Inside Trump’s Pardon Bazaar
How Presidential Clemency Became a Multi-Million-Dollar Marketplace
For most of modern American history, the presidential pardon has been treated as an extraordinary remedy. Rare, discretionary, and politically sensitive, it was meant to correct miscarriages of justice, not to function as a transactional service. That norm has collapsed.
New reporting reveals that Donald Trump’s second term has produced something unprecedented in scale and structure: a fully formed pardon economy, complete with lobbyists, intermediaries, success fees, and price tags reportedly reaching as high as $6 million per case.
According to reporting from The Wall Street Journal, Trump’s pardon activity now bears little resemblance to his first term. In that earlier presidency, Trump issued a single early pardon before unleashing roughly 140 acts of clemency during his final days in office. This time, the floodgates opened immediately.
On his first day back in office, Trump issued more than 1,500 pardons. In the months that followed, dozens more were granted, including to individuals and corporations whose legal exposure intersected with powerful financial and political interests. The speed and volume alone signaled a departure from historical norms. The money attached to it confirmed something deeper.
“The explosion in pardon activity has created what the Journal describes as a ‘pardon-shopping industry,’ with lobbyists charging standard rates of $1 million for their services.”
That phrase is not a rhetorical flourish. It describes an emerging system in which access, proximity, and payment function as informal prerequisites for clemency. Wealthy defendants and their representatives are no longer navigating a legal review process. They are navigating Trump’s orbit.
Lobbyists with prior personal ties to Trump have emerged as key brokers. One firm, operated by former Trump bodyguard Keith Schiller and former Trump Organization executive George Sorial, reportedly received $1 million in a single quarter to lobby on behalf of a developer convicted of bribing Senator Robert Menendez with cash and gold bars. The payment was not for legal advocacy in court. It was for access.
The reporting makes clear that these arrangements often include contingency-style compensation. Lobbyists have allegedly been offered success fees of up to $6 million if a pardon is secured. That structure mirrors commission-based sales models, not justice systems.
“Pardon-seekers have offered lobbyists success fees as high as $6 million upon securing a pardon.”
One case has reportedly unsettled even Trump’s own advisers. The pardon of Changpeng Zhao, the founder of the cryptocurrency exchange Binance, drew scrutiny after lobbyists were paid approximately $800,000 before clemency was granted. Zhao’s case intersects with ongoing concerns about financial crimes, regulatory evasion, and international enforcement. Trump advisers privately worry that this pardon could become a focal point for future congressional investigations if Democrats regain control of either chamber.
That concern is telling. It suggests internal recognition that the pardon process, as currently practiced, may not withstand legal or ethical scrutiny.
The implications extend far beyond individual cases. When clemency becomes something that can be purchased, the justice system bifurcates. One system exists for those with money and access. Another remains for everyone else.
The Constitution grants the president broad pardon authority. It does not authorize a market in absolution. Yet the reporting suggests that Trump’s second term has effectively collapsed that distinction, transforming executive mercy into a commodity shaped by wealth, loyalty, and proximity.
The optics alone are corrosive. The reality may be worse.
This is not merely about Trump. It is about what happens when guardrails disappear, and institutions are repurposed to serve personal and political networks. Pardons are among the most powerful unilateral tools a president possesses. When that tool is deployed at an industrial scale, and monetized in the process, the damage is structural.
There is no indication from the reporting that these arrangements violate existing criminal statutes. That fact itself is the indictment. The system was never designed to withstand this level of abuse.
And so the question is no longer whether Trump is pushing boundaries. The question is whether those boundaries still exist.
If you want to understand how power actually operates in America, this is where to look. Not at speeches, not at slogans, but at who gets forgiven and how much it costs.
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