Trump ordered it at the last minute, the people said.
In the final hours of his presidency, Donald Trump exercised one of the most ancient and absolute powers of the American executive — the power to forgive — granting clemency to 143 individuals whose fates had become entangled with his world of politics, celebrity, and controversy. The list, assembled in a rush of last-minute deliberation, reflected the competing loyalties and calculations of a departing leader: allies shielded, debts repaid, and some of the most consequential decisions — pardoning himself, or freeing Assange and Snowden — ultimately left unmade. It is a moment that invites reflection on what mercy means when it is wielded by the powerful on behalf of the connected, and what it reveals about the moral architecture of a presidency in its final breath.
- Trump signed 143 pardons and commutations in his final hours, compressing years of legal consequence into a single overnight list released before dawn on his last day.
- The beneficiaries ranged from Steve Bannon — charged with defrauding his own supporters — to Lil Wayne, Kwame Kilpatrick, and a man serving 835 years for financial crimes, creating a jarring collision of the famous, the fallen, and the forgotten.
- The most consequential decisions remained unresolved until the very end: Trump polled advisers through Tuesday on pardoning Assange and Snowden, and debated a self-pardon for weeks, before ultimately declining both.
- Bannon's pardon was ordered on Tuesday after a direct phone call with Trump — as recently as Monday, no such pardon was being prepared — illustrating how personal loyalty and last-minute access shaped the final list.
- The clemency spree now lands in history as a portrait of presidential power at its most discretionary: part loyalty reward, part political calculation, and part reflection of who had the right connections in the right final hours.
On his last morning in office, Donald Trump signed clemency for 143 people — 73 pardons and 70 commutations — in a sweeping exercise of presidential power that read, in its final form, like a map of his political and personal world. Former strategist Steve Bannon, rapper Lil Wayne, Detroit's disgraced ex-mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, a Silicon Valley engineer, Republican politicians, and a Florida eye doctor who billed Medicare for diseases his patients didn't have — all found their legal fates altered before Trump left the White House. What was conspicuously absent was Trump's own name. Despite weeks of internal debate over a self-pardon, advisers counseled against it, and he declined.
Bannon's pardon was among the most last-minute. As of Monday, no pardon was being prepared for him. Then Trump called him on Tuesday and ordered it done. Bannon had been charged with defrauding donors to the 'We Build The Wall' campaign, which had quietly funneled over a million dollars to him for personal use. The pardon erased those charges entirely. Elliott Broidy, a top Republican fundraiser who admitted to illegal lobbying tied to the vast 1MDB financial scandal, was also pardoned. Lil Wayne received a pardon after pleading guilty to a federal gun charge; fellow rapper Kodak Black received a commutation.
Kwame Kilpatrick, sentenced to 28 years on 24 counts including racketeering and bribery — corruption prosecutors said contributed to Detroit's eventual bankruptcy — had his sentence commuted. So did Sholam Weiss, believed to be serving the longest white-collar sentence in American history at 835 years, who had fled to Austria while on bail and was found at a luxury hotel. Anthony Levandowski, the Google engineer at the center of Silicon Valley's most prominent trade secrets case, was pardoned. So was Salomon Melgen, the Palm Beach retinologist convicted of billing Medicare to treat patients for eye diseases they didn't have.
The list also included former congressmen convicted of corruption, a conservative activist who had been the boyfriend of Russian operative Maria Butina, a Jared Kushner associate charged with cyberstalking his ex-wife, and an Israeli intelligence figure pardoned at the personal request of Prime Minister Netanyahu. Trump continued asking advisers through Tuesday whether to pardon Julian Assange or Edward Snowden — and ultimately did not. The final list was shaped by personal loyalty, congressional requests, foreign diplomacy, and the cold arithmetic of which controversial decisions were worth the political cost in the last hours of a presidency.
On his final day in office, Donald Trump signed off on clemency for 143 people—73 pardons and 70 sentence commutations—in a sweeping exercise of presidential power that mixed the famous with the obscure, the connected with the forgotten. The list, released early Wednesday morning, read like a catalog of Trump's world: his former strategist Steve Bannon, the rapper Lil Wayne, Detroit's ex-mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, a Silicon Valley engineer, a handful of Republican politicians, and a retinologist who had defrauded Medicare. What was notably absent was Trump himself. Despite weeks of discussion about whether the president might preemptively pardon himself—a move without precedent in American history—advisers had counseled against it, and Trump ultimately declined.
The decision to pardon Bannon came at the last minute. As recently as Monday, people involved in the clemency planning said no pardon for the former White House strategist was being prepared. But Trump spoke to Bannon on Tuesday and ordered the pardon that day. Bannon had been charged, along with three others, with defrauding donors to the "We Build The Wall" campaign, which was portrayed as a volunteer effort but had funneled more than a million dollars to Bannon for personal expenses. He denied the charges, and now the pardon erased them.
The rapper Dwayne Carter, known as Lil Wayne, received a pardon after pleading guilty to a federal gun charge. His fellow rapper Bill Kapri, known as Kodak Black, got a sentence commutation while serving time for falsifying paperwork to obtain a firearm. Elliott Broidy, a top Republican fundraiser, was pardoned after admitting to illegal lobbying on behalf of a Malaysian businessman connected to the 1MDB scandal—a scheme in which a fugitive businessman named Jho Low had initially offered Broidy six million dollars, with a promise of seventy-five million more, to persuade the Justice Department to drop its case. The effort failed, and Low was later indicted on charges of conspiring to launder billions.
Among the commutations was one for Kwame Kilpatrick, the former Detroit mayor convicted in 2013 on twenty-four counts of racketeering, extortion, bribery, and tax evasion. He had been sentenced to twenty-eight years. Prosecutors had argued that his corruption contributed to Detroit's bankruptcy five years after he left office. Sholam Weiss, believed to be serving the longest white-collar sentence in American history—835 years for money laundering tied to the collapse of an insurance company—also received a commutation. Weiss had fled while on bail and was eventually found in Austria, where he had been partying with prostitutes at a luxury hotel. His nephew said in December that Weiss regretted that decision.
Anthony Levandowski, a Google engineer convicted of stealing trade secrets as he moved to Uber in one of Silicon Valley's highest-profile criminal cases, received a pardon. So did Salomon Melgen, a Palm Beach retinologist serving seventeen years for Medicare fraud—billing the government to treat people for eye diseases they did not have. Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, a Democrat, had supported Melgen's commutation after receiving gifts and campaign contributions from him; prosecutors had alleged Menendez pressured federal agencies on Melgen's behalf, though charges against the senator were eventually dropped when a jury could not reach a verdict.
Former Representative Rick Renzi of Arizona was pardoned after serving three years on corruption and money laundering charges stemming from his use of his congressional seat to pressure companies into buying his former business associate's land. Duke Cunningham, a former California congressman, received a conditional pardon after pleading guilty in 2005 to bribery connected to the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal. Todd Boulanger, who had worked with Abramoff, was also pardoned; he had admitted to providing public officials with all-expenses-paid travel, tens of thousands of dollars in tickets to sporting events and concerts, and frequent expensive meals and drinks at Washington restaurants.
Ken Kurson, a former business associate of Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, received a pardon after being charged with cyberstalking related to his 2015 divorce. The White House claimed the investigation had begun only because Kurson was nominated to a role in the Trump administration. W. Scott Harkonen, former chief executive of InterMune, was pardoned after being convicted in 2009 of issuing a fraudulent press release about a drug's effectiveness against a fatal lung disease. Paul Erickson, a conservative political activist sentenced to seven years on fraud and money laundering charges, was also pardoned; he had been the boyfriend of Maria Butina, a Russian woman who sought to build relationships with Republican and gun-rights groups and later pleaded guilty to failing to register as a foreign agent. Aviem Sella, an Israeli indicted for espionage in the Jonathan Pollard affair, received a pardon at the request of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Trump had continued polling advisers as late as Tuesday about whether to pardon WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange or former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, but ultimately did not. The clemency list, in its final form, reflected the president's last-minute instincts and the competing pressures of his final hours in office—a mixture of loyalty to allies, responsiveness to requests from foreign leaders and members of Congress, and a calculation about which controversial cases were worth the political cost.
Citas Notables
He regrets doing that— Hershy Marton, nephew of Sholam Weiss, on Weiss's decision to flee and party at a luxury hotel while on bail
La Conversación del Hearth Otra perspectiva de la historia
Why didn't Trump pardon himself? It seems like that would have been the obvious move for someone worried about legal exposure.
His advisers talked him out of it. They said it would be unprecedented and politically toxic—the image of a president using his last act to erase his own legal jeopardy. Even Trump seemed to recognize there was a line.
But he had no problem pardoning Bannon, who was facing charges for the same kind of thing—defrauding donors.
Right, but Bannon was someone else. The pardon was about loyalty, about rewarding someone who had been close to him. That's different, in Trump's mind, from pardoning himself.
The list includes a lot of people with direct connections to Trump or his circle—Kushner's associate, Republican fundraisers, former congressmen. Was this about settling debts?
Some of it, yes. But it's also how presidential clemency has always worked. People with access, people with advocates in power, get heard. What's unusual here is the scale and the last-minute nature of it. Bannon's pardon wasn't even being prepared until Tuesday.
What about the people who didn't make the list? Assange and Snowden were apparently still being discussed.
Trump was genuinely uncertain about those cases. They're more ideologically fraught, more internationally complicated. In the end, he decided the political cost was too high. But he was still thinking about them right up until the end.