Then-Reps. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) and Chris Collins (R-NY) were the first two House members to endorse Donald Trump in early 2016.
Both men were indicted on federal charges in 2018, and both nevertheless ran for reelection and won with explicit support from Trump.
After winning, Hunter and Collins both pleaded guilty in 2019. Hunter admitted to using campaign contributions for personal expenses and lavish family vacations. Collins pleaded guilty to insider trading charges related to his seat on a corporate board.
Both were given prison sentences, and in December 2020, both received full pardons from Trump. Hunter never spent a day behind bars.
Today, Collins is running for Congress from Florida, and Hunter is a lobbyist.
In October 2025, Hunter registered a new client: the son of late Watergate burglar G. Gordon Liddy, Raymond Liddy, who was convicted in early 2020 of possession of child pornography.
Welcome to the marketplace of Trump pardons. It’s a rogue’s gallery of felonies and favors, cronies and cash.
Every president has used the pardon power. Many presidents have abused the pardon power, with Democrats Bill Clinton and Joe Biden as the two most blatant recent examples.
And every person ever pardoned or granted clemency has been a criminal, by definition. Very few of them were completely sympathetic cases. The typical clemency recipient did something undeniably wrong, but reformed in prison. Many of them deserved prison sentences but were given ones that were too harsh.
For instance, the elder Liddy burgled the Democratic National Committee to help President Richard Nixon win reelection. President Jimmy Carter commuted his sentence to bring it in line with the other Watergate perpetrators.
And the younger Liddy received pornographic images of underage girls and saved them onto an external hard drive. On the flip side, he was never found to have solicited the pictures, and he expressed grave contrition. The younger Liddy’s case isn’t a clean one, but again, almost every clemency case involves serious misdeeds.
But Trump’s pardon economy is not typical. The problem isn’t that Trump is pardoning insider traders, campaign finance abusers, and child pornography possessors. The problem is the seedy but legal and lucrative market he has created of quid pro quo deals, insider enrichment, and abandonment of due process.
Trump hands out pardons to his supporters and donors, or to those who hire a lobbyist who is a supporter or donor. As he pledges to be the law-and-order president who cracks down on lawbreakers, he sets free those lawmakers who grease the right skids — or the right palms.
Again, Trump isn’t the first one to deal crookedly on clemency. Biden, after promising not to pardon his influence-peddling, illegal-gun-owning, drug-abusing son Hunter, went ahead and did it at the very last moment of his presidency.
Clinton, in his final hours as president, sold a pardon to fugitive financier Marc Rich, who fled the country in 1983 before his trial. His wife, Denise Rich, lavished Clinton with gifts worth $450,000 plus $100,000 to Hillary Clinton’s Senate campaign.
But under no other presidency have the pardons flowed as freely, and no other president has made the quid pro quo so obvious.
Paul Walczak, the son of a prominent GOP donor, got a Trump pardon in April 2025. Felonious cryptocurrency mogul Changpeng Zhao has close business ties to a Trump family financial company, and Zhao got a Trump pardon in November. Republican donor Trevor Milton, an electric truck maker, also got a Trump pardon in March.
The existence of a quid and a quo, of course, does not prove a quid pro quo, but Trump’s own words do that.
Consider Trump’s pardon of Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX). Helping a Democrat wasn’t unique for Trump.
Trump, in 2020, commuted the sentence of Democrat Rod Blagojevich, the disgraced former governor of Illinois. Blagojevich then endorsed Trump in 2020 and 2024, appearing at the Republican National Convention in 2024. When Trump came back to office in early 2025, he gave Blagojevich a full pardon.
Eric Adams, also a Democrat, didn’t need a pardon because Trump’s Justice Department pushed prosecutors to drop corruption charges against the then-mayor of New York. He subsequently became a public advocate for Trump.
The Cuellar pardon went differently. Trump pardoned the congressman this year before Cuellar even faced a trial over allegations that he took $600,000 in bribes from Azerbaijan’s state-owned oil company. Once pardoned, Cuellar continued on as usual and filed to run for reelection as a Democrat.
This was not what Trump expected. Trump attacked Cuellar for a “lack of loyalty.” The clear implication: Trump’s pardon should have won Cuellar’s political allegiance.
It’s obvious that Trump hands out clemency in expectation of a return favor.
Of course, Trump and his clemency recipients aren’t the only beneficiaries of the Trump pardon industry. There’s also a burgeoning industry of lobbyists who serve to connect the convicts with the quid pro quo president.
Ten different lobbyists have registered to lobby explicitly on pardons or clemency for nine different people since Trump’s second term began, according to filings in the Lobbying Disclosure Act database. By comparison, there were zero lobbying registrations mentioning either clemency or pardons in the first year of any previous presidential term since lobbying registration began.
These lobbyists generally have a history of helping Trump in some way. Convicted financial fraudster Selim Zherka, in October 2025, hired Robert Ray, who was one of Trump’s impeachment lawyers, to lobby for a pardon. Convicted former healthcare mogul Richard Scrushy has hired Mar-a-Lago regular and Trump fundraiser Martha Fain.
Boozie Badass, a rapper whose real name is Torance Hatch, has hired as his pardon lobbyists Jack Burkman and Jacob Wohl. Burkman, in 2016, billed himself as the first major lobbyist to raise funds for Trump. Both Burkman and Wohl were convicted of telecommunications fraud in 2022.
Greg Lindberg, convicted of a money laundering scheme, has hired Trump’s old bodyguard, Keith Schiller, as his pardon lobbyist.
The pardon-lobbying industry is so profitable for Trump insiders, or those who can pose as Trump insiders, because Trump has no regular process for deciding on pardons. He’s scrapped the former DOJ process for considering clemency and instead pardons those who flatter him and those from whom he thinks he has something to gain. This irregularity and transactional nature have defined Trump’s time in power.
It’s bad news for the rule of law. It’s a great model for Trump and his friends.