House Judiciary Democrats · Staff Report · August 2026

How to buy a presidential pardon

A pardon is supposed to be earned — by showing remorse, paying your victims back, and proving you've changed. This report lays out how President Trump turned that century-old system into something closer to an auction, where access and money decide who walks free.

$1.65B

In victim repayments and penalties wiped out by his pardons

~14,000

Ordinary pardon requests left waiting at the Justice Department

290

Insiders Reuters linked to 197 successful pardon pushes

1st

First president ever to pardon whole companies, not just people

The pattern

The crimes are different and the middlemen are different, but every pardon in this report follows the same five steps — starting with a conviction that left victims owed money, and ending with those victims getting nothing. Here's how the machine works.

Trace the anatomy of a transaction

STEP 01

The conviction

Someone is convicted of fraud, tax crimes, or drug trafficking, and a court orders them to pay their victims back.

Milton faked a self-driving truck — ordered to repay $695M.

STEP 02

Pay an insider

They hire a lobbyist, fixer, or donor with a real line to Trump's inner circle.

Walczak's mother worked a $1M-a-plate Mar-a-Lago dinner.

STEP 03

Reach the President

That insider gets the case straight to Trump — skipping the Justice Department office that normally reviews pardons.

Zhao hired a lobbyist who is a friend of Trump Jr.

STEP 04

The pardon

Trump grants a full pardon — and often orders that the victim repayments never be collected.

Trump phoned Milton personally to tell him.

STEP 05

Victims get nothing

The money owed to victims and taxpayers is erased. No repayment, no appeal.

$695M owed to Milton's investors — gone.

Four transactions

Here are four deals that show the machine running. In each one, the report says, a criminal who never showed remorse pays people close to Trump; those insiders get the case to the President; and Trump grants the pardon — erasing the money the criminal owed their victims.

Four pardoned criminals

Trevor Milton

Nikola founder · securities & wire fraud

To hype his electric-truck company, Milton faked a video of a truck "driving on its own" — really, it had been towed uphill and allowed to coast down. Before the 2024 election, he and his wife gave $1.8M to pro-Trump groups. Two weeks after prosecutors set the $695M he owed his investors, the report says, Trump called him personally to grant a pardon.

Trump told him to "call Bobby and thank him" — Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose fundraising group had taken Milton's cash.

Paul Walczak

Nursing-home executive · tax crimes

Walczak pocketed $10.9M in taxes withheld from his low-wage employees' paychecks — money meant for the government — and spent it, the report says, on a yacht and shopping sprees at Cartier. His mother, a major Trump fundraiser, paid $1M for a seat at a Mar-a-Lago dinner to plead his case in person. Twelve days after he was sentenced, the pardon came.

Changpeng Zhao

Binance founder · anti-money-laundering failures

Zhao ran Binance, the world's biggest crypto exchange, which let more than 100,000 illegal transactions through — including money for terrorist groups, ransomware hackers, and child-abuse material. His company then propped up the Trump family's own crypto business through a $2B deal with a United Arab Emirates investor. Months later, Trump pardoned him — while claiming he had "no idea" who Zhao is.

Eliyahu "Eli" Weinstein

Two-time Ponzi operator · the loop that never closes

At the end of his first term, Trump already cut short Weinstein's 24-year sentence for running a Ponzi scheme — a fraud that pays old investors with new investors' money. Weinstein promptly started another one, stealing $44M from donors who thought they were funding masks and baby formula for war-torn Ukraine. At his 2025 trial he called himself "the Ponzi guy." Now serving 37 years, he's lobbying for a second pardon.

Stay tuned for more adventures in endless pardons for endless corruption.

About this page. Everything here — every fact, figure, and quote — comes from a single source: the House Judiciary Committee Democrats' staff report "Pardons, Inc." (August 2026), which you can download in full at the bottom of any page. This site presents that report's findings and wording; it does not independently confirm them. The dollar amounts come from the report's appendix, which used data from the Justice Department's own pardon office.

Part I·AThe demolition of the process

What a pardon was for — and what it became

For more than 130 years, presidents of both parties leaned on one Justice Department office — the Office of the Pardon Attorney — to vet clemency requests (requests for a pardon or a shorter sentence) fairly. Its whole purpose was to keep the White House from even looking like it was trading pardons for money or favors. The deals on the last page, the report argues, only became possible once that office was taken apart.

The ideal · pre-2025

Earned clemency

Career Justice Department lawyers judge each request against a public checklist of standards.
You had to prove it: that you'd reformed, felt remorse, changed your life, and paid your victims back — plus a real case for fairness and mercy.
Presidents of both parties at least checked with the pardon office before granting one.
Even when a sentence was shortened, the money owed to victims usually still had to be paid.

Pardons, Inc. · 2025–26

Purchased clemency

The decision moves into a tight, closed circle of White House advisers.
What decides it now is access and money — not whether you deserve it.
Pardons wipe out hundreds of millions in victim repayments, and often order that none be collected.
For the first time in U.S. history, whole companies get pardoned — not just people.

The dismantling, in three moves

How to Hijack the Process in Sixty-Two Days

DAY 0

March 7, 2025

The firing

Trump fires Elizabeth Oyer, the career official who ran the pardon office, after she refuses to recommend restoring the gun rights of actor and Trump supporter Mel Gibson. More than 6,000 clemency requests are waiting; her 40-person staff is reassigned to restoring gun rights for people with criminal records.
DAY 62

May 8, 2025

The replacement

After the Senate refuses to confirm him for a top prosecutor job, Ed Martin gets the pardon-office post instead. He sums up his approach as "No MAGA left behind" and, the report says, comes into work about once a week — while nearly 14,000 real clemency requests pile up.
AFTER

2025 — undated

The relocation

Trump sidelines the pardon office entirely, creating a new White House "Pardon Czar" and giving the job to Alice Marie Johnson — someone he had pardoned in his first term. Pulling the whole process inside the White House, the report says, "created the perfect environment for the emergence of a giant marketplace in the sale and purchase of clemency."

"Like high-top sneakers, golden watches, and the Bible, the presidential pardon has been turned into White House merchandise for the savvy consumer in the know."House Judiciary Democratic staff report

Part I·BThe players

The access merchants

The people running Pardons, Inc., the report says, aren't ordinary pardon lawyers — they're political fixers: well-connected insiders paid to pull strings. They coach clients to tell a story that echoes Trump's own complaints about prosecutors, then get that story in front of the White House. As one Trump campaign veteran put it: "there's a legal process and a political process for pardons and clemency."

Boris Epshteyn

Close Trump adviser

The report calls him the person who "best epitomizes the cash-for-clemency economy." He allegedly asked for monthly payments to promote people for government jobs — then was pardoned himself for his role in trying to overturn the 2020 election.

Keith Schiller

Ex-bodyguard, Oval Office ops

Was reportedly paid to lobby for "executive relief" by Fred Daibes — the developer convicted of bribing Senator Bob Menendez with gold bars.$1,000,000

Burkman & Wohl

Far-right operatives

Already convicted of a scheme to suppress Black voters. In 2025 they reported this much in pardon-related fees — including $960,000 from a pardoned nursing-home executive and $600,000 from the rapper Boosie Badazz.$3,200,000

Brett Tolman

Former U.S. Attorney

Advised Trump's first-term White House on pardons; the report links him to at least 12 second-term pardons or shortened sentences.

Roger Stone

First-term pardon recipient

Helped land at least five pardons, the report says — though he claims he was never paid for it.

Marty Obst

Campaign veteran, lobbyist

Described the business bluntly, naming the split the whole report turns on: the legal process, and the political one.

The going rate

$2MWhat Rudy Giuliani allegedly bragged, back in the first term, that he and Trump would split on each pardon. The report calls that "a quaint bargain" next to today's prices.

$2MThe going rate now for a middleman with a proven line to Trump's circle — for a single case.

$5MWhat some lobbying firms have been offered just to get one case in front of the President. A Trump-allied lobbyist called it "the Wild West."

$30MA price two insiders reportedly floated to win a pardon for one wealthy crypto defendant — so high, the report says, it "set off alarms even inside this thoroughly corrupt White House."

The report cites Reuters, which combed through thousands of records and found 290 "influencers" who pushed for pardons 624 times across 197 successful cases. Seventy-three of them landed more than one pardon; at least 110 are known Trump allies; and eleven had been pardoned by Trump themselves.

Part IIWho paid the price

The victims left behind

This is the core of the report's argument: these pardons don't just free criminals — they cut off justice for the people those criminals hurt. Every erased dollar was owed to a real person. Here's who got hurt, and never got paid back.

Juan Orlando Hernández

Former President of Honduras · narco-trafficking

U.S. prosecutors spent more than 15 years building this case. As president of Honduras, Hernández used his power — the report says — to protect the Sinaloa drug cartel's cocaine pipeline into the United States, bragging he would "shove the drugs right up the noses of the gringos." His 45-year sentence was celebrated as proof that even a head of state could be held accountable.

Then wealthy Trump allies — who had money tied up in a private Honduran "charter city" project — took up his cause. Hours after Roger Stone hand-delivered a letter from Hernández to the President, the report says, the pardon came through. The federal Bureau of Prisons then paid guards overtime to drive him to a luxury stay at the Waldorf Astoria hotel — on taxpayers' dime.

Michele Fiore

Las Vegas official · wire fraud

Fiore raised donations for a memorial to two fallen police officers, promising "100% of the contributions" would go toward it. The memorial had actually already been paid for by a private developer — so, the report says, she spent the donations on her rent, cosmetic surgery, and her daughter's wedding. She still refuses to pay the money back.

"She stole from murdered police officers. She is a piece of garbage." — a retired officer who knows the fallen officer's family.

Joseph Schwartz

Nursing-home magnate · payroll-tax fraud

Schwartz was sentenced for a $38 million payroll-tax fraud and lost several wrongful-death lawsuits for neglecting elderly nursing-home residents and denying them basic medical care. From prison, the report says, he spent nearly $1.1 million on lobbyists — reaching MAGA influencer Laura Loomer, the White House "Pardon Czar," and the White House's top lawyer.

Three months into a three-year sentence, the full pardon came. Now, the report says, he appears to be dodging the officials trying to collect on those wrongful-death judgments.

Herrera Velutini · Rossini · Vázquez Garced

International bribery scheme

Prosecutors charged Venezuelan billionaire Julio Herrera Velutini with secretly funneling $300,000 into a Puerto Rico governor's campaign in exchange for firing a regulator who was investigating his bank; a former FBI agent allegedly delivered the bribe. While the case was still open, the report says, the billionaire's daughter gave $2.5 million to a pro-Trump group, then another $1 million. The three got a light plea deal the judge called "a mere slap on the wrist" — and then full pardons.

Jason Galanis

Serial financial fraud

Galanis was once a business partner of Hunter Biden — and from his prison cell, he became a star witness for House Republicans trying to impeach President Biden. That effort failed, but the report says it won him friends in Trump's circle. Days after his pardon, he asked a court to return the $2 million he'd already repaid his victims. The court quickly said no.

Timothy Leiweke

Arena bid-rigging · pardoned pre-trial

Leiweke was charged with rigging the bidding to build an Austin arena and pushing other venues into ticketing deals loaded with secret kickbacks. The report notes he gave $250,000 to Trump's inauguration fund and hired a former congressman to lobby for him. Weeks after that lobbyist played golf with Trump, a pardon killed the case before it ever reached trial — and Leiweke's company still runs the arena.

Every one of these erased debts, the report argues, was money owed to a real victim — and to the federal Crime Victims Fund, which pays for domestic-violence shelters, rape crisis centers, and gun-violence prevention.

Part III · The LedgerThe sum of it

The bill, itemized

Behind every case is a dollar figure someone will never see again. Added up across the report's appendix — using figures from the Justice Department's own pardon office — this is the grand total Trump's pardons erased.

Restitution, forfeiture & fines erased

Money that convicted criminals — and pardoned companies — no longer owe to their victims, the government, or the Crime Victims Fund.

Restitution to victims

$1,097,902,363

Forfeiture

$350,716,404

Government fines

$204,812,218

The corporate frontier

The report calls Trump the first president ever to pardon entire companies — which, it argues, multiplies the fees collected, the crimes excused, and the damage done. The crypto exchange BitMEX and its founders had $130 million in fines erased on March 27, 2025, after promoting Trump's own crypto. Ozy Media and its CEO had $37 million in victim repayments and $59 million in seized gains wiped out just hours before he was due to report to prison.

The full appendix

Every pardon and shortened sentence the report logged, with the victim repayments, seized assets, and fines that were waived. Click a column heading to sort; type to filter.

Name ▲▼	Offense	Pardon date	Restitution	Forfeiture	Fines
Sub-totals →			$1,097,902,363	$350,716,404	$204,812,218

"Whoever said crime doesn't pay has not met Donald Trump and his pardoned class of white-collar criminals."House Judiciary Democratic staff report — Conclusion

Source. Everything on this site comes from a single document — the House Judiciary Committee Democrats' staff report, "Pardons, Inc.: How Trump and His Clemency-for-Cash Racket Let White-Collar Criminals and International Drug Dealers Walk Free and Dodge Billions in Restitution Owed to Their Victims" (August 2026). You can download the full report using the button below. The dollar figures are the report's own, taken from the Justice Department's pardon office. This site presents the report's findings and wording and does not independently verify them.