How many pardons and commutations did Donald Trump grant during his presidency?
Executive summary
Available sources show wide disagreement about totals and that counting depends on whether you include mass pardons for January 6 defendants. Reuters and DOJ pages list specific actions but do not give a single cumulative total; media outlets report that Trump’s first term included 237 clemency actions (143 pardons, 94 commutations) and that his second term actions, including a mass January 6 proclamation, pushed his overall clemency footprint into the hundreds or low thousands depending on counting [1] [2] [3]. Exact final totals are not consolidated in the supplied reporting; available sources do not mention a single authoritative aggregate number covering both terms [3] [4].
1. What the official records show — patchwork DOJ postings
The Justice Department maintains lists of clemency recipients and has posted pages for Trump’s clemency actions, but the DOJ’s public pages in the supplied results are organized by topic (e.g., January 6-related grants) or by presidency rather than as a single up‑to‑date aggregate total across both terms; the specific, consolidated grand total is not given on the DOJ pages included in the search results [3] [4].
2. First term numbers that are commonly cited
Multiple outlets and consolidated lists report that during Trump’s first presidency he granted 237 acts of clemency — commonly parsed as 143 pardons and 94 commutations — a figure attributed to research such as Pew and repeated in BBC and Wikipedia summaries [2] [1] [5]. That 237 figure is the clearest, repeatedly cited baseline for Trump’s first term in the supplied sources [2] [1].
3. Second term: mass pardons make totals volatile
Reporting on Trump’s second term emphasizes one large, consequential action: an early proclamation pardoning or commuting a very large number of people charged in connection with the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack. BBC reported “almost 1,600” people tied to January 6 received pardons or commutations under that action, and other outlets describe a first‑day sweep that added roughly 1,500 to his tally, which dramatically changes any running total depending on whether those names are counted alongside individualized grants [1] [6].
4. How different outlets add up to different totals
Newsweek, The Guardian, Forbes and advocacy groups compile lists that focus on subsets—GOP lawmakers, political allies, or corruption cases—and arrive at different headline totals because they include different categories (e.g., individualized pardons, commutations, mass January 6 proclamations) and update at different times; one legal firm cited a DOJ figure of 58 pardons and 12 commutations as of January 2025 before counting the January 6 group, then added the January 6 grants to reach a much larger number [7] [8] [9] [10].
5. Political context and competing interpretations
Supporters frame the mass pardons and commutations as corrective — addressing perceived injustices and political prosecutions — while critics argue the grants rewarded allies, loyalists and participants in an effort to overturn the 2020 election; watchdogs like CREW document dozens of pardons for elected officials and point to political ties as a pattern [11] [9] [8]. Sources diverge on tone but converge on one fact: the president used clemency expansively and often in politically salient cases [8] [11].
6. What can’t be asserted from the supplied reporting
A single, authoritative grand total covering every pardon and commutation Trump issued across both presidencies (counting individualized grants and mass proclamations exactly once) is not present in the supplied search results; therefore I cannot state a definitive cumulative number beyond the documented 237 in the first term and widely reported mass actions in the second term without risking contradiction of the available sources [2] [1] [3].
7. How to reconcile counts if you need a single number
If you add the widely cited 237 first‑term acts to the widely reported ~1,500 January‑6 pardons/commutations from the second term you reach a figure in the ballpark of ~1,700 clemency actions, but different outlets report slightly different January 6 totals (e.g., “almost 1,600” or “around 1,500”) and other individualized second‑term pardons/commutations are reported elsewhere, so any single aggregate should be presented with its counting rules and source cited [1] [6] [8].
Limitations: this account is restricted to the supplied sources and their figures; a final, authoritative aggregate would come from a consolidated DOJ tally that lists every recipient and the date/type of clemency — that consolidated list is not present in the results provided here [3] [4].