A Year of Presidential Clemencies Bring Little Hope for Federal Prisoners- Update for December 29, 2025

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

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CLEMENCY YEAR IN REVIEW

The conservative Washington Examiner last week reviewed President Trump’s unprecedented first-year clemency record of more than 1,600 people. The report was not favorable.

The lesson from over 11 months of Trump’s pardons and commutations is clear: if you don’t have rich parents, a MAGA flag and hat, or a means of enriching the Trump family, your odds of clemency rival those of winning the Powerball.

“On his first day back in office, Trump issued sweeping pardons for those tied to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol,” the Examiner wrote. “In November, he also moved preemptively to pardon several political allies, including Rudy Giuliani, former chief of staff Mark Meadows, and attorneys Sidney Powell and John Eastman, even though none were facing federal criminal charges at the time.”

The Examiner then listed Trump’s five most controversial clemency actions. Top of its list was the clemency for drug black market operator Ross Ulbricht last February, whom Trump promised to pardon when he pitched the Libertarian Party convention in 2024 for political support. Trump paid off within a month of taking office.

Second on the list was the pardon of Changpeng Zhao, founder of Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. Zhao was sentenced to four months in prison in April 2024 after pleading guilty to money laundering. Zhao and Binance have been key supporters of the Trump family’s crypto enterprises.

Third was former congressman George Santos, a serial liar sentenced in April to seven years in federal prison after pleading guilty to fraud and identity theft. Santos served about four months in a camp before being pardoned. The Examiner also cited this month’s pardon of former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez, who had been serving a 45-year sentence at USP Hazelton for a massive drug trafficking operation that moved more than 400 tons of cocaine into the United States. Reports at the time suggested Trump sought to influence the Honduran presidential election, going on at the time.

For the final pardon on its “top five” list the Examiner noted this month’s pardon of Rep Henry Cuellar (D-TX), charged but not yet convicted of bribery and money laundering. In a Truth Social post, Trump said he never spoke to Cuellar or anyone in his family, but he felt good about “fighting for a family that was tormented by very sick and deranged people – They were treated sooo BADLY!” Of course, Cuellar is a Democrat, which makes it unlikely that a Biden Administration Dept of Justice would have targeted him unfairly.

Ironically, Trump responded in fury a few days after the pardon, as Cuellar filed to run again as a Democrat rather than turning Republican out of “loyalty” to the President.

The Washington Post reported that at least 20 people who have received clemency from Trump so far this year were also forgiven of restitution totaling tens of millions of dollars. For some, restitution was more onerous than the sentence. Paul Walczak, a health care executive convicted of willfully failing to pay over $4 million in taxes withheld from his employees and willfully failing to file individual tax returns, was sentenced in April to 18 months in prison. He was pardoned before serving a day, wiping out his $4 million restitution obligation to the IRS.

The common thread connecting almost all of Trump’s clemencies is that the beneficiaries had committed offenses with political import, had money ties to Trump or were supporters of the President.  The Jan 6 rioters fell into the first category. Walczak’s pardon came after his mother had raised millions of dollars for Trump’s campaigns and was involved in an effort to sabotage President Biden’s 2020 campaign by publicizing the addiction diary of his daughter Ashley, an episode that The New York Times said “drew law enforcement scrutiny.”

Trevor Milton, convicted of lying to investors to pump the stock of his company, electric vehicle maker Nikola, was sentenced to four years in prison and over $600 million  In discussing the pardon, which left investors high and dry, In describing his decision to pardon Milton, Trump said, “And they say the thing that he did wrong was he was one of the first people that supported a gentleman named Donald Trump for president. He supported Trump. He liked Trump.”

The transactional nature of Trump’s presidency was brought home a few weeks ago in an unusual quid pro quo raised in a video last week by former Pardon Attorney Elizabeth Oyer. You may recall that the Obama Administration brought a sprawling fraud case against FIFA and over 30 other defendants. The remnants of that case are now in front of the Supreme Court in petitions for certiorari brought by two defendants.

Earlier this month, world soccer organization FIFA announced a new “peace prize” that would be bestowed on a recipient who has taken “exceptional and extraordinary actions for peace and by doing so have united people across the world.” The inaugural FIFA “Peace Prize,” unsurprisingly, was awarded to President Trump on December 5.

Four days later, the DOJ filed a F.R.Crim.P. 48 motion to dismiss the indictment “in the interests of justice.”   In a Facebook post, Oyer reported that the dismissal came over the objection of the line prosecutor who had obtained the convictions.  She said, “This is a huge deal because it could also unravel dozens of other convictions of soccer officials and sports executives. It could also mean that the government has to return hundreds of millions of dollars in penalties paid by these people. It’s also a big deal because it’s an example of corruption at work. In Trump’s America, justice can be bought: all it takes is a shiny object or a large check.”

Washington Examiner, Trump’s five most controversial pardons of 2025 (December 25, 2025)

Washington Post, Trump’s pardons wipe out payments to defrauded victims (December 19, 2025)

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

CNN, What is the FIFA Peace Prize and why did Donald Trump win? (December 5, 2025)

Facebook, Days after FIFA gave him a medal, Trump’s DOJ started dismantling a major corruption prosecution (December 22, 2025)

~ Thomas L. Root