How many federal pardons did Donald Trump issue and how does that compare to other presidents?
Executive summary
Donald Trump’s use of federal clemency has been unusually large in raw, recent terms because of two mass‑pardon actions in his second presidency, but exact totals depend on how one counts individual warrants, commutations and class proclamations; sources report roughly 238 named clemency grants from his first term and more than 1,500 additional pardons in his second, producing a multi‑thousand overall footprint when mass pardons are included [1] [2] [3]. Comparisons across presidents are complicated by differing recordkeeping and by proclamations that exempt Office of the Pardon Attorney (OPA) tallies, yet historians and analysts say Trump’s approach is notable less for raw volume among all presidents in U.S. history than for its political targeting and visibility [3] [4] [1].
1. The headline numbers: what the sources actually report
Reporting diverges by category: Wikipedia and contemporaneous lists count roughly 237–238 individual clemency actions (pardons, commutations and similar acts) in Trump’s first presidency (2017–2021) [1] [5], while other outlets record 143–144 individual pardons plus dozens of commutations in that same first term [6] [7]. In his second presidency, Trump issued mass pardons that alone account for about 1,500 pardons tied to January 6 defendants and other broad proclamations, and by mid‑2025 public tallies listed more than 1,600 clemency grants in that term [7] [2]. Incremental actions continued into 2026, including a batch of 13 pardons and eight commutations on January 15–17, 2026 [8].
2. Why totals vary: pardons vs. commutations vs. mass proclamations
Different outlets use different counting rules: some tallies list only named, individual warrants processed through the OPA; others add commutations and proclamations that extend clemency to entire classes or unlisted people [4]. The DOJ’s Office of the Pardon Attorney itself warns that its public statistics exclude group proclamations and items not routed through the OPA, which clouds apples‑to‑apples comparisons [4]. Independent trackers therefore report a range: “about 238 named individuals across both terms, plus mass pardons for thousands,” per The Fulcrum [3], while Wikipedia and interactive timelines offer slightly different aggregates depending on inclusion choices [5] [9].
3. How Trump compares to past presidents in raw and recent terms
On raw, historical totals some earlier presidents granted far more pardons when mass actions were common—for example, mid‑20th‑century and earlier presidents granted very large numbers as routine practice, and cataloguing exercises find thousands pardoned in prior eras [3] [9]. Among modern presidents, analysts note that Trump and Biden both issued clemency at a faster clip than many immediate predecessors, though the mix of pardons versus commutations and the political profile of beneficiaries differs sharply [10] [3]. Al Jazeera’s review placed Trump’s first‑term record at 144 pardons and 94 commutations, and contrasted that with President Biden’s 80 pardons and thousands of commutations—a reminder that raw comparisons pivot on metric choice [7].
4. The political and institutional context behind the numbers
Beyond the arithmetic, reporting flags distinctive features of Trump’s clemency project: frequent bypassing of the Office of the Pardon Attorney, appointments and firings in that office, and a pattern of grants for political allies, donors or high‑profile Jan. 6 and “fake elector” cases—actions that critics say erode traditional guardrails and that defenders frame as corrective of prosecutorial overreach [1] [2] [8]. Analysts caution that while Trump’s mass pardons are headline‑grabbing and consequential, historical presidents sometimes granted even larger class clemencies in service of reconciliation, complicating simple moral or numerical comparisons [3] [4].
5. Bottom line
If counted purely as individually named warrants in his first term, Trump issued roughly 237–238 clemency actions; if including his second‑term mass proclamations, his clemency footprint expands into the thousands (roughly 1,500+ mass pardons plus the earlier named grants), a total that places him among the most active modern users of the pardon power by recent‑era standards but not necessarily the single largest in all U.S. history once older mass‑pardon practices are considered [1] [2] [3].