Since returning to office in January 2025, Donald Trump has granted executive clemency to more than 1,800 people — a staggering figure that includes January 6 insurrectionists, convicted drug traffickers, corporate fraudsters, and a former foreign head of state. The pace and breadth of these pardons have no modern precedent, and they have ignited a fierce constitutional debate over whether the presidency’s most unchecked power has finally been broken beyond repair.
Day One Set the Tone
Trump wasted no time. On his first day back in the Oval Office, he issued a blanket pardon covering approximately 1,500 people charged or convicted in connection with the violent assault on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. That single act — covering everyone from those convicted of seditious conspiracy to those who assaulted police officers — set the tenor for everything that followed. Defense attorneys immediately began arguing the pardons applied to related state charges as well, creating legal confusion that courts are still sorting out.
Within one day, Trump also pardoned Ross Ulbricht, the creator of the Silk Road dark web marketplace. Ulbricht had been serving two life sentences plus 40 years for running an underground e-commerce operation that facilitated more than $183 million in drug sales and was linked to at least six overdose deaths. Trump’s pardon wiped away roughly $183 million in restitution and fines Ulbricht owed.
Fraudsters, Kingpins, and a Former President of Honduras
The pardons quickly expanded into territory that left even some Republican allies uneasy. Trevor Milton, founder of electric truck startup Nikola, had been convicted of fraud and faced roughly $675 million in restitution to bilked shareholders. Milton and his wife donated more than $1.8 million to a Trump re-election fund shortly before the November election. He received a full and unconditional pardon in March 2025, and his restitution was wiped out entirely.
Then came the drug kingpins. In May 2025, Trump pardoned Garnett Gilbert Smith, described by the DEA as one of the largest cocaine and heroin dealers in Baltimore’s history. Smith had moved more than 1,000 kilograms of cocaine in under two years. By November 2025, Trump announced a pardon for former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who had been convicted of facilitating the transport of 400 tons of cocaine into the United States and sentenced to 45 years in federal prison. The pardon came after Trump ally Roger Stone contacted the president directly.
Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, who pleaded guilty to failing to maintain anti-money laundering controls that allowed funds to flow to terrorists and child abusers, also received a full pardon — raising eyebrows given his business ties to the Trump family’s cryptocurrency venture, World Liberty Financial.
$1.3 Billion Owed to Victims — Gone
A staff analysis released by Rep. Jamie Raskin of the House Judiciary Committee calculated that Trump’s pardons erased $1.3 billion in restitution and fines owed to crime victims and American taxpayers. Jason Galanis, sentenced to 15 years for defrauding the Oglala Sioux Nation of $60 million, saw his $84.4 million restitution obligation disappear. Paul Walczak, who stole $4.4 million from employee paychecks, had his prison sentence and restitution wiped clean — weeks after his mother donated $1 million to a Trump fundraiser.
More than half of Trump’s pardons have gone to people convicted of money laundering, bank fraud, or wire fraud. Half the recipients have been business executives or politicians. Lobbyists told The Wall Street Journal that fees of $1 million are now standard for pardon lobbying, with some clients offering success fees as high as $6 million.
What Hamilton Got Wrong
In The Federalist Papers: No. 74 (The Command of the Military and Naval Forces, and the Pardoning Power of the Executive), Alexander Hamilton, Founding Father who served as the first U.S. secretary of the treasury from 1789 to 1795 under the presidency of George Washington, argued that placing the pardon power in a single person’s hands would “naturally inspire scrupulousness and caution.” He believed the president’s sense of sole responsibility would prevent abuse — that no leader would be shameless enough to misuse so grave a prerogative. Hamilton envisioned pardons as instruments of mercy, tempering the severity of criminal law in cases of “unfortunate guilt.”
Modern scholars have called this assumption “Hamilton’s Folly” — a philosophical blind spot rooted in 18th-century optimism about presidential character. The Constitution offers almost no checks on the pardon power. Impeachment requires a two-thirds Senate majority that has never been reached. The Supreme Court lacks original jurisdiction over pardons.
A Constitutional Fix That Faces Long Odds
In February 2026, Rep. Don Bacon became the first House Republican to cosponsor the Pardon Integrity Act, a proposed constitutional amendment that would give Congress the power to block presidential pardons. “It is clear to me the pardon authority has been abused,” Bacon said. Rep. Steve Cohen has proposed a separate amendment prohibiting self-pardons and pardons for crimes that directly benefit the president.
But a constitutional amendment requires two-thirds majorities in both chambers and ratification by 38 states — an almost impossibly high bar in the current political environment. For now, the pardon power remains what it has always been: stunningly unfettered, dependent entirely on the character of whoever holds the office. Hamilton bet everything on presidential virtue. That bet has not aged well.
