President Donald Trump has pardoned a man who sold his company's stock based on information that was available only to him and a few others.

In 2021, Terren S. Peizer obtained material non-public information (MNPI) that his company - Ontrak - was about to lose its largest client. He then sold more than $20 million of Ontrak stock that he owned.

On the day the news was publicly announced, the stock's price dropped 45 percent. Peizer's insider trading helped him avoid more than $12 million in losses.

He was convicted in June, 2024. In June, 2025, Peizer was sentenced to 3-1/2 years in prison.

In the 1980s, Peizer had worked for "Junk Bond King" Michael Milken - who was convicted of securities fraud. Trump pardoned Milken in 2020.

Click here to read the indictment against Peizer.

When Donald Trump commuted the sentence of Adriana Camberos (then Adriana Shayota) at the end of his first term, his clemency statement said she "demonstrated an extraordinary commitment to rehabilitation."

That commitment apparently lasted just a few weeks.

Soon after her release, she - along with her brother Andres - started a similar scheme to sell counterfeit food products. Both were convicted and given relatively light sentences.

Now Trump has pardoned Adriana Camberos for this crime as well, He also pardoned Andres Camberos.

President Donald Trump has pardoned Tina Peters. Or at least he's trying to.

Peters a Mesa County, Colorado election official in 2021, was convicted in 2024 of tampering with the county's voting machines.

She illegally allowed an unauthorized man access to her county's voting computers. He copied the machine's proprietary software and passwords, which appeared 3 months later at an event for those who denied the results of the election and were hoping to overturn it.

She was sentenced to 9 years in state prison. Her illegal actions cost local taxpayers almost $1.4 million, the county commissioner testified at the sentencing hearing.

Trump has attempted other ways to release Peters

The "pardon" is only symbolic. The crimes Peters was convicted of were Colorado state crimes. Presidential pardon power extends only to federal crimes. That, however, has not kept Trump from lobbying for Peters' release.

Even before the pardon, Trump threatened "harsh measures" if Peters is not released.

He previously had attempted to have her transferred to federal custudy.

After Colorado Gov. Jared Polis refused to accept the pardon, Trump posted on Truth Social that he hopes Polis "may rot in Hell."

President Donald Trump has pardoned Rep. Henry Cuellar.

In April 2024, Cuellar was indicted for accepting $600,000 in bribes from an oil company owned by the government of Azerbaijan and from a Mexican bank.

In exchange, Cuellar allegedly promised to influence legislation that would favor Azerbaijan in its conflict with Armenia, block federal regulation of the payday lending industry, and loosen money laundering restrictions.

In the same pardon, Trump pardoned Imelda Rios Cuellar, Cuellar's wife. The indictment charged Imelda Cuellar with setting up shell companies to launder the bribe money.

Cuellar's trial was expected to take place in April, 2026.

Trump posted on Truth Social that Cuellar - a Democrat - had been targeted by the administration of then-President Joe Biden because of their differences in immigration policy.

In May, 2024, two associates of Cuellar pleaded guilty to their role facilitating the payments.

After the pardon, Democratic members of the House Appropriations Committee voted to return Cuellar to being the ranking member of the Homeland Security Subcommittee.

He also has filed for reelection to Congress as a Democrat.

President Donald Trump has pardoned a man who his own Justice Department recently prosecuted. The case had not even gone to trial yet.

Tim Leiweke was indicted in June for violating the anti-monopoly Sherman Antitrust Act.

According to the indictment, Leiweke conspired with his only competitor on a bid to build and operate the Moody Center Arena at the University of Texas. He promised the competitor kickbacks - offering them subcontracts on the project.

Doing so "deprived a public university and taxpayers the benefits of competitive bidding," Justice Department official Abigail Slater said.

According to the indictment, Leiweke said in an email, "We are very clever at putting together a partnership that scared everyone else away ... This allows us to dictate terms to [the University]."

Leiweke later reneged on his deal with the other company - and did not offer the subcontracts, the indictment states. The arena opened in April 2022, and Leiweke's company still receives revenues from its operations.

Was pardon arranged during a golf game?

Trump did not provide a reason for granting the pardon, but he did it 3 weeks after playing golf with former representative Trey Gowdy.

Gowdy is Leiweke's attorney.

For more, read the Politico article.
Click here to read the indictment

President Donald Trump has pardoned Juan Orlando Hernandez - the former president of Honduras.

In 2024 Hernandez was convicted of manufacturing cocaine, smuggling it into the United States, and distributing it. He also was convicted of using automatic weapons. He was sentenced to 45 years in prison.

He turned Honduras into a narco-state to supply U,S.

As president of Honduras, Hernandez received millions of dollars from the heads of various drug cartels - including from Joaquin Guzman (El Chapo). In exchange for the money, Hernandez used his military to help the cartels. He provided them with law enforcement and military information - including intelligence on U.S. anti-narcotics operations.

He also protected them from being extradited to the United States.

Hernandez "abused his position as the president of Honduras to operate the country as a narco-state," his indictment states. In building the operations to do this, he told an associate he was going to, "stuff the drugs right up the noses of the gringos."

An estimated million pounds of cocaine made it into the U.S. as a result.

In the past, Hernandez told associates he was embezzling aid money from the United States and siphoning money from the Social Security system.

Trump narrative doesn't match history

Trump gave no clear answer as to why he pardoned Hernandez, though in a Truth Social post he claimed that Hernandez had been treated harshly and unfairly, "according to many people that I greatly respect." He told reporters that "many of the people of Honduras" told him that Hernandez's conviction was a "Biden administration setup,"

The conviction, however, was the result of an investigation that began in 2010 - one that spanned Trump's first term as president.

Why did Trump pardon Hernandez?

Trump, as well as several of his associates, has been involved with Hernandez for some time.

In 2019, Trump praised Hernandez for "stopping drugs at a level that has never happened."

Trump's long-time friend Roger Stone lobbied Trump for the pardon as a way to overthrow the current Honduran administration led by Xiomara Castro. The pardon came within hours of Stone forwarding a plea from Hernandez to Trump.

Business connections might have played a large role in Trump wanting Hernandez's party to replace Castro - who has canceled or audited projects linked to Trump associates and donors.

Do all roads lead to Prospera?

An even bigger reason might be Hernandez's support for Prospera - an autonomous area in Honduras created by American billionaires Peter Thiel, Sam Altman, and Marc Andreessen.

Prospera was created to be a haven for businesses. Under Hernandez, Honduras enacted laws allowing Prospera to create its own labor rules and regulations. It can set its own tax rates for businesses there. Castro has tried to dismantle Prospera and require it to conform to Honduran laws.

Honduras disagrees with the pardon

Hernandez was released from his U.S. prison on December 1. Days later, the Honduran government issued an international arrest warrant for him.

For more, read the Wall Street Journal article.

Click here to read the indictment against Hernandez.

President Donald Trump has commuted the 7-year prison sentence of David Gentile - after Gentile had served just 12 days.

In 2024 Gentile was convicted of defrauding more than 10,000 investors out of $1.6 billion. His company, GPB Capital Holdings, effectively ran a Ponzi scheme - paying earlier investors with money from later investors rather than from investment returns.

“The jury found that the defendants lied to investors about the health of their funds and the source of fund distribution payments, all while they were fraudulently making those distribution payments with investor capital to maintain the appearance of successful portfolio companies,” according to the Justice Department press release on his conviction.

Though Gentile's prison sentence was commuted, he was not pardoned. His conviction and other penalties remain on the books.

For more, read the New York Times article.

President Donald Trump has pardoned a man who admitted to helping funnel money to Russian drug-traffickers, Hamas, and various other criminal organizations.

He also helped funnel money to Donald Trump.

Changpeng (CZ) Zhao is the former CEO of the cryptocurrency company Binance. In 2023, he pleaded guilty to failing to prevent money laundering.

He was sentenced to 4 months in prison and resigned his leadership at Binance. In addition, Binance was fined $4.3 billion and was banned from operating in the United States.

Zhao's crimes harmed national security and consumers

By not implementing the legally-required protections, Binance was able to facilitate illegal transactions between users in the United States and sanctioned countries such as Iran, according to the Department of Justice sentencing memorandum.

It also enabled money to be funneled to Russian drug-traffickers and Hamas. Perpetrators of internet scams such as ransomware attacks found no resistance when moving their illicit proceeds through Binance.

How Zhao gave Trump $2 billion without giving him a dollar

Just a few months before the 2024 presidential election, Donald Trump and his sons founded cryptocurrency company World Liberty Financial. Also co-founding the company was Steve Witkoff. When becoming Special Envoy to the Middle East under Trump, Witkoff did not disclose that business relationship.

Around that time, Binance and Zhao engaged in complex deal that would indirectly give Trump's new company a $2 billion boost.

The essence of the deal was that Binance provided engineers to World Liberty Financial to help them build its cryptocurrency - called USD1. Binance then sold off part of itself to investors from the United Arab Emirates for $2 billion. The deal required that the purchase be paid for with USD1.

The influx of money to purchase the USD1 increased World Liberty Financial's value by a factor of 20 - without any of Zhao's money directly going to the Trump company.

Zhao "has never given (World Liberty Financial) a single dollar," company spokesperson Gail Gitcho said.

Zhao's companies also have partnerships with other Trump family companies - including Dominari Holdings which is based in Trump Tower. Two of Dominari Holdings' biggest shareholders are Trump's sons Donald Jr. and Eric.

Trump denies knowing Zhao

When asked about Zhao during a post-pardon interview on the TV news program 60 Minutes, Trump replied "I don't know who he is."

Future of Zhao and Binance in the US is uncertain

While Zhao had completed his sentence by the time Trump pardoned him, the pardon means he no longer is considered an ex-felon.

It is not known if he can return to running Binance. It also is not known if Binance will return to operating in the U.S. Those are decisions that will depend on the Department of Justice, Wired magazine reported.

Update 2025-Nov-24: Families of 300 U.S. citizens who were victims of the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel have filed a lawsuit against Binance for its role in funneling money to Hamas.

For more, read the BBC article.
Click here to read the lawsuit filed in regard to Binance helping fund Hamas.

President Donald Trump has commuted the prison sentence of former Rep. George Santos.

Santos had served 3 months of his 7-year sentence.

In a Truth Social post, Trump wrote "George Santos was somewhat of a “rogue,” but there are many rogues throughout our Country that aren’t forced to serve seven years in prison."

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene had lobbied Trump to commute Santos' sentence.

"While his crimes warrant punishment, many of my colleagues who I serve with have committed far worse offenses than Mr. Santos yet have faced zero criminal charges," she wrote in a letter to the U.S. Pardon Attorney.

For more, read the Associated Press article.

Click here for more details of the pardon.

President Donald Trump has pardoned Todd and Julie Chrisley.

The Chrisleys were convicted in 2002 of bank fraud and tax evasion. They received millions of dollars in loans from banks by providing the banks with false information about their finances. They evaded taxes and obstructed efforts by lying to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

Todd Chrisley received a 12 year prison sentence. Julie Chrisley received a 7-year sentence.

Their daughter, Savannah Chrisley, was a major supporter of Trump. She spoke at the 2024 Republican Convention - asking him for the pardon.

"When [my brother and I] saw the president win, we both started sobbing and he just grabbed me and hugged me because we knew that was our only way out," Savannah Chrisley said in a June 28 interview.

Trump personally called Savannah Chrisley to inform her that he was about pardon her parents.

For more, read the Business Insider article.

Click here to read the indictment against Todd and Julie Chrisley.

Click here to read the clemency grant for Todd Chrisley.
Click here to read the clemency grant for Julie Chrisley.

In 2020, Betsy Fago hosted a fundraiser for President Donald Trump's re-election campaign. At the fundraiser, a diary stolen from then-candidate Joe Biden's daughter Ashley was passed around.

On April 23, 2025, during his second term as president, Trump pardoned Fago's son, Paul Walczak.

Walczak was convicted of stealing more than $10 million his company withheld from employees taxes but did not pay to the federal government.

He had not yet begun his 1-1/2 year prison term.

For more, read the Palm Beach Post article.

Click here to read the pardon document.

In 2015, Ross Ulbricht was sentenced to life in prison for his role in creating and running the the illicit website known as the Silk Road.

in Ulbricht's indictment, the Department of Justice called the website "the most sophisticated and extensive criminal marketplace on the Internet."

On Jan. 21, 2025 - the second day of his second term as president - Donald Trump pardoned Ulbricht.

"The scum that worked to convict him were some of the same lunatics who were involved in the modern day weaponization of government against me. He was given two life sentences, plus 40 years. Ridiculous!," Trump posted on Truth Social.

In the past, Trump has called for the execution of drug dealers.

For more on Ulbricht's conviction, read the The Hill article.

Click here to read the indictment against Ulbricht.

On his first day of his second term as president, Donald Trump has pardoned approximately 1,500 people convicted for their involvement in the Jan. 6, 2021 terror attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Pardoning everyone convicted - regardless of how violent their actions were - apparently was a last-minute decision.

"Fuck it. Release them all," an advisor told Axios news Trump said.

Click here for more information about the pardons.

President Joe Biden has commuted the sentence of Native American rights activist Leonard Peltier.

In 1977 Peltier was convicted of the 1975 killing two federal agents on Native American lands, though his prosecution was suspect. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has long argued for his release - as late as for his 2024 unsuccessful parole hearing.

He will be released from prison, though he will be required to remain in home detention.

For more, read the USA Today article.

President Joe Biden has pardoned his son, Hunter Biden.

The Charges against Hunter Biden

In June, Hunter Biden was convicted of lying about his addiction to controlled substances on a federal background check form and for possessing the gun for 11 days while he was addicted.

In September, he pleaded guilty to failing to pay almost $1.5 million in federal taxes from 2016 - 2019.

He had yet to be sentenced, though both cases could have resulted in prison time.

Pardon covers more than those crimes

In his pardon statement, Joe Biden states that the pardons cover more than those two crimes. It protects Hunter Biden from being prosecuted for any federal crimes "which he has committed or may have committed" from 2014 through Dec. 1, 2024.

Joe Biden was Vice President from 2009 - 2017.

Plea deal had been reached - and rescinded

In June 2023, Hunter Biden agreed to plead guilty .

That plea deal was rejected in July by Judge Maryellen Noreika,

More investigations into Hunter Biden

In January 2023, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee began an investigation into Hunter Biden's association with the Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings.

The stated justification for the investigation was to link Hunter Biden's activities with Burisma to bribery and influence of his father.

The investigation found no credible evidence of criminal activity by Joe Biden.

Click here to read the signing statement from Biden.
Click here to read the indictment against Biden regarding the gun charge.
Click here to read the indictment against Biden regarding the tax evasion charge.

President Donald Trump has pardoned his former chief strategist Steve Bannon.

In 2020, a federal grand jury indicted Bannon, along with three others, for defrauding hundreds of thousands of donors in a crowdfunding campaign purporting to raise money to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Bannon and the others raised more than $25 million in 2018 and 2019. They pledged to spend 100 percent on the project. However, they skimmed millions from the donations.

Bannon's pardon came as he was awaiting trial.

Other defendants - including Bannan - eventually found culpable

Two of his co-defendants later pleaded guilty to the scheme. The other was convicted . All were sentenced to prison.

In 2025, Bannon pleaded guilty to New York state charges for the same crime.

Bannon previously - unrelated to this case - served four months in prison for contempt of Congress for not complying with a subpoena by the House committee investigating the Jan 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Bannon's pardon was among approximately 150 others Trump issued in the waning days of his term.

Click here to read the federal indictment against Bannon.
Click here to read the New York state indictment against Bannon.
Click here to read Bannon's guilty plea in the New York case.

President Trump has commuted the sentence of longtime friend Roger Stone.

In 2019, Stone was convicted of lying to Congress and other charges related to Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. He was sentenced to 40 months in prison.

The statement by the White House Press Secretary described the charges against Stone as "process-based" - leveled "in an attempt to manufacture the false impression of criminality lurking below the surface."

It also questioned the impartiality of the jury that convicted him of the charges.

In a letter published in the Washington Post, former Special Counsel Robert Mueller responded to the commutation, saying that Stone was convicted "because he committed federal crimes."

Mueller wrote...

"Stone became a central figure in our investigation for two key reasons: He communicated in 2016 with individuals known to us to be Russian intelligence officers, and he claimed advance knowledge of WikiLeaks' release of emails stolen by those Russian intelligence officers...

A jury later determined he lied repeatedly to members of Congress. He lied about the identity of his intermediary to WikiLeaks. He lied about the existence of written communications with his intermediary. He lied by denying he had communicated with the Trump campaign about the timing of WikiLeaks' releases. He in fact updated senior campaign officials repeatedly about WikiLeaks. And he tampered with a witness, imploring him to stonewall Congress."

Click here to read the White House announcement.

Click here to read Mueller's comments regarding the commutation of Stone's sentence.

For more, read the NPR story.

Click here for more on pardons issued by Trump.

Ted Suhl - convicted in 2016 of defrauding Medicaid out of millions of dollars and of bribing a state official to keep the scheme going - has had his 7-year sentence commuted by President Donald Trump.

Suhl owned a youth mental health facility originally named The Lord's Ranch. The facility had been under investigation since 1990 for physically abusing patients who opted out of bible study.

To steer patients to his facility and to keep it licensed, Suhl bribed then Arkansas deputy Department of Human Services Director Steven Jones, disguising the money as donations to a church. In 2014, Jones pleaded guilty to accepting bribes from Suhl over several years.

The bribes not only steered patients (and therefore Medicaid dollars) to Suhl, they also helped get Suhl appointed to the Child Welfare Agency Review Board - which licensed Suhl's facilities.

Suhl has been a financial supporter of former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee. Huckabee, who has flown on Suhl's plane, had lobbied Trump to commute Suhl's sentence.

For more on Suhl's crimes and conviction, read this Aransas Times story and this Arkansas Democrat Gazette story.

For more on Trump's commutation of Suhl's sentence, read the Arkansas Times story.

Click here to read the White House statement on the pardon with clarifications by ProPublica.

President Donald Trump has pardoned a former soldier who murdered an Iraqi prisoner.

Michael Behenna was convicted of taking the detainee to a secluded area while transporting him back to his village, and then stripping him naked and shooting him. He claimed he was acting in self-defense.

Behenna had served five years in prison, and was on parole at the time of the pardon.

For more, read the Washington Post story.

Click here to read the White House Press Secretary statement on the pardon.

President Donald Trump has pardoned a Navy sailor convicted of illegally retaining photos of a submarine's nuclear propulsion system.

Kristian Saucier, a machinist's mate aboard the USS Alexandria from 2007 to 2012, used his cell-phone camera to take six photos in 2009 while the nuclear submarine was docked at a Connecticut naval base. Saucier said he took the photos as mementos. The photos were deemed confidential, the lowest level of security classification.

After the FBI questioned Saucier about the images on the phone, which had been found in a landfill, he destroyed evidence related to the case.

Saucier, 31, pleaded guilty in May 2016 to unlawful retention of national defense information and obstruction of justice, and served 12 months in prison. His sentence ended in September.

Trump frequently referred to Saucier's case during the 2016 presidential campaign, claiming he had been punished for a lesser offense than Hillary Clinton, who mishandled classified information on a private email server when she was secretary of state.

Saucier's pardon was the second of Trump's presidency. He previously pardoned former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio, a political ally who was awaiting sentencing for violating a court order.

For more, read this Stars and Stripes story and this NPR story.

President Trump has pardoned an Arizona sheriff convicted of ignoring a federal judge's orders.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio had ordered Latinos be detained simply because they could not show legal status. A federal judge ruled that the practice involved racial profiling because it involved only Latinos - who were stopped for traffic violations at a much higher rate than other drivers - and ordered Arpaio to end the practice. Yet Arpaio continued the detentions for the next 1-1/2 years.

Lawsuits regarding brutality against detainees since Arpaio became sheriff in 1993 have cost Arizona taxpayers $140 million.

Arpaio was convicted of criminal contempt. He had yet to be sentenced - nor had he used an opportunity to appeal - when Trump issued the pardon.

Trump had asked about rescuing Arpaio - who has been a long-time Trump supporter - from his legal situation even before he was convicted. Had Arpaio wanted to request a pardon, he would have been required to wait five years from the date he completed his sentence.

The two-paragraph statement from Trump did not provide the reason he pardoned Arpaio.

It is likely the Justice Department was not consulted between Arpaio's conviction and the time of the pardon.

Click here to read the White House statement on the pardon.

For more, read the Atlantic story.

For more on the oddities of this pardon, read Bob Bauer's Lawfare editorial.

Click here for a Phoenix New Times summary of Arpaio's acts.