'If You Can Keep It': Pardons In The Trump Administration

0:28This is Ira Glass. Though he stood convicted of 34 felonies in the state of New York, President Trump ran for office as a law and order candidate. They stand for crime and chaos and corruption. We stand for law and order and justice. But since returning to office, Donald Trump has exploded the use of the pardon power. He's granted clemency to more than 1 ,700 people, including January 6 rioters, supporters convicted of seditious conspiracy and plotting violence on January 6th, politicians convicted of corruption, and businessmen who donated to his campaign shortly before receiving their pardons.

1:07Just a year and a half into his second term, Donald Trump has issued the third most pardons of any president in history. He's got two and a half years to go. And the White House claims that many of these people were unfairly prosecuted by previous administrations. But a new Reuters review found that 96 % of those pardons failed to meet longstanding Justice Department criteria. And a lot of the pardons are reaching the president's desk through a network of advocates and influencers with connections to the White House rather than through conventional Department of Justice channels. It's a cottage industry worth millions of dollars.

1:44I'm Todd Zwilich. You're listening to the 1A podcast today on our weekly series, If You Can Keep It. We're digging into the pardon power, who it's for, how the president is wielding it, and what it means for accountability in American democracy. We'll be back with more after a short break. Stay with us.

2:06This message comes from BetterHelp. Summer can feel like a sprint. Kids home, trips to plan, routines flipped upside down. It's easy to slip into survival mode, just trying to get through it. Then suddenly, it's over. And you're wishing you enjoyed the days just a little bit more. Therapy can help you slow down and actually be present for the moments that matter. With BetterHelp, you can connect with a licensed therapist from anywhere, on your schedule. Don't just survive the summer. Thrive. Visit betterhelp.com slash NPR. One of the world's most famous art detectives was on the hunt for a stolen Van Gogh.

2:45He turned to an unlikely source for help. You have born soccer players, born teachers, born policemen. I'm a born burglar. On the Sunday story, how an art thief and an art detective set out to recover a missing masterpiece. Listen now to the Sunday story from the Up First podcast on the NPR app. Welcome back to the 1A podcast. We're talking about the president's power to pardon. Chris Prentice covers financial crime and other topics for Reuters. She worked on the Reuters investigation into pardons issued by Donald Trump in his second term and the network of advocates and influencers who've helped secure clemency for almost 200 people.

3:25She joins us now from New York. Hi, Chris. Hello there. Thanks for having me. Good to have you. And with me in studio, Liz Oyer. She was U.S. pardon attorney at the DOJ from 2022 to 2025. She reviewed applications from people across the country who were seeking commutations and pardons and made recommendations to the White House. And she was fired from her role last year and replaced with someone loyal to the Trump administration. She now writes on Substack. It's called Lawyer Oyer, Liz Oyer. Great to have you here. Thanks for having me this morning, Todd. Chris, we're going to talk about some specific cases this hour, but generally, who's being issued pardons by this administration and how are they going about getting them?

4:06Well, you can imagine when you have this number of pardons, there's quite a range. We've seen former public officials, startup founders, a number of people in the crypto world. And there's a whole industry that has developed around helping people kind of rise above and get the president's attention. So, you know, over 20 ,000 people are waiting in line for clemency right now. And in order to kind of jump the line, people will hire or work through advocates. They will make campaign contributions. They will work with people to try to kind of craft a narrative that makes them stand out and actually makes it so that the president, you know, can relate to their story.

4:50So, in other words, a narrative that makes them stand out to Donald Trump personally. Yes. What do those narratives look like? Weaponization, primarily being unfairly targeted for either their political views or something that was seen to be unfair in the first place. That's the kind of primary way. Liz Oyer, you were pardon attorneys I mentioned 2022 to 2025. We talk about the normal, I'm making air quotes, the normal process. What does that look like? Yeah, so it's important to know that the position of pardon attorney is not a political appointment. It's a nonpolitical official historically, traditionally.

5:31Now it's a political official. But the idea is that the pardon power should be used in an even-handed way to make our criminal justice system fairer. The founders of our Constitution recognized that sometimes the results could be very harsh. Sometimes there could be miscarriages of justice. And that's what the pardon power is there for. So in recent decades, it has been used largely to commute the sentences, so to reduce the sentences of nonviolent drug offenders, people who are serving sentences that are longer than the sentence they would receive for the same crime today. And that has been a very successful way to reduce the crisis of mass incarceration in our country for people who have really demonstrated that they have earned and deserve second chances.

6:12But those second chances are not just doled out. They are based on a very rigorous review process that's conducted by the Office of the Pardon Attorney by career experts who are drilling down into the histories of these individuals. And they require generally a lot of support from upstanding people in the community. There are guidelines on paper. Yes. There's a very detailed manual that the Justice Department uses to evaluate the applications that look at things like demonstrated rehabilitation. They look at things like the nature of the offense. How much of your sentence have you served? Those guidelines have traditionally been in place and have ensured that pardons are granted to people who are truly deserving of a second chance based on their own conduct and redemption and rehabilitation.

6:56But those have all fallen by the wayside. Right now, the pardon process is a free-for-all, as Chris described, that is based largely on leveraging wealth and political connections. A free-for-all, Chris, as Liz Oyer describes it. Your piece uses this stunning number. 96 % of cases don't meet the written, I'm sure quite thick and boring criteria in the DOJ guidelines for pardons. How does that number compare to past administrations? We all know that past presidents have pardoned friends, probably didn't go through the criteria. So how does that compare? Yeah, I mean, there, you have seen this in the past where there would be one-off cases.

7:35You know, the classic example is Bill Clinton's pardoning of Mark Rich, right? But I think that what you see in these numbers really shows how the president in this term has blown all of that out of the water. You know, this compares to fewer than 1 percent under President Biden that didn't meet the criteria and, you know, 14 percent that didn't meet the criteria during this president's first term. So it's quite different. We invited the White House pardons are on the program to talk to us. We were turned down. The invitation remains open. But here's White House Press Secretary Carolyn Levitt.

8:08There's a whole team of qualified lawyers who look at every single pardon request that ultimately make their way up to the president of the United States. He's the ultimate final decision maker. And he was very clear when he came into office that he was most interested in looking at pardoning individuals who were abused and used by the Biden Department of Justice and were over prosecuted by a weaponized DOJ. Liz Zoya, briefly, who is the press secretary talking about there? The president is most interested in people who are essentially victims of a weaponized DOJ, the one you worked for. Yeah, I mean, there's nobody that really meets those criteria.

8:46The current pardon attorney who is, I guess, the one that Carolyn Levitt is referring to is this guy, Ed Martin, who is a known MAGA booster. He was involved in the Stop the Steal movement, and he has tweeted several times his philosophy of pardoning. He has said no MAGA left behind. And that is the value that is being brought to these cases. There are a couple of pardons that were granted early in the administration that have Ed Martin's fingerprints all over them. There was a MAGA sheriff who was selling badges for cash, an elected official who essentially was taking bribes and he was pardoned.

9:19There was an elected official in Nevada who was a big supporter of President Trump who actually embezzled money from a police memorial fund, a memorial that was to be built to police officers killed in the line of duty. and she spent the money on plastic surgery. Trump pardoned her and she won't have to pay back the money. So those are the types of people who are getting pardons today. Coming up, specific cases of pardons issued by this president. That's just ahead. We'll be right back.

9:47This week, Shorewave is answering all your questions about Ebola and how cuts to global health funding have made it harder to contain. When you no longer have your front line, eyes and ears on the ground, It's very easy for an outbreak to spread very quickly. Why the current Ebola outbreak in Africa could rival the worst on record. Listen to Shortwave in the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Tanya Mosley, co-host of Fresh Air. Don't miss my interview with comic and storyteller Ali Sadiq. We talk about fatherhood, healing, and how prison changed him. He's been out 29 years, but he says...

10:24These psychological wounds are different than my physical wounds. Listen to Fresh Air on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Every episode of It's Been a Minute, NPR's What's Happening in Culture podcast starts by asking three questions. Who? How? Why now? If the culture's asking it, we're talking about it. At NPR, we stand for your right to be curious and indulge your cultural curiosity. Follow It's Been a Minute wherever you get your podcasts, and we'll break down the zeitgeisty topics that are filling your feed. This message comes from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, recognizing extraordinarily creative individuals whose ideas, solutions, and discoveries expand people's expectations of what's possible.

11:14Macfound.org. Welcome back to 1A. I'm Todd Zwillick. It's If You Can Keep It, our weekly show on the state of American democracy. We're talking about President Trump's use of the pardon power. Chris Prentice, you're reporting, as we discussed, identified specific cases where donations to Donald Trump's political committees appear to proceed pardons by a matter of weeks. Walk us through the case of Trevor Milton. What happened and why did that stand out to you? Yeah. So Trevor Melton's case is kind of this really clear example of the multi-pronged effort that kind of can lead to a clemency. So, you know, he was sentenced to four years in prison after a jury found him guilty of basically lying about the technology of this, you know, truck, this company that he founded.

12:08and he was out on bail while he was appealing and he had made donations both to campaigns associated with President, now President Trump, but also Robert F. Kennedy. And we know that in the weeks leading up to him actually receiving a pardon, he at some point had a meeting with the president. His wife and his dad were present. We know that he himself donated over, I think it was$1.8 million to those campaigns. And so all of these things predated the pardon. I want to bring in another expert to join this conversation. Dan Greenberg is here. He's senior legal fellow at the Center for Constitutional Studies at the Cato Institute.

12:54They're a libertarian think tank here in D.C. Hi, Dan. Thank you for having me. Great to have you. We got this email from Doug who says, when a president pardoned someone who committed a crime on behalf of the president or was pardoned in exchange for money, that pardon must be considered corrupt and therefore null and void. To do otherwise would give the president unlimited power. The president could have his political rivals murdered and give pardons to the killers that could not possibly be considered legal. Doug, thanks for that message. Dan, the Constitution, Article 2 says the president shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.

13:36Aside from that, what are the legal limits on the pardon power? Well, it's very challenging to find limits. And it's probably fair to say that a good way to start understanding the limits of the pardon power is it's very much like the king's pardon power that we inherited from the old country. As a practical matter, the limits are really very small. Now, of course, the president can only pardon federal crimes. He can't pardon violators of state crimes. And there's some discussion in Supreme Court opinions to the effect that the president can't make distinctions that rest on a person's race or religion or political views.

14:24So the president probably almost certainly couldn't issue a mass pardon that applied only to white people, for instance. But you said political views. Doesn't that apply to January 6th, a mass pardon? So I think that it is difficult to operationalize this rule of the Supreme Court based on the fact that there's sort of a quirk in the law that implies that in some sense pardons are unchallengeable because there's really nobody else with standing to bring concerns about the president's behavior. You mentioned that's like a royal power. And you mentioned the president does not have power to pardon state level crimes.

15:12He does have the power to lean politically on governors and pressure them to pardon people at the state level. Happened recently in Colorado. Democratic Governor Jared Polis issued clemency to Tina Peters, who's been in the news on this show for her convictions. I believe her nine plus year conviction for tampering with voting machines. She was a clerk in Mesa County, Colorado, an election official convicted and jailed. The president wanted her out. And she's out. This is certainly true. You will probably remember that some time ago, the president tweeted that she was issued a full and unconditional pardon.

15:51Well, that's like me tweeting that someone has been issued an unconditional pardon. Only the governor of Colorado can issue Tina Peters a pardon. And that's what he did. After significant pressure. But that's not constitutional. That's just politics. Well, unfortunately, you know, the president is able to exert extraordinary power. And, you know, after the president canceled hundreds of millions of dollars in transportation grants awarded to Colorado, he dismantled the National Center for Atmospheric Research that was located in Boulder. He vetoed a pipeline bill in Colorado. Eventually, my suspicion is that Jared Polis, Governor Jared Polis, said the state of Colorado can't take this kind of punishment anymore.

16:33Steven San Diego says that President Trump is, in fact, abusing the pardon power. The worst examples are his pardons of January 6th rioters, some of whom furiously injured police officers, all of whom pled guilty or were found guilty to crimes, often felonies. But he has also pardoned people for crimes, mainly because they supported him politically, including contributing to his campaigns. This is corruption at the highest level. Now, let's talk about the January 6th pardons. Most people are familiar with this story. Some 1 ,500 people, many of them violent, some of them convicted of seditious conspiracy and other crimes.

17:10I think people know the story. Dan, how unusual is this kind of mass pardon? Well, of course, President Washington granted amnesty to participants in the whiskey rebellion against federal whiskey taxes, and President Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson pardoned granted amnesty for Confederate soldiers and officials. But I think it's very important to note that in most cases of mass pardons by previous presidents, the pardonees were required to take affirmative measures in order to get that kind of forgiveness. So, for instance, the Confederate soldiers who were pardoned were required to swear an oath to the Union.

17:52When Gerald Ford granted amnesty to people who unlawfully failed to register for the Vietnam draft. Ford required people to come back and do public service. Carter, I believe, did not do that. But we have seen a broader trend of presidents granting mass pardons without really requiring anything in exchange. And so the pardon power has been exercised, I think, more and more carelessly and broadly over time. Now, Liz, you mentioned that one of the criteria among many in, quote, the rules for pardons can be remorse if a convict, somebody in prison, expresses remorse for the crimes they've committed.

18:33Some January 6th rioters have run for public office. Many have said that they would commit their crimes again if given the opportunity. Here's one convicted rioter. His name is Nathan DeGrave, the day after he was granted a pardon. It was the right thing to do, and I never regret doing the right thing. I mean, they also called the Boston Tea Party an attack. So it's all a matter of perspective. But does, Liz Oyer, what does that statement say to you about remorse in this particular case or whether the standard of remorse is being applied? Well, this particular pardon, as well as Donald Trump's pardons writ large, have really emboldened people to feel that they can commit crimes in his name.

19:13If they are supporting Donald Trump, Donald Trump will have their back. He will bail them out of any legal trouble they may be in. And that's very dangerous. It sends a very dangerous message to the people who are inclined to take those sort of risks, violate laws in support of the president. We have seen a tremendous rate of recidivism among the January 6th pardon recipients. I believe that somewhere around 100 of them are documented as having been charged with new crimes. These include very serious crimes. Many involve the sexual abuse of children, things of that nature that are really quite dangerous to society.

19:45And when you don't vet people and you grant these mass pardons based on political considerations to people who have shown no remorse, that is really very dangerous for the public. Is recidivism risk a consideration normally when considering a pardon? Hey, is this person just going to get out and offend again? Absolutely. To get a pardon under the Justice Department's traditional process, you actually have to go through a full FBI background investigation that is similar to what you'd have to go through to get a top secret security clearance to ensure that you're not someone who will be pardoned and then present an ongoing danger to the community.

20:18All right. Well, away from the mayhem of January 6th, the president has also issued pardons to a whole other class of people, executives and CEOs convicted of fraud and other financial crimes. Cryptocurrency tycoon Chong Peng Zhao, known as CZ, he's the founder of Binance. You've probably heard of it, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange. Nora O'Donnell asked the president about CZ on 60 Minutes on CBS. The government at the time said that CZ had caused significant harm to U.S. national security, essentially by allowing terrorist groups like Hamas to move millions of dollars around. Why did you pardon him?

20:58Okay, are you ready? I don't know who he is. I know he got a four-month sentence or something like that, and I heard it was a Biden witch hunt. Nora O'Donnell then asked the president about the timing of this pardon right after Binance facilitated the purchase of$2 billion of stablecoin from World Liberty Financial. That's the cryptocurrency company co-founded by the president and his sons. Well, here's the thing. I know nothing about it because I'm too busy doing the other. But he got a part? No, I can only tell you this. My sons are into it. I'm glad they are because it's probably a great industry, crypto.

21:35I think it's good. You know, they're running a business. They're not in government. Chris, I don't know anything about it. I don't even know who he is. Is this type of response from the president become standard? Tell us a little bit about the CZ case and what it says to you more broadly about the use of the pardon power here. Right. I mean, I do think this one was somewhat unusual and the president said he didn't even know him. Whereas, you know, in the past with Trevor Milton, he says, you know, he didn't deserve this. His only crime was supporting me. With CZ, you know, Binance was part of this huge resolution in 2023.

22:14And, you know, he was accused and ultimately pleaded guilty to violating some rules to prevent money laundering. And he was this kind of classic example of the crypto industry just being outside the rules. And I think that one of the things that's interesting about his pardon is, you know, he did hire this firm, Checkmate Solutions, where, you know, they have, you know, partners in that firm are, you know, friendly with the president's, one of the president's sons. And, you know, how involved were they? How much is that the reason? These are the kinds of questions that arise when you have this kind of unusual pardon.

22:55Dan, is there precedent for this type of pardon, an investor, a captain of industry, investing$2 billion into a company founded by the chief executive himself, and then along comes a pardon? I don't know of any precedent like this. I mean, I think that there are just a large number of occurrences like this that set off alarm bells for self-corruption, either of the president or of his associates. And I think it illustrates Liz's point that some sort of formality in making these decisions is desirable because it immunizes the president from the appearance of pay for play. And when you have the absence of any kind of formal procedure to make these decisions, it makes it plausible that a number of recent decisions are transactional.

23:44You know, that's very dangerous. You know, and when you see decisions like this, you see the pardon of Paul Walchek, who evaded millions of dollars in taxes after Mr. Walchek's mother raised millions of dollars for MAGA candidates and paid a million dollars to dine with the president at Mar-a-Lago. These sort of appearances are – they're so very suggestive. Chris, you've reported that aides inside the White House, in particular Susie Wiles, the chief of staff, are trying to tighten up this process and cut down, I dare say, on the types of conversations that we're having today. How's that going?

24:23Is the president willing to respond to aides? Is the president willing to dial it back on the appearance of favoritism and open corruption in the pardon process? Yeah, well, we know that there are people who are really against doing any more of these, you know, ahead of the midterms because they are, you know, they're really unpopular with a lot of people, right? Especially the ones, you know, for the business executives. And so there's been a push to kind of to create a little more order. I don't know how successful it will ultimately prove to be because we know, you know, the president appears to really like this power and really like doing these pardons.

25:02We got this voicemail from Mike in Miami. If you're talking about pardons, talk about Biden, how he pardoned his family and everybody else. So, yeah, there does need to be some reform on both sides. And we got this email from Holla, who says, please discuss whether at the actually that's I don't want to read that one. I want to talk about Biden family pardons. Holla, I'm going to read your question in just a minute. I jumped the gun a little bit. Liz, you were pardon attorney during the Biden administration. There's a lot of attention on Joe Biden pardoning his son and other family members. What about that pardon?

25:39And what about people who look at this process and say both sides do it? I think it is very important to acknowledge that that was not a legitimate use of the pardon power. Biden's pardon of his son, his preemptive pardons of his family members, that was the type of pardon use that laid the groundwork for Trump to say, well, this is just what every president does. Every president uses the pardon power in their own self-interest. That is not what the Constitution intended. It's not how it should be used, and it's not a use of the pardon power that's in the public interest. Did that pardon cross your desk?

26:13No, it did not. My office was not given the opportunity to advise the president on the pardons of his family members. And I believe that those pardons really were damaging to the perceived legitimacy of the pardon power and should not have happened. And they tarnished Joe Biden's legacy as far as pardons. And they did a great deal of damage going forward in terms of creating this sort of whataboutism argument. I do think it's important to note, though, that what Trump has done is vastly different and more corrupt than what Biden did because of the scale of it and because of the amount of money that is changing hands.