What does tolerance mean? Commentary on President Trump’s pardons and commutations
President Donald Trump has been in the news frequently for granting pardons. Pardons are one way the president grants pardons. What does that mean?
- The U.S. Constitution grants the president almost unlimited “kingly” power to grant pardons and commute sentences.
- President Donald Trump broke with tradition of being timid about using pardons.
- Applications for pardons are rapidly increasing. Some call it “false hope.”
President Donald Trump’s overhaul of the federal government has sparked nationwide “Kingless” protests. But in at least one area, the U.S. Constitution gives him near-unlimited king-like powers: clemency.
It wasn’t that long ago that some presidents were slow to grant clemency for crimes through commutations or pardons. Even President Trump only granted one pardon in 2017.
However, even in the first year of his second term, President Trump did not hesitate to take advantage of this policy. President Trump fulfilled a campaign promise, pardoning more than 1,500 people for crimes related to the January 6 Capitol riot on the day he was sworn into office. It granted pardons to high-profile defendants, including former Congressman George Santos, former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, and reality TV stars Todd and Julie Chrisley. He mused publicly when asked about pardoning Jeffrey Epstein’s associate Ghislaine Maxwell and rap mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs, neither of whom have received pardons.
“We are proud to help President Trump bring mercy and freedom to more people through the power of pardons,” pardon attorney Ed Martin said in a Jan. 16 X post. But Trump is the only one who can decide who gets mercy. As in his first term, his pardon powers this year reflect his politics, but have been elevated to a new level.
Here’s what you need to know about who was pardoned in President Trump’s first year in office and what it means.
Pardons are part of the president’s constitutional “kinglike” powers
The U.S. Constitution gives the president “the power to grant reprieves and pardons for crimes against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.” The origins of pardon are understood through the Federalist Papers as the need for mercy when the criminal justice system is too harsh. Douglas Berman, a law professor at Ohio State University who testified before Congress as an expert on pardons, said the president’s power to grant pardons is “a truly royal power.”
“The decision to leave it in the hands of the president is a decision that allows it to become highly politicized,” he said. “Certainly, a president’s conceptual definition of what kind of system is cruel is definitely shaped by politics in a variety of ways.”
Nevertheless, most modern presidents have not used their pardon power in the way Trump did. Former President Bill Clinton did not issue any amnesty legislation for three of the four years of his first term. Former President George W. Bush also did not issue pardons in his first few years. By the end of their presidencies, both men had granted 6% and 2%, respectively, of requests submitted, according to Pew Research. Granting pardons carries political risks, and several former pardon attorneys say the Justice Department’s case review and recommendation process is dysfunctional.
There are no restrictions on who the president can pardon for federal crimes, but the Justice Department has guidelines for what cases it reviews for recommendations to the president. In the case of a pardon, petitioners must wait five years after the end of their sentence before applying for a pardon, at which point their continued good behavior will be assessed. The Justice Department calls commutations, or commutations, an “extraordinary remedy,” and traditionally they are considered based on “disparities in punishment, unreasonable severity, serious illness or advanced age, meritorious service to the government, etc.”
In the first year of his second term, President Trump pardoned more than 1,500 people who were indicted in the four years after the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot, 77 people who were indicted and investigated for interfering in the 2020 election, more than 100 individuals, and the virtual currency company HDR Global Trading Limited.
Of the 90 individual cases pardoned as of January 20, 2026, only 12 were more than five years after the end of their prison or probation sentence.
Who did President Trump pardon? Many white collar criminals
The vast majority of those pardoned are not listed in the Justice Department’s petition database, so it is likely that they did not apply at all. A spokesperson said there was no deviation from the long-standing process and that the recommendations given to the president were “consistent, fair and upholds the rule of law.”
In some cases, his pardons send a message. For example, he quickly pardoned 19 people accused of violating the Freedom of Clinic Admissions Act (FACE), a 1994 law that prohibits physical interference with people undergoing abortions or intentional damage to reproductive health care facilities.
“This is a way for him to send a political message where he doesn’t have to divert funds. He doesn’t need cooperation from Congress. He doesn’t face the risk of being sued,” Mark Osler, a former federal prosecutor and current law professor, said in an interview with USA TODAY. “It’s not surprising that he accepted it this way.”
Looking at the other individual cases President Trump granted pardons for this year, about half of them involved white-collar crimes such as fraud, bribery, and tax evasion. CBS News first reported that some people have reported personal or financial ties to Trump, including Paul Walczak, a convicted tax evader whose mother is a longtime Republican donor, and Julio Herrera Bertini, whose daughter has donated millions of dollars to a MAGA PAC.
This is in line with Osler’s review of President Trump’s first round of pardons, published in the William & Mary Bill of Rights magazine, “The Trump Pardons: Celebrities, Confusion, and Missed Opportunities.” If President Trump’s pardons during his first term were an expression of his values, they were a demonstration of his fondness for “tough,” famous, and provocative people. Osler also wrote that his pardon unfairly favored crimes involving fraud.
Rachel Bercow, a law professor at New York University, said personal favoritism in pardons is nothing new, and the “big picture” of what we’re seeing from President Trump’s decision is different. Another key difference, she said, is the new role of Ed Martin, whose nomination as U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., was withdrawn in the face of backlash over his support for the Jan. 6 rioters. He was appointed to lead the federal government’s Weaponization Task Force, which investigates prosecutors that the Trump administration views as overly politicized.
“It’s a carrot and stick that demands loyalty and punishes dissent,” Bercow said. “And he’s using the pardon power as one of the mechanisms to say, if you pledge allegiance, I’ll support you.”
NBA YoungBoy, Honduran President and Larry Hoover Pardon Raise Eyebrows
Several high-profile cases have been pardoned by President Trump, some of them shocking. Here are some of the most notable pardon cases from President Trump’s first year in office.
- Rapper NBA YoungBoy (real name: Kentrell Golden) – He was convicted of federal firearms charges and pardoned in May 2025. The lyrics to his 2017 song read, “(expletive) Donald Trump.”
- Chicago gang leader Larry Hoover – Sentenced to multiple life sentences for murder, extortion, money laundering and other crimes, his federal sentence was commuted in May 2025. But Hoover remains in custody on state charges, and the presidential pardon does not apply.
- Binance founder Changpeng Zhao – admitted to financial crimes related to the cryptocurrency exchange and was pardoned in October.
- Democratic Congressman Henry Cuellar – He was indicted on charges of bribery, conspiracy, and money laundering in 2024 and pardoned in December 2025. Some expected the conservative Democrat to switch parties after the pardon, but he did not. President Trump called it a “lack of loyalty.”
- Former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez – He was sentenced to 45 years in prison for “cocaine importation and related weapons offenses,” according to the Justice Department. President Trump said he received the pardon because “people I greatly respect” told him that Hernandez had been “treated very harshly and unjustly.”
“False hope:” Applications for amnesty increase rapidly
Osler and Bercow, along with Kim Kardashian, visited the White House for a rare opportunity to discuss reforming the pardon process during the Trump administration’s first term. Mr. Trump entered his first term with more than 11,000 pending petitions, a record number for a modern-day president, Mr. Osler said.
That reform never materialized, and the period of unresolved issues grew even longer.
As of data published on January 6, more than 19,600 applications are pending. Nearly 16,000 were filed in 2025 and 2026, but less than 15,000 were received during former President Joe Biden’s entire term.
There may be hope for such applications to move forward this year, when Trump’s pardons regularly make headlines and apply to people who have not been pardoned in the past. Osler called it “false hope.”
“We’ve received thousands of petitions from people who are not famous, not wealthy, not connected, but are down in the road. Their stories are amazing stories of people changing dramatically, throwing away old habits and reinventing themselves,” said Osler, who runs a legal clinic that prepares petitions for free. “And they are completely ignored.”
Contributing: Aisha Bagchi, Hannah Phillips, Kathryn Palmer, Rebecca Morin, USA TODAY Network
Kinsey Crowley is a Trump Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Please contact KCrowley@usatodayco.com. follow her X (Twitter), blue sky and TikTok.
