President Donald Trump’s sweeping pardon of Rudy Giuliani, Jeffrey Clark, Mark Meadows, and more than 70 other allies involved in efforts to challenge the 2020 election could upend the legal landscape for a handful of lingering state prosecutions tied to the so-called “alternate electors” plot.
The broad clemency proclamation, signed Nov. 7 and posted online Sunday night by Pardon Attorney Ed Martin, offers a “full, complete, and unconditional pardon” to “all United States citizens” connected to the 2020 fake-elector strategy or to “efforts to expose voting fraud.” The order does not apply to Trump himself but covers many of the most prominent figures once scrutinized by former special counsel Jack Smith and by Democratic prosecutors in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, and Wisconsin.
Breaking: President Trump pardoned the 2020 Alternative Electors.
Thank you: @POTUS for allowing me, as U.S. Pardon Attorney, to work with @WhiteHouse, along with @AGPamBondi, @DAGToddBlanche & SG John Sauer, to achieve your intent—let their healing begin. #Federalist74
pic.twitter.com/rDOtgpapCB
— Ed Martin (@EdMartinDOJ) November 10, 2025
Although presidential pardons apply only to federal offenses, the timing and scope of Trump’s action could reshape the political and legal climate surrounding those state-level cases, including the one in Fulton County, Georgia, the only one in which he was also named as a defendant. Prosecutors in several battlegrounds are now nearing deadlines to decide whether to proceed or retreat.
Who was pardoned?
Among those listed are Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer during the 2020 campaign; former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows; former DOJ official Jeffrey Clark; conservative attorneys Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis, John Eastman, and Ken Chesebro; and political adviser and attorney Boris Epshteyn.
Also included are Arizona GOP chair Kelli Ward and her husband, Michael Ward, who were charged as alternate electors in that state. Powell, Ellis, and Chesebro previously entered guilty pleas in Georgia’s election racketeering case.
In a post on Monday on X, Clark said Trump’s pardon “applies to me and others, aiming to end the lawfare,” adding that while he believes it should terminate professional misconduct proceedings against him under a Supreme Court precedent known as Ex Parte Garland, he expects the D.C. Office of Disciplinary Counsel to continue pursuing its bar complaint against him.
Important announcement:
Friday night, President Trump called me in my personal capacity to say he’d pardoned me. (He also shared encouraging words about my past and current work, for which I’m also deeply grateful.) It was totally unexpected—I never lobbied for any form of…
— Jeff Clark (@JeffClarkUS) November 10, 2025
A representative for Giuliani, who served as Trump’s lead election attorney in 2020, said in a statement that he “stands by his work” and never sought clemency.
“Mayor Rudy Giuliani stands by his work following the 2020 presidential election, when he responded to the legitimate concerns of thousands of everyday Americans,” the statement said. “Mayor Giuliani never sought a pardon but is deeply grateful for President Trump’s decision. This action further highlights the years of unjust attacks against the mayor and so many others, and reinforces what should now be clear to everyone — Mayor Giuliani deserves to have his bar license immediately reinstated without delay.”
White House blessing and DOJ coordination
In his own post on Monday, Martin credited Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche with pushing the pardon process “to do it right and fast.” Martin said Trump directed the Justice Department’s pardon office to prioritize both “those who deserved clemency” and “those who had been targeted by the Biden administration.”
A very little bit behind the curtain:
When I began as U.S. Pardon Attorney, POTUS encouraged us to look at two categories of Americans especially:
First, those who needed and deserved clemency, especially long serving inmates who are ready to be released.
Second, he wanted us…— Eagle Ed Martin (@EagleEdMartin) November 10, 2025
Appearing later on Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast, Martin said the effort was driven by fairness rather than politics.
ED MARTIN: When we discussed pardoning the alternate electors, it was about justice for ordinary Americans who were silenced and targeted simply for trying to use the system as it was designed. @EdMartinDOJ pic.twitter.com/sbzRw50cpU
— Bannon’s WarRoom (@Bannons_WarRoom) November 10, 2025
“When we discussed pardoning the alternate electors, it was about justice for ordinary Americans who were silenced and targeted simply for trying to use the system as it was designed,” Martin said.
The comments come amid continuing fallout from Operation Arctic Frost, the FBI’s code name for the 2020 election case that originated under former agent Timothy Thibault before being passed over to special counsel Jack Smith. Many of the individuals now pardoned — including Powell, Giuliani, Epshteyn, Meadows, and Clark — were named in Smith’s 2023 subpoenas, which sought communications and financial records of broad swaths of the conservative movement ahead of his short-lived prosecution of Trump in Washington, D.C.
According to records released Oct. 29 by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Smith’s team issued 197 subpoenas to 34 individuals and 163 businesses, demanding information on more than 430 Republican figures and entities. Grassley said the disclosures, obtained through protected whistleblowers, show the “indiscriminate reach” of Smith’s investigation into Trump and his allies.
Oversight Project led the groundwork for pardons
The conservative Oversight Project, led by Mike Howell, said it worked closely with Martin and the Justice Department’s Pardon Office to ensure the legal foundation for the pardons was “airtight.” In a statement, Howell called the move a “Thanksgiving miracle,” saying the team spent months combing through early American legal precedent, congressional records, and founding-era case law to support the clemency proclamation.
“President Trump and his Administration continue to take critical steps not only to de-weaponize the government but protect those harmed by the vicious attacks from the last Administration,” Howell said. “We are thrilled to see these meaningful results after our longstanding advocacy for America’s election-integrity warriors.”
In an interview with the Washington Examiner, Howell said the pardons “are not symbolic” and could carry real consequences in ongoing state prosecutions.
“These state cases are about a federal matter,” Howell said. “Their entire theory depends on a fraud against the federal government — and here you have the federal government saying, ‘We don’t think we were defrauded.’ It’s a huge piece of evidence in favor of the defendants that should end the whole thing.”
Howell also revealed that the Oversight Project plans to formally request restitution for those who faced legal or financial fallout from the prosecutions.
“These people need to be made whole financially, and we’ll be asking for that very soon,” he said.
State cases at a crossroads
Several state cases have proceeded with varying levels of success against Trump allies and alternate electors five years after Trump’s 2020 defeat. In Arizona, Attorney General Kris Mayes (D) has until Nov. 21 to ask the state Supreme Court to revive her alternate-elector case after a judge ordered it returned to a grand jury. An NBC News affiliate cited political analysts on Nov. 8 who reacted to a recent interview with Mayes and suggested her response about the case indicated she may drop it soon.
In Georgia, the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council must name a replacement prosecutor by Nov. 14 following Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’s (D) disqualification over a conflict-of-interest scandal. Without an appointment, charges against Trump and his co-defendants could be dismissed.
In Michigan, AG Dana Nessel (D) may still file a delayed appeal before March 2026 after a state judge dismissed charges against 15 electors in September, citing a lack of criminal intent.
In Nevada, six electors pleaded not guilty last month in Carson City, with a July 2026 trial set while the Nevada Supreme Court weighs a venue dispute.
And in Wisconsin, three Trump allies are awaiting trial after a judge refused to dismiss their case in August.
A federal reset
Trump’s proclamation — framed by the White House as “an act of national reconciliation” — follows the Supreme Court’s ruling last year that granted Trump broad immunity for official acts as president, ultimately leading the Justice Department to withdraw Smith’s election-subversion indictment.
For the state cases, the practical effect is limited but still notable. The federal government has now closed its own file, leaving state prosecutors to justify continuing cases, brought in some instances by elected Democrats, that have already been marred with delays.
White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said Trump’s pardons correct “a grave national injustice.”
“These great Americans were persecuted and put through hell by the Biden Administration for challenging an election,” she said. “President Trump is putting an end to the Biden Regime’s communist tactics once and for all.”