Trump clemency process shifts to allies, lobbyists and access

A pardon once meant to pass through the Justice Department now often begins with a call, a donor relationship or a well-placed intermediary. Reuters says the Trump clemency system has become far more personal and informal, with allies, lobbyists and influencers helping decide who gets near the president at all.

The old gatekeeper, and why it mattered

The formal federal clemency process was designed to impose structure on one of the presidency’s broadest powers. The Justice Department says applications are supposed to go through the Office of the Pardon Attorney, which receives, evaluates and investigates requests before preparing a recommendation for the president. That office traces its modern authority to an executive order dated June 16, 1893, and the National Archives says the office was established within DOJ by an act of March 3, 1891, then redesignated the Office of the Pardon Attorney in 1894.

That architecture was meant to make mercy less arbitrary. National Archives records also show that the clemency power did not always sit inside DOJ: from 1789 to 1853, the Secretary of State and the Attorney General shared responsibility for helping the president exercise it. The point of the later system was discipline, review and institutional memory, not private access or political theater.

How Reuters says access now works

Reuters reviewed pardon and clemency records, lobbying data and electoral links, and interviewed more than 80 people familiar with clemency decisions during Trump’s current term. Its central finding is stark: 96% of Trump’s second-term clemency grants did not meet longstanding Justice Department guidelines, and its review covered more than 1,700 people granted clemency since January 2025.

That matters because the shift is not just administrative. Reuters concludes that winning clemency now often depends on who can get the president’s attention through personal, political or financial connections. In that environment, former administration figures, donors and celebrity-style political influencers can all become part of the pathway to relief, while the traditional filter at the Pardon Attorney’s office becomes less central.

Trump’s reference to “Bobby” captures the same dynamic. The point is not the nickname itself, but the way familiarity can matter more than file review, legal screening or the kind of standardized process that was supposed to make the system more even-handed.

Trevor Milton shows how the new system can work

The clearest example in the report is Trevor Milton, the electric-vehicle entrepreneur and donor whom Trump pardoned on March 28, 2025. Milton had been convicted in October 2022 of securities fraud and wire fraud tied to Nikola Corp., a case that had already made him a symbol of corporate deception and investor harm.

Reuters said Trump phoned Milton days before granting the pardon, a detail that underscores how direct personal access can now sit above ordinary bureaucratic review. The report also says Milton and his wife gave $1.8 million to a pro-Trump PAC, sharpening the concern that political and financial ties can matter as much as, or more than, the merits of the underlying case.

That is where the accountability question becomes unavoidable. When a donor can move through the process by way of a call, a relationship or a political network, the system begins to look less like neutral review and more like access brokerage. For people without money, status or a prominent intermediary, the path is far steeper.

Why critics see a fairness and transparency problem

Former pardon officials and legal watchdogs say this approach departs sharply from the norms that were meant to constrain clemency. The concern is not simply that Trump is using his constitutional power aggressively. It is that the power appears to be exercised in a more personal and less rule-bound way, blurring the line between legal judgment, political allegiance and private favor.

Congressional Democrats have opened a pay-to-play inquiry into pardon recipients, seeking records that could show whether people paid lawyers, lobbyists, social media influencers or others to advocate for them. That investigation reflects a broader fear that clemency has become marketable, with access sold through the kind of influence economy that advantages the connected and sidelines everyone else.

The White House has also reportedly paused and repeatedly altered parts of the clemency process because of concerns that outsiders were trying to profit from access to pardons. That detail matters because it suggests even inside the administration there have been alarms about how porous the process has become.

What clemency can change, and who bears the cost

Federal pardons are powerful because they can erase convictions and relieve financial obligations such as fines or restitution. They can also reshape legal and political outcomes for recipients, victims and communities, which is why process and transparency matter so much. But they cannot erase state criminal offenses; they apply only to federal convictions, D.C. Superior Court convictions and military court-martial proceedings.

That legal boundary is important, but so is the public one. When clemency becomes personalized, the people most likely to benefit are those with access to donors, lobbyists, former officials or media-savvy advocates. The people left behind are those who lack the capital to buy attention, or the connections to make a president answer the phone.

At stake is more than one president’s style. If the pardon power is increasingly exercised through informal networks rather than the Justice Department’s structured review, the result is a system that rewards proximity over parity and loyalty over equal treatment. That is a shift in process, but it is also a shift in power.