campaign, with Floridians comprising the largest state group, and the 77 more recently to white collar election denier operatives, the president has issued more than 1,600 pardons and commutations of sentences this year. Nearly all of them, with a few exceptions like star baseball player Darryl Strawberry, have been given to political supporters and financial donors to his campaign or their relatives or those with business interests aligned with the president and his family. Most of them were charged and many convicted of massive fraudulent schemes.

A transparent theme has been political leanings, as reflected in his explanation for commuting the seven-year sentence of mendacious Republican former Congress member George Santos after serving a puny four months. The president said he released the discredited New Yorker from confinement because he did “ALWAYS VOTE REPUBLICAN,” as if that is the criterion for the exercise of presidential lenity.

Still waiting for your pardon or commutation? You probably don’t fit the criteria. Not like Dan Wilson, a man who – perhaps alone in American history – has received two presidential pardons in a single year. Wilson, a Kentucky militia member who joined the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, was indicted for that and as a felon-in-possession under 18 USC § 922(g)(1) for the guns agents found when they searched his home on a J6-based search warrant.

Trump had already erased Wilson’s felony conviction for his role in the riot when he issued his Inauguration Day pardon for all of the 1,500 participants in the attack. But Wilson remained in prison because the federal court concluded that the pardon was limited to J6 conduct and did not extend to separate crimes. Dan still had three years to serve for the 922(g)(1).

Last week, Trump quietly pardoned Wilson for the felon-in-possession count, reasoning that “because the search of Mr. Wilson’s home was due to the events of January 6, and they should have never been there in the first place…” according to a White House official.

In a separate action, Trump pardoned Suzanne Ellen Kaye for having threatened to shoot federal agents if they came to her house to question her about January 6th. The White House said her case was “clearly a case of disfavored First Amendment political speech being prosecuted and an excessive sentence.”

Meanwhile, if you were not at the January 6th riot, your clemency application will sit at the Office of Pardon Attorney. As I noted last week, only 1% of Trump’s clemencies this year went through the OPA.

‘But wait,’ you say. ‘You don’t have to be a rioter or election denier to get a pardon.’ Right you are. Just last week, Trump also pardoned Joseph Schwartz, a nursing home magnate who was sentenced last April to 36 months in prison for failing to pay $38 million in payroll taxes withheld from employees’ earnings. Schwartz hired a couple of right-wing lobbyists, paying them $960,000 to secure a pardon. Although Trump’s own interim US Attorney at the time, Alina Habba, said last April the offense deserved prison time (recommending a shocking 12 months and a day sentence), Trump signed off on the pardon. Schwartz walked out of FCI Otisville camp last week after serving three months.

A White House official, asked by the Washington Post whether Trump or others in the White House or Justice Department had met with Schwartz’s lobbyists, responded with a statement:

No one from White House Counsel nor [White House pardon czar] Alice Johnson met with the individuals named. Either way, the President is the final decision-maker on all pardons, and any one spending money to lobby for pardons is foolishly wasting funds.

Uh-huh.

I’m not alone in criticizing Trump’s gross abuse of clemency (at the expense of federal prisoners who deserve thoughtful consideration if not outright grant of commutation or pardon). Law professor Mark Osler, a national clemency expert, wrote last week on Sentencing Matters Substack:

These are hard days for people like me who believe that the pardon power is an essential part of the Constitution and a beautiful machine that embodies one of our primary national virtues: a belief in second chances. While clemency has been subjected to sharp criticism before (most recently, in the wake of Bill Clinton’s shady pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich), the wave of criticism now — most often turning on President Trump’s grants to loyalists, celebrities, and business associates — has sometimes included outright calls to simply get rid of the federal pardon power.

Conservative writer Jonah Goldberg wrote last week that

[t]he president has some unique powers… including the sole, final authority to grant pardons. Pardons cannot be reviewed or repealed by Congress or the courts. It’s time we changed that—and the only way to do so is by amending the Constitution.

There are two reasons for getting rid of the president’s power to pardon. The first is the grotesque abuses of that power by Presidents Trump and Biden. In his first term, Trump issued a series of egregious pardons for, among others, lackeys, war criminals and political allies.

Biden then issued blanket and preemptive pardons for his family and various political allies… and a raft of other pardons and commutations that Biden allegedly just outsourced to ideologues on his staff.

Back in office in 2025, Trump has outdone Biden and himself. He launched his second term by granting mass pardons to the goons who beat police with flagpoles and stormed the Capitol on his behalf on January 6, 2021. Since then, he’s pardoned a rogues’ gallery of donors, partisan allies, and people with business ties to him or his family…

This coming week, the White House will pardon two turkeys out of the 219 million to be slaughtered in the US over the next 12 months. That puts a turkey’s odds of clemency at about 1:110 million. Sadly, for federal prisoners without money or political ties to the Trump Administration, the odds are not much better.

I’m for any president, regardless of party, who properly uses the clemency power to correct injustice. That has not been Trump in 2025. 

Just truth. Not hell.

Naples News, Presidential pardon process needs to be changed (November 20, 2025)

Washington Post, The case of a felon who paid lobbyists nearly $1 million to seek a Trump pardon (November 22, 2025)

Politico, Trump re-pardons a Jan. 6 defendant to erase unrelated gun conviction (November 15, 2025)

NPR, Trump issues two pardons related to Jan. 6 investigation (November 15, 2025)

Sentencing Matters Substack, A Terrible Use of a Beautiful Machine (November 17, 2025)

Los Angeles Times, Instead of Addressing Injustice, Pardons Only Pervert Justice (November 19, 2025)

USA Today, You can choose the names of turkeys to get a presidential pardon. Here’s how. (November 22, 2025)

~ Thomas L. Root

The Pardon Power’s a Wreck – Update for November 18, 2025

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We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

PARDON OUR PARDONS

Sobering news on the clemency front. To many, it seems that President Trump has exercised his pardon and commutation pen unlike any of his predecessors. Recent reports from Politico and ProPublica make it clear that the President’s beneficiaries have mostly been people with access to him or his inner circle.  Those petitioners who have followed rules set out by the Dept of Justice have been left out in the cold.

Trump has granted clemency to allies, donors and culture-war figures — as well as to people like him who were convicted of financial wrongdoing. A week ago, he granted pardons to 77 people, including Rudy Giuliani and other allies tied to Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Those clemencies came on top of the commutation awarded last month to Republican George Santos, the disgraced former New York congressman found guilty of defrauding donors and lying to Congress. Trump freed Santos after he had served fewer than 3 months of his 87-year sentence

Politico said, “The pardons are the latest attempt by Trump to rewrite the history of his bid to seize a second term he didn’t win in 2020, an effort that culminated in the violent attack on the Capitol by a mob of his supporters who attempted to halt the transfer of power. Trump pardoned more than 1,000 of those who joined the mob within hours of his inauguration in January, including hundreds who assaulted police officers protecting the Capitol.”

For those who followed DOJ protocol, ProPublica reported, “the sense is growing that the process no longer matters; they’ve watched the public database of applicants swell with thousands of pending cases, while Trump grants pardons to people who never entered the system at all.”

In the 10 months since Trump took office, about 10,000 people have filed petitions for pardon or commutation, two-thirds of the total number of clemency applications (14,867) filed during the four years of the Biden presidency.

DOJ rules require that people seeking pardons wait five years after their release before applying, show good conduct and remorse, and file petitions through the Office of the Pardon Attorney. But in his second term, Trump has largely abandoned that process.

“It’s unfair to the little guy,” said Margaret Love, who served as pardon attorney from 1990 to 1997 under Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton and now represents people in clemency cases. “I tell people, ‘Sorry, you don’t have a chance.’”

In Trump’s first term, fewer than half of his clemency recipients had applied through the Pardon Attorney. By one estimate, only 1 in 10 had been recommended by the OPA.

This term is worse. Now, only 10 of the roughly 1,600 people granted pardons (under 1%) had filed petitions with the Pardon Attorney, and even within that small group, some did not appear to meet DOJ’s standards and requirements.

St. John’s law professor Mark Osler, a national expert on federal clemency, wrote yesterday in Sentencing Matters Substack:

Imagine a classic Jaguar sedan, perhaps a 1972 XJ in British racing green — elegant, stunningly fast, unusual. It’s a joy to drive, wonderful to look at, and can come to define its owner in a way few cars can.

For those of us who care about federal clemency, watching President Donald Trump’s use of the pardon power in his second term has been like standing by as a driver uses that classic Jag to knock down an old house by slamming it into a wall again and again and again as a crowd gathers, aghast. It is a terrible use of a beautiful machine.

These are challenging times for individuals like me who believe that the pardon power is an integral part of the Constitution and a vital institution that embodies one of our primary national virtues: a belief in second chances. While clemency has been subjected to sharp criticism before (most recently, in the wake of Bill Clinton’s shady pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich), the wave of criticism now — most often turning on President Trump’s grants to loyalists, celebrities, and business associates — has sometimes included outright calls to simply get rid of the federal pardon power.

I somehow doubt that anything is likely to improve before it worsens. For now, it is harder than ever for a federal prisoner not connected to this President by money, politics or some other transaction deemed beneficial to Trump to get noticed – let alone approved – for federal clemency.

ProPublica, How Trump Has Exploited Pardons and Clemency to Reward Allies and Supporters (November 12, 2025)

Politico, Trump pardons top allies who aided bid to subvert the 2020 election (November 10, 2025)

Sentencing Matters Substack, A Terrible Use of a Beautiful Machine (November 17, 2025)

~ Thomas L. Root

Clemency Pay-to-Play? – Update for October 30, 2025

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We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

TRUMP CLEMENCY CIRCUS PAUSED AMID PROFITEERING CONCERNS

NBC reported last week that the White House was tightening up on clemency, just as the White House pardoned serial liar George Santos and Binance crypto executive Changpeng Zhao.

Sources told NBC News that White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, who has played a central role in reviewing pardons, became more outspoken about abuses last August after reports emerged that lobbyists and consultants were advertising themselves as offering access to Trump pardon authority for steep prices.

Those officials said Wiles pushed back hard against these efforts and tightened the process to distance it from those attempting to broker influences. While it’s legal to engage lobbyists on these issues, Wiles made it clear to those on the outside that she would not tolerate people trying to profit from the pardon process.

Reports in August by Bloomberg that two intermediaries seeking to cash in on pardons were floating a plan to another bitcoin exec to secure a presidential pardon for him in exchange for $30 million. The report set off alarms inside the White House, the two White House officials and two others familiar with the discussions told NBC News.

Some lobbyists had received proposals as high as $5 million to put clemency cases in front of Trump. Recently, an associate of former Sen. Bob Menendez, who is accused of bribing the senator with gold bars, paid $1 million to a Washington lobbyist with ties to Trump to help secure clemency.

Not that it matters that much. Trump last week pardoned Santos as a political favor to the outspoken Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who has recently turned critical of the President. The late-week pardon to Zhao acknowledged a man whose company, Binance, has also been a key supporter of the Trump family’s World Liberty Financial crypto venture, making billions.

The President said the pardon was because each man had been persecuted for political reasons.

What is pretty clear is that the President has no incentive or interest in granting pardons or commutations unless a financial or political gain is to be made. Today’s Wall Street Journal reports that as soon as Trump was elected a year ago, Zhao’s representatives began discussions with Trump allies, offering a deal for the Trump family in exchange for a pardon. Binance agreed with the Trumps’ start-up cryptocurrency venture, World Liberty Financial, that Binance could leverage into clemency for Zhao, the Journal reported, citing sources close to the transaction.

“This spring,” the Journal reports, “Binance took steps that catapulted the Trump family venture’s new stablecoin product, enhancing its credibility and pushing its market capitalization up from $127 million to over $2.1 billion.” Following that,

Trump granted Zhao a presidential pardon last week, “likely paving the way for the world’s largest crypto-trading platform to return to the U.S., from where it was banned after the company pleaded guilty in 2023 to violating anti-money-laundering rules.

While avoiding possibly fallacious post hoc, ergo propter hoc reasoning, the arrangement does leave garden-variety prisoners wondering what – other than some soups and honeybuns from next week’s commissary day – they might have to trade the Trumps for clemency.

NBC, White House tightens the clemency process as Trump resumes pardons (October 24, 2025)

Wall Street Journal, Trump Pardons Convicted Binance Founder (October 23, 2025)

Wall Street Journal, Binance Boosted Trump Family’s Crypto Company Ahead of Pardon for Its Billionaire Founder (October 30, 2025)

~ Thomas L. Root

Pardon Industry Grinds On Although Trump’s Not Signing – Update for August 27, 2025

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We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

PARDON OUR MESS

Senior Dept of Justice officials were left scrambling to interpret sweeping clemency orders that former President Joe Biden approved for thousands of federal prisoners in his final days in office, and they criticized the White House for falsely portraying the releases as limited to “nonviolent” offenders, according to internal emails revealed last week.

The records show that former Associate Deputy Attorney General Bradley Weinsheimer raised alarms immediately after Biden issued three autopen-signed warrants on Jan. 17, covering nearly 2,500 federal prisoners.

In a January 18th message to the White House and the DOJ Pardon Attorney, Weinsheimer wrote that one warrant granting clemency for “offenses described to the Dept of Justice” was so vague it could not be lawfully carried out.

Weinsheimer suggested that Biden provide “a list as to each inmate listing the offenses that are covered by the commutation.” He said Biden needed to clarify the “meaning of the warrant language” so the DOJ could implement it “in the manner intended by the President.”

Weinsheimer also pushed back against White House statements that the clemency recipients were only “non-violent drug offenders,” according to the emails. “In communication about the commutations, the White House has described those who received commutations as people convicted of non-violent drug offenses,” Weinsheimer wrote. “I think you should stop saying that because it is untrue or at least misleading.”

The clemency list included a prisoner who had killed a mother and her 2-year-old child to protect his drug business, another whose enforcer tortured an informant with a butane torch, and a Gangster Disciples member implicated in multiple murders and kidnappings.

Despite Weinsheimer’s warning, the White House promoted the mass commutations as relief for “non-violent drug offenses” and as the largest clemency action ever.

Biden later said he approved broad categories of inmates, leaving details on how to apply those standards to staff. The revelations come amid multiple probes by the Trump administration into Biden’s use of his autopen – a machine that automatically signs the President’s name to documents – for key decisions.

Meanwhile, President Trump – who at the start of his second term was as busy as Biden ever was with a clemency pen– has not granted a pardon or commutation in almost three months.

Trump granted multiple pardons every month from January through May (and, of course, did a massive clemency grant on Inauguration Day for the January 6th rioters). You may remember that at the time, Trump’s pardon of 1,500 J6ers was described in news accounts as a “last-minute, rip-the-bandage-off decision.”  In fact, one White House advisor said that as Trump’s team wrestled with the issue, “Trump just said: ‘F -k it: Release ’em all.'”

However, despite rumors to the contrary, Trump has gone “full stop” on commutations and pardons since the end of last May.

At the time, media reports said that more clemency grants were expected “in the coming days.” So what happened?

Writing in Sentencing Law and Policy last week, Ohio State law professor Doug Berman wondered whether some of the pundit criticism around the last group of grants may have had some impact on how Trump is thinking about clemency action.

No one can be sure, but the pardon industry continues apace, with reports still being published about some people spending millions to buy access to the President for clemency. Last week, I had two prisoners separately say that the rumor mill reports a big commutation/pardon push in a month. I consider that to be myth. With a major push against supposed gangs rampaging in Washington, DC, Trump is not likely to think this is a good time to let some people out of prison.

Bloomberg Law, How a $30 Million Pardon Scheme Failed Before It Got to Trump (August 18, 2025)

New York Times, Flattery, Lobbyists and a Business Deal: Crypto’s Richest Man Campaigns for a Pardon (August 9, 2025)

Washington Examiner, Biden ignored DOJ warnings over legally flawed autopen pardons (August 19, 2025)

Axios, “F–k it: Release ’em all”: Why Trump embraced broad Jan. 6 pardons (January 22, 2025)

New York Post, Biden DOJ ripped White House over clemency grant to ‘non-violent offenders’: ‘Stop saying that because it is untrue’ (August 19, 2025)

~ Thomas L. Root

‘A Uniform Change Away’ – Former BOP Inmate Now BOP Deputy – Update for June 10, 2025

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We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

FORMER BOP INMATE NOW BOP DEPUTY DIRECTOR

Some cynical Bureau of Prisons inmates have quipped before that certain BOP employees are “only a uniform change away” from being inmates, an aphorism occasionally proven by convictions of BOP staff for sexual abuse of inmates, bribery, introducing contraband, or general mayhem.

Last week, the cliché was turned on its head… but in a very good way. Joshua J. Smith, a former federal inmate who President Trump pardoned in 2021 for drug trafficking crimes committed more than two decades before, just swapped prison khakis from 20 years ago for a suit and corner office as the BOP’s Deputy Director.

Yeah, I know… a Trump pardon based on merit. That alone is amazing. But who would have ever predicted that someone would be involved with the BOP on both sides of the fence?

Last Thursday, BOP Director William K. Marshall III announced that he was naming Smith, a Tennessee businessman who founded inmate advocacy and rehabilitation nonprofit Fourth Purpose Foundation, as his second in command.

“Josh brings to this role something our agency has never had before at this level, a perspective shaped by lived experience, proven innovation and national impact,” Marshall said in a staff memo. “His firsthand understanding of our facilities — of the tension, the risk and the importance of trust — makes him uniquely positioned to advocate for the resources and reforms front-line staff need to do their jobs safely and effectively.”

Smith entered the BOP as an inmate “at age 21 as an 11th-grade dropout with no plans to exit it any differently than how he entered,” Walter Pavlo wrote in Forbes last week. Smith served five years at FCI Manchester, Kentucky, being released in 2003.

The Fourth Purpose website says Smith “saw the system from the inside, its challenges, its blind spots, and its unrealized potential. While incarcerated, something began to shift. He found faith, discipline, and most importantly, he found a sense of purpose. For Josh, prison wasn’t just a consequence, it became a transformative experience. When he was released in 2003, he walked out determined not to waste a second chance he had been given. He created a plan to stay out of the system. But that sense of purpose followed him. Reentry wasn’t easy, but it shaped his empathy. It helped him understand the barriers people face on the outside and planted the seed of a deeper mission.”

When he was pardoned in January 2021, a Knoxville TV station reported, “Smith started a multi-million dollar company and a non-profit to help former inmates transform their lives.” The residential service company he started, Master Service Companies, grew into a $30 million enterprise with more than 180 employees, many of whom were ex-offenders.

Rabbi Moshe Margaretten, President of the nonprofit Tzedek Association, told Pavlo, “Director Marshall couldn’t have made a better choice. Josh Smith brings a deep moral clarity and transformative vision to the Bureau — grounded in lived experience and a passion for redemption and human dignity. His leadership on reentry is exactly what this moment demands.”

Pavlo wrote, “Smith realizes that real change is only going to occur if he has buy-in from the staff and that may be a challenge. Former Director Colette Peters, also an outsider to the BOP, found change difficult though she did manage to improve hiring and made a number of strides in implementing the First Step Act.”

Nevertheless, Pavlo cheered Smith’s appointment. “The BOP needs change and they need reform. Nothing says reform louder than bringing in someone like Josh Smith who has seen life on both sides of the fence.”

NBC, Former federal inmate pardoned by Trump tapped as Bureau of Prisons deputy director (June 6, 2025)

WBIR-TV, Knoxville businessman Josh Smith awarded Presidential Pardon (Jan 20, 2021)

Forbes, Meet Joshua Smith, New Deputy Director of Bureau of Prisons (June 6, 2025)

– Thomas L. Root

The Wild, Wild West Wing – Update for June 3, 2025

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We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

TRUMP MANAGES TO MAKE CLEMENCY EVEN CRAZIER

wildwildwestwing250603The rolling waves of pardons and commutations emanating from the White House seem like good news to federal prisoners, who are filing clemency petitions to get in on the frenzy. Think Robinhood investors piling into a meme stock…

Over the past several weeks, President Donald Trump has issued a wave of pardons and sentence reductions to dozens of people. That’s good news. The bad news is that the recipients of Trump’s largesse are largely political allies, campaign donors, law enforcement officials, and Republican politicians.

I won’t try to recount them all, people from crooked cops to digital dope peddlers to gang bangers to celebrity fraudsters. Even George Floyd murderer Derek Chauvin and accused sex monster and rapper Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs are being talked about as candidates for Trumpian clemency largesse. Instead, I’ll look at the lessons to be derived from the freedom frenzy:

The three sure-fire ways to get clemency from this Administration are (1) to be a rabid Trump supporter, (2) to have millions to spend, or (3) to know someone who knows someone who knows someone in Trump’s inner circle.

clemencypitch180716For more than a century, career civil servants led the Dept of Justice Office of Pardon Attorney, evaluating clemency petitions based on legal and humanitarian criteria that were criticized for the glacial review pace, too much DOJ input, and opaque and sometimes inconsistent decisions. But now, newly appointed Pardon Attorney Ed Martin, a vigorous MAGA partisan, “has begun turning the office into a new pipeline for political allies to get their cases in front of Trump,” the Wall Street Journal reported last week.

Martin unabashedly described his pardon approach last week on X: “No MAGA left behind.”

Martin said he is working closely with Alice Johnson, the White House pardon czar whom Trump pardoned of drug offenses during his first term. That’s good news. The bad news is Martin’s approach: “The message should be clear that we’re sticking by people that do good things and the right things.”

MAGAhat250603Martin’s first pardon recommendation, adopted by Trump last week, was Scott Jenkins, the former sheriff of Culpeper County, Virginia. Jenkins was to report to prison last week after being convicted of selling no-show auxiliary sheriff’s deputy positions for over $75,000 in bribes. The evidence included videos of the sheriff accepting bags of cash and testimony of some of the people who bought the badges. He was sentenced to 120 months.

But as the Bulwark explained last week, “Jenkins was a rabidly anti-immigrant, pro-Trump sheriff who’d become a minor celebrity in MAGA world. Trump himself may not have known of him, but Ed Martin did… Martin celebrated his achievement just after the pardon: ‘Thank you, President Trump! I am thrilled that Sheriff Jenkins is the first pardon since I became your Pardon Attorney.’”

For those not connected to MAGA, seeking clemency “has become big business for lobbying and consulting firms close to the administration, with wealthy hopefuls willing to spend millions of dollars for help getting their case in front of the right people,” a lobbyist told NBC News. “From a lobbying perspective, pardons have gotten profitable.”

pardonsale210118Two people directly familiar with proposals to lobbying firms said they knew of a client who’d offered $5 million to help get a case to Trump. “Cozying up to a president’s allies or hiring lobbyists to gain access to clemency isn’t new,” NBC said. “But along with the price spike, what’s different now is that Trump is issuing pardons on a rolling basis — rather than most coming at the end of the administration.”

“It’s like the Wild West,” a Trump ally and lobbyist said. “You can basically charge whatever you want.”

But what about Alice Johnson, appointed as Pardon Czar to bring worthy clemency candidates to President Trump? Is that working?

Alice apparently was instrumental in bringing reality TV stars and celebrity whiners Todd and Julie Chrisley to Trump for full pardons of their bank and tax fraud convictions. Todd stayed in the headlines for the 24 months he served of his 12-year sentence by claiming, among other things, that FPC Pensacola was “literally” starving inmates to death, that the prisoners were forced to live in filth and eat contaminated food, and that he “feared for his life.”

“I know not only their stories, but I make sure that I’m selecting people who have either been rehabilitated, who pose no safety risk, and also we look at cases where there has been obvious weaponization against these individuals,” Alice Johnson told NewsNation Now. She was quoted in Eonline as saying “The celebrity part really didn’t play a role in this… These are everyday Americans who deserve a second chance,” she continued. “I’ve really been looking at those who pose no safety risk, don’t have victims of violent crimes. These people need to be returned to their families. They really get a chance to have a second shot at life.”

money170419A month ago, Trump pardoned Paul Walczak, a former nursing home executive sentenced to 18 months in prison and ordered to pay more than $4 million in restitution for tax crimes. The pardon came after Walczak’s mom, a GOP donor, Walczak’s pardon has received attended a $1-million-per-person fundraising dinner at Mar-a-Lago, the New York Times reported.

Even some of the people who are not rich or famous are lucky enough to get in on the act. An “everyday American” prisoner who was not a Chrisley but received clemency last week was serving a 50-year sentence for healthcare fraud. One of his co-defendants, however, had been Alice Johnson’s cellie at FCI Aliceville. Alice got her sprung in 2020. Five years later, the co-defendant lobbied Alice to get him out, too.

I helped him with his clemency petition a few years ago, a 100-page tome. No doubt he deserved clemency but no more or less than countless others whose conspiracies did not include someone who became Alice’s cellmate.

clemencytornado250603Ultimately, it’s depressing. Clemency has always been like a tornado tearing through a neighborhood, taking some lucky inmates seemingly at random while leaving others in their bunks to serve out their time. Now, there isn’t even a randomness factor anymore, a sense among prisoners that maybe, despite the ordinariness of their offense or their families’ quotidian circumstances, they may be the beneficiaries of a Presidential act of grace.

Now, it’s all about loyalty, wealth, connections.

We’re in a different clemency world than ever before, but the average federal inmate is further from fair consideration than ever.

CNN, ‘No MAGA left behind’: Trump’s pardons get even more political (May 28, 2025)

NBC, Trump pardons drive a big, burgeoning business for lobbyists (May 31, 2025)

Washington Post, Trump’s clemency spree extends to ex-gangster, rapper, former congressmen (May 29, 2025)

The Bulwark, Trump’s Dangerous Pardon Power (May 27, 2025)

Pensacola News Journal, Todd Chrisley served sentence at Pensacola Federal Prison Camp before pardon. What to know (May 28, 2025)

New York Times, Trump Pardoned Tax Cheat After Mother Attended $1 Million Dinner (May 27, 2025)

– Thomas L. Root

Pardon News Continues Unabated – Update for May 20, 2025

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We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

ALICE IS BACK… AND A ‘SUBSTANTIAL BATCH” OF CLEMENCY GRANTS MAY BE COMING

After President Trump appointed former federal inmate Alice Marie Johnson to be his “pardon czar” last February, she seemed to disappear. No one even knew whether she’d have a White House office as opposed to mere corresponding privileges with Trump.

alicesrestaurant250224Last week, we learned a little about what she is doing and got a hint that a clemency release is looming. In a Fox News interview with Lara Trump (which included a lot of fawning over the President), Johnson said, “President Trump had asked me to go find people like myself, and I brought many to the White House and President Trump gave those individuals a second chance…” She said that she “sent over 100 clemency and pardon petitions to the White House” and “46 people really were able to get a second chance in life…”

Johnson suggested that her criteria included people “who deserve this second chance who are similarly situated, not just like me, but who have served enough time, who have paid their debt to society, plus there are those who have been, I’m going to say, the victims of lawfare the same way our President was.”

“Lawfare” as commonly used refers to an attempt to damage or delegitimize an opponent, or to deter an individual’s usage of his or her legal rights. President Trump has said that his indictments for January 6th conspiracy, mishandling of national security documents, Georgia election interference, and New York “hush money” allegations were all lawfare against him.

pardonme190123A batch of clemency grants may be on the horizon. Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that clemency for some plain folks may be coming, “The president, according to a senior administration official, has taken a particular interest in the work of Alice Johnson, the pardon czar he appointed earlier this year,” the Journal said. “He regularly asks her, ‘Where are my pardons?’ The White House is expected to announce a substantial batch of pardons in the coming weeks, the official said.”

But that’s about the only good news about clemency. Ed Martin, the man who was so reckless as acting District of Columbia U.S. Attorney that his nomination for that position couldn’t get out of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has seized the helm as Dept of Justice Pardon Attorney. Last week, Martin–described as an “egregiously unqualified political hack who has never served either as a prosecutor or judge” by over 100 former federal prosecutors who signed a letter opposing his appointment to the U.S. Attorney position–said last week that “I do think that the Biden pardons need some scrutiny… And they need scrutiny because we want pardons to matter and to be accepted and to be something that’s used correctly. So I do think we’re going to take a hard look.”

Martin tried to use his office as Acting U.S. Attorney to threaten everyone from DOJ prosecutors to members of Congress to medical journals to people critical of Elon Musk to Wikipedia’s tax-exempt status.  Now, not the least bit inconvenienced by the fact that Presidential pardons cannot be undone, he intends to spend the Pardon Office’s time looking at pardons of which he disapproves (and this from a guy who as Acting U.S. Attorney dismissed a January 6th felony case against a man he had represented as defense attorney).

pardonsale210118Meanwhile, the pardon bazaar continues. Rumors are flying that Sean “Diddy” Combs is seeking a pardon to end his seamy federal sex crimes trial in New York, that former Minneapolis cop Derek Chavin could be pardoned for his federal civil rights conviction stemming the murder of George Floyd, that former Congressman George Santos is seeking a pardon to avoid a federal prison sentence imposed for fraud-related convictions, and that those perennial celebrity prisoner whiners Todd and Julie Chrisley are renewing their campaign for pardons from their federal fraud convictions.

A couple of clemency grants for just plain prisoners would be a welcome change.

Fox News, Trump ‘pardon czar’ details how she’ll help incarcerated Americans who ‘paid their dues’ (May 17, 2025) (video)

The Wall Street Journal, The Wild West of Presidential Pardons in Trump’s Second Term (May 13, 2025)

Law and Crime, ‘We want pardons to matter’: Trump admin will ‘take a hard look’ at final grants of clemency issued by Biden, Ed Martin says (May 13, 2025)

– Thomas L. Root

A Nikola Truckload of Pardons – Update for May 9, 2025

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We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

CLEMENCY BAZAAR

Trevor Milton knew how to do it. The founder of the electric-truck maker Nikola Corp. was convicted of wire fraud in 2022 for a promotional video that purported to show its electric semi rig hauling a trailer but was really a prototype without any electroc motors that Nikola had recorded rolling downhill.

nikola250509Trevor applied for a presidential pardon, arguing that his trial was flawed by a biased juror, lousy jury instructions, and prosecutors bringing charges in the wrong venue.

Complaining about an unfair prosecution hardly separated Trevor from thousands of other federal prisoners unhappy about their convictions. But Trevor had more: he pointed out that the prosecutors were the same people who had previously investigated some of President Trump’s allies. And he prepared for seeking a pardon by donating almost $1.7 million to support Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign and hired two lawyers well-known in conservative circles to push for his pardon.

“All the effort appeared to pay off,” Bloomberg Law reported this week, when Trevor got a phone call. “[A]fter 30 seconds on hold, President Donald Trump got on the line and told Milton that he was going to grant him a full pardon.” A week later, Trump called him again to report “’[i]t’s signed. You’re cleaner than a baby’s bottom, you’re cleaner than I am, Trevor,’ Milton recalled” to Bloomberg.

The president “is effectively and responsibly using his constitutional authority,” White House spokesman Harrison Fields explained. “Over the past four years, we have witnessed the weaponization of the justice system against the president’s allies. The president is committed to righting those wrongs and ending lawfare.”

clemencyjack161229Some critics suggest that Trump is not righting wrongs as much as running a pardon bazaar. Gregg Nunziata, former general counsel for Marco Rubio when he was a senator and now executive director for the Society for the Rule of Law, told Roll Call that Trump’s actions are “deeply un-American.”

“From the first days in office, there has been a pattern in pardons, in personnel, in the policies of using the powers of government to reward the president’s friends and allies and punish his perceived enemies,” Nunziata said. “That is the rule of a man out for his own interest and that is an assault on the full protection of the law and notions of fair play that our society, our country, depend on.”

As for its role, the Dept of Justice – which is without a Pardon Attorney since the firing of Elizabeth Oyer over the Mel Gibson gun flap two months ago – is “committed to timely and carefully reviewing” all clemency applications and making unbiased, consistent recommendations to the president, according to a DOJ statement.

Milton said he filed for clemency with the DOJ Pardon Attorney in January. Bloomberg reported, however, that the pardon didn’t follow the normal DOJ review process.

President Joe Biden set a record for granting clemency during his term, handing out over 4,000 commutations but only about 80 pardons. The commutations went overwhelmingly to federal prisoners and people who fell within classes of convictions – primarily for marijuana possession – or for CARES Act home confinees. Biden received widespread and bipartisan criticism for preemptively pardoning his family and allies to prevent Trump from going after them criminally.

obtaining-clemencyTrump, on the other hand, has set a presidential record for granting pardons – 1,590 and counting – starting with the January 6th Capitol rioters and then expanding to include white-collar defendants, cryptocurrency entrepreneurs, and anti-abortion activists. Pardon recipients include “numerous others who praised him or served as a witness against political rivals, including former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich… He also pardoned Devon Archer and commuted the sentence of Jason Galanis, former business partners of Hunter Biden who served as witnesses in the House probe against the former president,” Roll Call reported yesterday.

Trump has even extended his pardon efforts beyond the limits of presidential authority (which does not extend to pardons for state offenses). He posted on TruthSocial Monday night that has directed DOJ “to take all necessary action to help secure the release” of Tina Peters, a former Colorado local election clerk in Colorado who was sentenced to nine years in state prison last fall for her role in a voting system data breach, a failed attempt to find voter fraud from the 2020 election.

Last March, DOJ filed a statement of interest in Peters’ pending 28 USC § 2254 habeas corpus case pending in US District Court for the District of Colorado. The post-conviction action seeks federal review of the constitutionality of her state conviction. The DOJ claims that it is concerned about Peters’ health and allege that “[r]easonable concerns have been raised about various aspects of Ms. Peters’ case.”

The pace of Trump’s pardons eclipses the president in second place, Bill Clinton (396 pardons in eight years) and in the process has fostered a “breakdown in the traditional vetting process for deciding who gets relief and supercharged a pardon economy unlike anything seen before,” as Bloomberg put it.

As a result, people who can afford it are spending big to get their applications in front of Trump, devoting tens of thousands of dollars to fees for attorneys, lobbyists and consultants on the pardon process.

money160118“There’s a huge level of interest,” said  Margaret Colgate Love, who served as the US Pardon Attorney during the Clinton years and now represents clemency clients. “People think Trump is going to do something for them.”

Presidents from both parties have long used their authority to circumvent official process and dole out pardons to friends and supporters. The constitution puts almost no limits on the practice, though leaders typically wait until the end of their tenure to award clemency. Trump has announced clemency grants on a dozen occasions since he took office three months ago.

All of this is not good news for the ordinary federal defendant, let alone a prisoner who can afford a donation of several Honeybuns and a couple of soups to the Trump campaign. “It seems like ordinary people who don’t have the resources to hire a lobbyist or well-connected lawyer and don’t have political connections and access to the White House front door are not being considered for clemency at all,” Oyer told Bloomberg.

A White House spokesman said Trump would work with the administration’s pardon czar, Alice Marie Johnson, to “continue to provide justice and redemption to countless deserving Americans.” Those with fat wallets and MAGA hats, that is.

Bloomberg Law, Lawyers Are Quoting $1 Million Fees to Get Pardons to Trump (May 7, 2025)

Roll Call, Pardons for friends, retribution for foes (May 7, 2025)

Democracy Docket, Trump Orders DOJ to ‘Secure the Release’ of Convicted Election Denier Tina Peters (May 6, 2025)

– Thomas L. Root

Cash Registers Ringing for Presidential Clemency… Just Not For Uncle Sam – Update for May 5, 2025

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We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

PARDONS: CRIME AND DRAMA

theatremasks250505Former Dept of Justice Pardon Attorney Elizabeth Oyer last week claimed on social media that President Trump’s pardons of white-collar defendants have cost Americans $1 billion.

Oyer totaled the money that the pardoned people owed or might owe in restitution and fines. Some pardon recipients had not yet been sentenced, leading her to estimate the restitution that might be imposed. The pardoned people who had already begun paying restitution can now seek reimbursement from the government.

Oyer, who has been outspoken against the Trump administration since she was fired in March over her opposition to a DOJ decision to restore actor Mel Gibson’s gun rights, said “that the $1 billion figure highlights the unusually high number of Republican allies convicted of fraud and pardoned by Trump before they served their sentences.” She called that “a significant break from the traditional and often protracted pardon application process,” the Washington Post reported.

“It’s unprecedented for a president to grant pardons that have the effect of wiping out so much debt owed by people who have committed frauds,” Oyer said. “They do not meet Justice Department standards for recommending a pardon.”

Law360 reported last week that the spate of White House pardons is resulting in white-collar defendants being solicited by scammers who promise to influence White House connections to secure pardons and commutations in exchange for big fees.

clemencyjack161229The clemency pitches call for payments of hundreds of thousands or millions, “prey on the desperation of people serving or facing prison time,” some experts say. “Historically, seeking a pardon was seen as a low-percentage effort, something that would be very difficult to pursue as part of the defense strategy, except in the most obvious circumstances,” Joe Whitley, chair of law firm Womble Bond Dickinson’s white collar defense practice, told Law360.

One clemency pitch that a “consultant” recently sent to a bank fraud defendant called for payment of $155,000 a month for six months, along with an additional $1 million “success fee” once clemency was granted. The consultant claimed to have access to Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort, according to the defendant’s lawyer. The defendant was also pitched a different clemency service for $3 million, including a $2.5 million success fee, for “advocacy with the Trump administration for a pardon and/or case dismissal,” Law360 said.

“Unfortunately, a lot of what’s going on and a lot of the decisions being made are setting up corruption — it’s making this all dependent on having access to people in power and charging money for that access,” one big law firm partner told Law360.

money240822A white collar sentencing consultant was quoted as saying that a typical clemency package costs about $40,000 to $50,000. Law firms might charge up to $200,000 for clemency work.

“Selling a guaranteed pardon because of a perceived relationship is a problem,” the consultant told Law360. “In my opinion, it’s gross negligence to say, ‘I can get the president of the United States to grant this clemency on your behalf’.”

Washington Post, Fired DOJ attorney says on TikTok that Trump pardons cost U.S. $1 billion (May 1, 2025)

Law360, Pardon Me? Why Offers To Secure Clemency Might Be A Scam (April 24, 2025)

– Thomas L. Root

The Short Rocket – Update for April 29, 2025

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We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues. 

Today (and not just because Gayle King and Kate Perry came back to earth after their blasted-into-space celebrity stunt), here’s a short rocket of some stories you might have missed.

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CASE SHORTS

fiore250429Who’s Getting Pardoned? The Associated Press reported last week that President Donald Trump pardoned Michelle Fiore, a Nevada Republican politician who was awaiting sentencing on federal charges that she embezzled $70,000 meant for a statue honoring a slain police officer.

Fiore spent the money on personal expenses, including a facelift. She has been released on her own recognizance ahead of sentencing next month.

AP said, “In a lengthy statement Thursday on Facebook, the loyal Trump supporter expressed gratitude to the president while also accusing the US government and ‘select media outlets’ of a broad, decade-long conspiracy to ‘target and dismantle’ her life.”

She’s right, of course: Such media dismantling is the easily foreseen consequence of stealing charitable contributions to finance one’s own lifestyle.

The White House confirmed the pardon without comment.

Meanwhile, former congressman George Santos, sentenced last week to 87 months for multiple frauds, publicly appealed to Trump to offer him “a chance to prove I’m more than the mistakes I’ve made.” Santos’s lawyers said the legal team would seek a presidential pardon — something that Santos himself had ruled out two days before his sentencing.

The Dept of Justice reports that the last dozen or so clemency grants are all of white-collar defendants, with a lone commutation of a defendant accused of opioid distribution in early March.

Associated Press, Trump pardons Nevada politician who paid for cosmetic surgery with funds to honor a slain officer (April 24, 2025)

The New York Times, George Santos’s Closing Act: A Prison Sentence of More Than 7 Years (April 26, 2025)

DOJ, Clemency Grants by President Donald J. Trump (2025-Present) (April 27, 2025)

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Durbin Ending Senate Career: Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL), a mainstay on the Senate Judiciary Committee, is retiring at the end of his current Senate term in December 2026.

durbin191120Durbin has served on the Judiciary Committee for more than two decades, including as chairman from 2021 through 2024. He wrote the 2010 Fair Sentencing Act, which reduced the federal sentencing disparity for crack/powder cocaine offenses. In 2018, Durbin and Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) led bipartisan efforts to enact the First Step Act, the most significant criminal justice reform legislation in a generation. Since then, he and Grassley led efforts–not yet successful–to pass the Safer Detention Act, Prohibiting Punishment of Acquitted Conduct Act, and Smarter Sentencing Act.

Press Release, Durbin Announces He Will Not Seek Re-Election in 2026 (April 23, 2025)

Roll Call, Durbin’s run at Judiciary Committee focused on immigration, judges (April 23, 2025)

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Angelos Meets With Johnson: Pardon recipient Weldon Angelos, founder of the criminal justice non-profit The Weldon Project, met with Pardon Czar Alice Johnson at the White House last Wednesday to discuss future clemency options.

marijuana160818Marijuana Moment reported last week that “[a]s the cannabis community continues to search for signs that the president will proactively engage on the issue after he endorsed [marijuana] rescheduling… the meeting between Weldon Angelos and the White House official signals at least some openness to the idea of acting on marijuana reform.”

Angelos said the meeting left him “feeling incredibly hopeful.”

Marijuana Moment, Marijuana Activist Pardoned By Trump Meets With White House Officials As Pressure Builds For Reform (April 25, 2025)

– Thomas L. Root