How many pardons and commutations of convicted criminals has Trump made?

1. A clear official baseline — what government records show and why they matter

The most concrete starting point is the Office of the Pardon Attorney and Justice Department publications: they list 157 pardons and commutations issued by Trump in his 2017–2021 presidency and, separately, a 2025 Justice Department listing documenting 44 pardons and 4 commutations in the current term through May 27, 2025. These official datasets matter because they reflect formal proclamations and processed clemency actions recorded by the executive clemency apparatus; they provide a verifiable, government-certified count rather than extrapolations or press compilations. The Justice Department listings are contemporaneous administrative records used for legal and archival purposes and form the baseline against which other claims are measured ^{[1] [2]}.

2. Why independent tallies report much higher numbers — methodology and claims

Outside organizations and congressional staff have produced much larger totals by employing broader criteria and aggregating names from multiple sources. A House Judiciary Committee Democratic memo and some advocacy groups count nearly 1,600–1,700 people, arguing that many clemency actions in 2025 and lists linked to January 6 were expansive or not fully transparent, and thus should be included. Wikipedia-based compilations and watchdog tallies have similarly suggested totals around 1,500–1,700, often citing lump-sum proclamations, unnamed “not limited to” clauses, and later administrative entries as grounds for higher counts. Those organizations explicitly frame their calculations to emphasize scope and alleged impact on victims and restitution, which causes divergence from the narrower official roll ^{[3] [4] [5]}.

3. The disputed January 6 count — who is included and the evidentiary knots

A central point of contention is claims that about 1,500 people convicted in connection with the January 6 Capitol attack received clemency or pardons. Some freely circulating tallies derive that figure from lists and media reporting that link pardons, commutations, and broader “clemency” language to many January 6 defendants; others note that official proclamations explicitly list dozens but also contain language that the list is “not limited to,” creating interpretive room. The Justice Department’s formal entries do not currently corroborate a single consolidated mass grant to 1,500 individuals; instead, the larger numbers come from secondary compilations and partisan memos that include pending entries and grouped interpretations, a methodological choice that explains much of the numerical gulf ^{[5] [6] [4]}.

4. What to take away — reconciling official counts and activist tallies

Reconciling these figures requires recognizing two facts: the official, documented total across both administrations through late May 2025 — combining the 157 grants (2017–2021) and the 48 documented 2025 grants — equals 205 documented clemency actions in government records, and independent tallies escalate the figure substantially by broadening inclusion rules, relying on incomplete lists, or interpreting proclamations expansively. Both types of sources have agendas: government records prioritize legal formality and archival certainty, while watchdogs and congressional Democrats highlight scale and perceived policy implications; both perspectives are factual within their methodologies but not interchangeable without clarifying definitions. Readers should treat the 205 figure as the verifiable baseline and larger totals as contested aggregates driven by definitional choices ^{[1] [2] [4]}.