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How many pardons did Donald Trump issue during his presidency?
Executive summary
Available official records and contemporaneous White House materials show that in his first term (2017–2021) Donald Trump issued 73 pardons and 70 commutations as announced on January 20, 2021 [1], and Justice Department archival pages list pardons from that first presidency [2]. Coverage of a second Trump presidency — including large batch pardons for Jan. 6 defendants and many later individual grants — shows the number of clemency actions increased dramatically, with outside counts and partisan tallies describing totals ranging from dozens to more than a thousand depending on which actions (pardons, commutations, blanket grants) are counted and how they are categorized [3] [4] [5].
1. What the official records say about Trump’s first presidency clemency totals
The White House posted a January 20, 2021 statement saying “President Donald J. Trump granted pardons to 73 individuals and commuted the sentences of an additional 70 individuals,” a combined total often cited for his first term [1]. The Justice Department Office of the Pardon Attorney maintains a page listing “Pardons Granted by President Donald J. Trump (2017–2021),” providing the primary archival source for the first-term individual warrants and related documents [2].
2. How second-term and post-2024 reporting complicates a single-number answer
Reporting from 2025 and later documents show a second Trump presidency that used clemency power on a much larger scale, including mass or blanket pardons tied to January 6 prosecutions and dozens of additional individual pardons across many categories [3] [5]. Because some of those actions took the form of mass pardons, repeated pardons of the same individual, or commutations vs. full pardons, simple tallies differ across outlets and advocacy groups [3] [6] [5].
3. Divergent tallies from partisan and oversight groups
Democratic House Judiciary Democrats published an analysis asserting that “since beginning his second term, Donald Trump has pardoned or granted clemency to nearly 1,600 people,” and they describe a “mass blanket pardon to 1,500 January 6 felons” as part of that count [4]. By contrast, conservative outlets and sympathetic commentators have highlighted targeted lists (for example, a claim of 77 pardons for specific alternate-elector participants) and emphasized political motives and legal theories behind particular batches [7]. These differences show that totals depend on whether you count every listed name, how you treat mass or category-wide grants, and whether commutations are included [7] [4].
4. Examples that illustrate why counting is tricky
Several reporting items underscore complexity: the Justice Department posted a new page for “Clemency Grants by President Donald J. Trump (2025–Present)” focused on January 6–related grants [3]; news outlets noted Trump pardoned individual high-profile figures such as Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows and others tied to 2020 election challenges [8]; and outlets reported repeated or corrective pardons — for example, Trump issued a second pardon for Jan. 6 defendant Dan Wilson to cover a separate firearms conviction [6]. Those sorts of actions — mass pardons, re-issued pardons, and mixes of commutation and pardon — make a one-line total unstable across sources [3] [8] [6].
5. Disagreements about scope, victims’ restitution and political intent
Oversight and partisan analyses reach starkly different conclusions about impact and intent. The House Judiciary Democrats argue Trump’s “pardon spree” wiped out restitution and fines totaling $1.3 billion tied to roughly 1,500 Jan. 6 defendants and other clemency recipients [4]. Advocacy groups such as Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington tracked the political profile of recipients, noting dozens of pardons for politicians convicted of corruption [9]. Conservative outlets and some proponents frame many pardons as correcting perceived prosecutorial overreach or protecting political allies [7] [8]. These competing framings matter when interpreting any headline number because they reveal differing selection and counting rules [4] [9] [7].
6. What a careful reader should take away
If you want a narrowly supported figure for Trump’s first four years, cite the White House/DOJ combined first-term numbers: 73 pardons and 70 commutations as announced January 20, 2021, with DOJ archival pages for 2017–2021 available [1] [2]. For the second term and later actions, available reporting documents many hundreds — and by some partisan counts, more than a thousand — additional clemency actions, especially after mass pardons tied to January 6; the exact total varies by source and by whether commutations, mass/blanket pardons, and repeat pardons are all counted [3] [4] [5].
Limitations: available sources do not provide a single, universally agreed total that combines first and second presidencies using one consistent counting method; different outlets and partisan actors use different inclusion rules and produce divergent totals [4] [7].