Which pardons and commutations issued by Trump (2017-2021) were for political donors or major campaign supporters?
Executive summary
Donald Trump issued 237 clemency actions in his first term (2017–2021), including 144 pardons and 93 commutations, and several grants during that period involved political allies, campaign advisers and at least one person identified in reporting as a direct campaign-connected figure — Roger Stone — whom Trump commuted in July 2020 [1] [2]. Reporting and watchdog analyses from that era and later establish a pattern where donors, political backers and allies received favorable clemency or commutations, but available sources do not provide a single, definitive roster that limits “political donors or major campaign supporters” to only a fixed list [1] [2] [3].
1. The scale: a high-volume, atypical clemency record
Trump’s first-term clemency numbers were unusually large for a modern president: 144 pardons and 94 commutations between 2017 and January 2021, for a total of 237 acts of clemency, a figure documented in public tallies of his first presidency [1]. That volume set the context in which individual decisions drew attention and scrutiny for apparent political ties [1].
2. Clear examples: campaign-connected beneficiaries
Journalistic coverage flagged several clear instances of clemency for close political allies or campaign-connected figures. The commuting of Roger Stone’s sentence in July 2020, a long-time Trump adviser tied directly to Trump’s political operation, was explicitly described as “a figure directly connected to the president’s campaign” [1] [2]. News reporting of the period also noted pardons and commutations for other allies and supporters in the final days of the administration [2].
3. Donors who later received clemency — reporting and watchdog findings
Investigations after Trump left office identified prominent donors who later benefited from pardons in his subsequent term; contemporaneous reporting and watchdog analysis linked sizable political donations to at least one high-profile pardon recipient from the later period — Trevor Milton — who, according to reporting, and was a major donor, having donated hundreds of thousands to Trump-aligned committees before a 2025 pardon [4] [3]. For 2017–2021 specifically, reporting and watchdogs raised questions about pardons for politically connected figures; the pattern of donor-linked clemencies became a recurrent critique in later analyses [3] [5].
4. Policy norms and departures noted by critics
Multiple outlets and advocacy groups argued that some of Trump’s clemency choices departed from usual Justice Department norms — which typically favor remorse, restitution and vetted petitions — and instead favored allies, loyalists and politically connected petitioners [3]. The Marshall Project and others documented clemency decisions they said violated established standards and highlighted cases — notably white‑collar defendants — that critics tied to political or fundraising relationships [3].
5. Limits of the public record for 2017–2021: what sources do and do not show
The Justice Department’s public clemency lists provide names and dates [6], and contemporary media coverage cataloged many high-profile cases [7] [2]. But available sources do not provide a single authoritative list that cross-references every 2017–2021 clemency recipient with campaign-donor databases to quantify “how many” were donors or “major supporters.” Reporting highlights specific illustrative cases and patterns rather than a comprehensive donor-linked roster for the first term [1] [2] [3].
6. Competing interpretations and political context
Supporters of the clemencies argued they corrected perceived injustices or addressed overzealous prosecutions; critics, watchdogs and congressional Democrats argued the moves reflected favoritism and sometimes returned roughly $1.3 billion in unpaid restitution and fines to those pardoned, according to a House Democrats’ memo summarizing impacts of clemency choices [5] [3]. Different outlets frame the same clemency acts either as necessary mercy or as reward for loyalty — an interpretive split that marks nearly all coverage of politically connected pardons [3] [5].
7. What a careful answer requires next
To produce a definitive list of 2017–2021 pardons and commutations that were explicitly for “political donors or major campaign supporters” would require cross-referencing DOJ clemency lists with Federal Election Commission donation records and contemporaneous reporting for each named individual; the sources provided here point to patterns and illustrative cases but do not perform that full crosswalk for every clemency in the period [6] [1] [3].
Limitations: this report uses only the supplied sources and therefore cannot assert whether every clemency recipient in 2017–2021 donated to Trump or campaigned for him; for many individuals, “political donor or major campaign supporter” status is not mentioned in the current reporting [6] [1].