What criteria does the Office of the Pardon Attorney use, and how often were its recommendations followed or bypassed during Trump’s administrations?
Executive summary
The Office of the Pardon Attorney (OPA) is the Department of Justice office that vets clemency petitions and makes recommendations to the President using longstanding administrative criteria—factors such as the nature and seriousness of the offense, evidence of rehabilitation, time since sentence completion, and conformity with DOJ procedures—but the President need not follow those recommendations and has broad, constitutionally conferred clemency power [1] [2]. During President Trump’s terms, reporting and official reviews show a clear pattern of frequent bypasses of the OPA process — in the first term fewer than half of clemency recipients had applied through OPA and later pardons in his second term continued that trend, accompanied by removals and replacements of the pardon attorney [3] [4] [5].
1. How the Office of the Pardon Attorney evaluates clemency petitions
The formal OPA process is administrative: petitions are submitted and the office assembles a file, conducts background checks, solicits views from prosecutors and judges when appropriate, and evaluates statutory and discretionary factors including offense seriousness, the petitioner’s post-conviction conduct and rehabilitation, elapsed time since sentence, and whether other remedies remain available; the office then prepares a recommendation for the President [1] [2]. The DOJ’s public FAQ and OPA materials emphasize that the President alone decides every clemency application, and that the OPA’s role is advisory—providing a structured, consistent record and recommendation but not a binding decision [1].
2. What “criteria” means in practice and informal rules that matter
Beyond the checklist, established practice places weight on equitable considerations (e.g., whether clemency would substantially benefit the petitioner), consistent application across similarly situated cases, and procedural prerequisites such as waiting periods after completion of sentence for some petitions; those internal norms are meant to channel clemency toward cases where rehabilitation and net public benefit are apparent [2] [6]. Critics and practitioners have long argued the OPA system is slow and opaque, prompting calls for reform even before the Trump years—an important context when assessing departures from standard practice [3] [7].
3. How often OPA recommendations were followed or bypassed under President Trump
Investigations by journalists and congressional staff found that President Trump repeatedly granted clemency to people who did not follow the formal OPA petition process and that in his first term “fewer than half” of recipients had applied through OPA, a metric used by observers as a proxy for bypassing standard vetting [3]. Subsequent reporting and DOJ disclosures from his second term show continued use of direct lobbying, political advocacy, and outside advocates to secure pardons, including cases tied to political allies and donors, signaling frequent departures from the OPA pathway [8] [4] [5]. Official DOJ clemency lists document the grants, but the office’s published statistics and outside investigations underscore the pattern: many clemency grants did not originate as OPA-recommended cases [9] [4].
4. Institutional shifts, personnel changes and their effects
The pattern was reinforced by personnel moves: the dismissal of career pardon attorney Liz Oyer and appointment of a politically aligned replacement was reported by multiple outlets as part of a broader remodeling of the clemency apparatus, and critics say those changes institutionalized a preference for politically connected petitions and ad-hoc routes into the Oval Office [4] [10]. Congressional hearings and a House report cataloged examples and warned that sidelining OPA undermined consistency and disadvantaged ordinary applicants who rely on the formal process [3] [7].
5. Assessment, competing views and limits of the public record
Defenders of direct presidential grants point out the Constitution vests the clemency power in the President and emphasize that rapid, discretionary grants can correct perceived prosecutorial overreach or advance policy aims; the DOJ and White House maintain the prerogative to act outside OPA channels [1] [11]. Critics counter that the combination of bypassing OPA, lucrative lobbying, and personnel changes created a system skewed toward allies and well-connected petitioners, eroding guardrails intended to ensure fairness [8] [3] [5]. Public records and reporting document the frequency of bypasses and personnel shifts but do not always provide a complete tally of which specific OPA recommendations were overruled; definitive comparative statistics beyond the cited findings are limited in the public record [9] [3].