How many pardons and commutations did Donald Trump issue by year during his presidency?
Executive summary
Donald Trump granted 237 acts of clemency in his first presidency (2017–2021), which reporting breaks down as 143 pardons and 94 commutations during that term [1]. Reporting from 2025 shows a dramatic surge in his second term: outlets report more than 70 pardons in the first 10 months of the second term and totals running into the hundreds or thousands for 2025 alone — Business Insider cites “more than 1,600” clemency grants in 2025 compared with 238 in his entire first term [2] [3] [1].
1. A clear baseline: what Trump did, 2017–2021
The Department of Justice’s Office of the Pardon Attorney and contemporary press tallies record that during Trump’s first four years he issued 237 clemency actions: 143 pardons and 94 commutations [1] [4]. Public DOJ pages list the individual pardons and commutations for 2017–2021, and major outlets catalog those end‑of‑term lists [5] [6].
2. The first-term yearly breakdown journalists cite
Detailed breakdowns compiled by press and reference sources show the timing concentrated late in the first term: press summaries attribute 1 pardon in 2017, 6 in 2018, 11 in 2019, 52 in 2020, and a large batch on January 2021 — adding up to the widely cited 144 pardons in that span though overall clemency actions total 237 when commutations are included [7] [6] [1]. The DOJ site supplies the underlying warrants and dates for those grants [5].
3. The second term: scale and pace changed dramatically
Multiple outlets report that Trump’s second term involved an exponential increase in clemency activity. Reuters noted “70 pardons in the first 10 months” of his second term and said he was on pace to exceed modern predecessors [2]. Business Insider and Newsweek cite totals that place 2025 clemency counts far above his first term: Business Insider reported “more than 1,600” clemency grants in that year alone, contrasted with roughly 238 acts in the first term [3] [1]. Newsweek and other outlets catalog many high‑profile second‑term pardons and commutations [8] [9].
4. How counts differ by definition and source
Sources disagree on headline numbers because “clemency” can mean pardons and commutations together, and some outlets report only pardons while others combine both. For example, the oft‑cited 237 figure refers to total clemency acts in the first term [1], while some summaries emphasize 143 pardons alone [1]. Second‑term tallies vary widely; Reuters and Business Insider both report large but different measures [2] [3]. DOJ’s Office of the Pardon Attorney pages are the primary source for warrant‑level dates and are the anchor for year‑by‑year parsing [5] [10].
5. The big policy and political context behind the numbers
Reporting emphasizes that Trump’s clemency choices frequently favored political allies, donors, or those tied to his causes — a pattern flagged by The Guardian, Forbes, Reuters and others [11] [12] [2]. Critics pointed to bypassing traditional Office of the Pardon Attorney vetting and to the political motives behind many grants; Wikipedia’s coverage summarizes those institutional critiques and personnel shifts at the pardon office [13]. Supporters and White House spokespeople framed many grants as correcting perceived prosecutorial overreach [14].
6. What sources do and do not provide on year-by-year totals
Available sources give a reliable year‑by‑year breakdown for the 2017–2021 term [7] [6] [5]. For the 2025 second term, reporting gives aggregated snapshots (e.g., “70 pardons in first 10 months,” “more than 1,600 clemencies this year”) but does not present a unified, DOJ‑published year‑by‑year table in the supplied reporting set; the Justice Department’s current clemency pages and press listings should be consulted for authoritative, dated warrants [2] [3] [5]. Available sources do not mention a consolidated, source‑verified annual ledger from 2025 broken down by exact count per calendar year in this bundle of reporting.
7. What a careful reader should take away
For 2017–2021, the year‑by‑year pattern is documented in DOJ and press records: a handful of grants early, and a concentration at the end of the term, totaling 237 clemency acts including 143 pardons and 94 commutations [5] [1]. For the second term, multiple reputable outlets report a steep surge [2] [3], but discrepancies between outlets and the absence in this search set of a single DOJ‑published annual summary for 2025 mean precise calendar‑year totals should be verified against the DOJ’s clemency warrants pages for definitive counts [5].
If you want, I can pull the exact DOJ warrant lists for each calendar year covered here and produce a table of pardons vs. commutations by year based strictly on the department’s published warrants [5].