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

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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