Since the start of his second term, President Donald Trump has utilized pardons and commutations to address what he has deemed injustices dealt by the justice system.
A pardon essentially forgives a crime and its consequences — a conviction is wiped from the person’s criminal record, and they no longer have to serve a sentence for it. Conversely, a commutation reduces the sentence but doesn’t exonerate the person of a crime.
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In the months since he took back the White House in January, Trump has conducted multiple sweeping clemency actions, granting pardons or commutations to those such as Jan. 6 riot defendants and former political officials — some of whom are notable supporters of his.
Here is a running list of some notable people Trump has pardoned or sentences he has commuted in his second term:
Jan. 6 riot defendants
Hours after he was sworn in, Trump announced from the Oval Office that he would issue pardons or commutations to anyone convicted over the Jan. 6 Capitol riot — one of the largest-scale clemency acts in history.
At the time of Trump’s announcement, more than 1,500 people were facing charges over the attack, and more than 1,200 people had been convicted or entered a guilty plea. Roughly 200 rioters, whom the President referred to as “hostages,” were still imprisoned.
Among those people was Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the Proud Boys, a right-wing group. Tarrio was in prison, serving a 22-year sentence for his role in organizing the riot.
The rioter who used a chemical irritant to spray U.S. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, who suffered multiple strokes and died the following day, was also issued a full pardon. Sicknick’s attacker, Julian Khater, had been sentenced to more than six years in prison after admitting to spraying Sicknick and at least one other officer in the face with bear spray.
The rioters who beat Metropolitan Police Department Officer Daniel Hodges’s head against a door, giving him a concussion, were also pardoned.
Trump’s pardon was initially extended to all but 14 of the defendants, whose sentences he commuted. Among the 14 was Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the Oath Keepers, another right-wing group.
Rhodes was reportedly giving orders from a hotel room in Virginia while watching the group he sent on TV. He later pushed for a full pardon from Trump, saying it was “strange” that so many were fully pardoned and he was not.
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Trump also demanded in his announcement that the Department of Justice dismiss any ongoing Jan. 6 cases.
In a Fox News interview, Trump rationalized his blanket clemency act, saying more than 1,500 cases would be too “cumbersome” to handle individually.
Larry Hoover
Trump commuted the sentence of former Chicago gang leader Larry Hoover on May 28 as he granted clemency to more than two dozen people.
Hoover, who headed the 1970s gang Gangster Disciples, was serving a life sentence after being convicted of the 1973 kidnapping and murder of a rival drug dealer. In 1997, while in prison serving that sentence, investigators discovered Hoover was still leading the gang from behind bars.
Hoover was found guilty of 40 additional crimes, such as conspiracy, extortion, money laundering, and continuing a criminal enterprise.
“Larry Hoover spent nearly three decades in solitary confinement under the harshest conditions this country has to offer,” his attorney told the Chicago Sun-Times. “And yet, he emerged with clarity, humility, and a commitment to peace and transformation.”
Despite the commutation of his federal sentence, Hoover will still serve out the remainder of his 200-year state sentence for the 1973 murder. However, will be relocated from his maximum security prison to an Illinois prison.
Todd and Julie Chrisley
News broke on May 27 that Trump would pardon reality stars Todd and Julie Chrisley, who were convicted on bank fraud and tax evasion charges in 2022.
The couple, best known for their 10 seasons starring in the TV series Chrisley Knows Best, was found guilty of conspiring with a former business partner to defraud banks in the Atlanta area into giving them more than $36 million in personal loans, according to the DOJ.
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After the couple’s daughter, Savannah, spoke at the 2024 Republican National Convention about their 2022 conviction, Trump called her in May 2025 to tell her he had decided to pardon her parents. A video of the phone call was posted on X by a staffer.
Savannah Chrisley took to Instagram to share that she was “forever grateful” to the president for their full pardon and the opportunity for her parents to “start their lives over.”
The clemency act has caught flak from other celebrities, such as the star of the Netflix series Tiger King, Joe Exotic, who has consistently pleaded with the Trump administration to pardon him. Exotic, whose real name is Joseph Maldonado-Passage, was convicted in 2020 for his role in a plot to murder fellow Tiger King star Carole Baskin and sentenced to 22 years in prison. He was resentenced to 21 years in prison in 2022.
Hosts of The View have also been vocal about their distaste for Trump’s pardon of the Chrisleys, calling out Trump for pardoning donors and supporters while leaving others behind.
Michael Grimm
Former New York Republican Rep. Michael Grimm was pardoned by Trump one day after he pardoned the Chrisleys, part of his larger-scale clemency act on May 28.
Grimm pleaded guilty to tax fraud in 2014 and resigned from Congress in 2015. He represented Staten Island and some of Brooklyn starting in 2011.
Grimm was also separately under investigation for campaign financing violations during his 2010 bid for Congress. His friend and campaign fundraiser, Diana Durand, pleaded guilty in 2014 to funneling more than $12,000 in straw donations to Grimm’s 2010 campaign, according to the New York Times.
After serving about six months of his sentence, Grimm was released from prison. He attempted to return to Congress in 2018 but failed to be reelected.
In 2024, he was thrown off a horse while playing polo and paralyzed from the chest down.
Ross Ulbricht
Trump issued a full pardon for Ross Ulbricht on Jan. 21, the second day of his second administration.
Ulbricht was arrested in 2013 for creating and operating Silk Road, an online black market used to sell illegal drugs and hacking equipment using cryptocurrency, one of the first major uses of Bitcoin.
He had been sentenced to two life sentences without the possibility of parole, as well as an additional 40 years in prison, and ordered to pay $183 million.
Trump had used the possibility of a commutation for Ulbricht as a campaign promise to Libertarians, whose economic theory the system was based on. He said the pardon was in honor of Ulbricht’s mother in addition to the Libertarian Party, both of which, Trump said, “supported me so strongly.”
Libertarian National Committee Chairwoman Angela McArdle said the pardon was an “incredible moment in Libertarian history,” calling Ulbricht a “political prisoner.”
Scott Jenkins
Trump issued a full pardon on Memorial Day to Scott Jenkins, saying the former Culpeper County sheriff in northern Virginia was the victim of an “overzealous” Biden administration.
Jenkins, who served as sheriff for 10 years, was convicted in December 2024 on charges tied to his acceptance of more than $75,000 in bribes in exchange for making businessmen law enforcement officers with no proper training.
He was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison in March and was set to report to prison the day after Trump issued the pardon.
“This Sheriff is a victim of an overzealous Biden Department of Justice, and doesn’t deserve to spend a single day in jail,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “He is a wonderful person, who was persecuted by the Radical Left ‘monsters,’ and ‘left for dead.’”
Rod Blagojevich
Trump signed a full pardon for former Democratic Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich in February, years after the president commuted his sentence in 2020.
Blogojevich was sentenced in 2012 to 14 years in prison after his 2009 impeachment and removal from office after an investigation revealed he sought to sell then-President Barack Obama’s recently vacated U.S. Senate seat.
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Blagojevich was disbarred by the Illinois Supreme Court in 2020 after Trump commuted his sentence. At that point, he had served more than half of his 14-year sentence.
The former governor said he had no interest in returning to the field and likened himself, in terms of client perception, to a pilot who had not flown in 25 years: “Wouldn’t you want to get off that plane? I don’t want to hurt anybody.”
Blagojevich first formed a relationship with Trump as a contestant on his show, Celebrity Apprentice. He was “fired” by Trump in the fourth episode of Season 9.
Devon Archer
Trump signed a full pardon in March for Devon Archer, a former business partner of Hunter Biden.
Archer and Biden served on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company central to Trump’s impeachment trial during his first term in office.
Archer was convicted in 2018 of defrauding a Native American tribe relating to the sale of more than $60 million in fraudulent bonds. His conviction had previously been overturned before being reinstated in 2020. The Supreme Court rejected an appeal from Archer in 2024.
Andrew Zabavsky and Terence Dale Sutton, Jr.
In one of his first days back in office, Trump pardoned two Washington, D.C., police officers in a show of support for law enforcement.
“They arrested the two officers and put them in jail for going after a criminal. A rough criminal, by the way,” Trump said in a preview of the order. “And I’m actually releasing [them]. I am the friend of police, more than any president that’s ever been in this office.”
Sutton was found guilty in 2022 of the second-degree murder of 20-year-old Karon Hylton-Brown after an unauthorized pursuit that ended in a fatal collision in 2020. Both Sutton and Zabavsky were found guilty of conspiracy to obstruct justice and obstruction of justice.
Sutton was convicted in September 2024 of second-degree murder and was sentenced to 5 1/2 years in prison. Zabavsky got four years for his role in the incident.
Imaad Zuberi
On May 28, Trump commuted the sentence of Imaad Zuberi, a major donor to the president’s first inauguration and 2016 campaign, in his latest clemency spree.
Zuberi received a 12-year prison sentence for violating lobbying, campaign finance, and tax laws, as well as for obstructing an investigation into Trump’s 2017 inaugural committee, according to The New York Times.
Zuberi also pleaded guilty in 2019 to illegal donations, some of which were funded by foreign sources, to the Obama administration to gain political access for those foreign entities. He was represented in some of his legal proceedings by David Warrington, who now serves as Trump’s White House counsel.
Jeremy Hutchinson
After serving two years of his nearly four-year sentence, Trump pardoned former Arkansas State Sen. Jeremy Hutchinson of his conviction of accepting multiple bribes and tax fraud.
The disgraced Republican lawmaker was serving a combined eight-year federal prison sentence after being convicted in 2019 for bribery and tax fraud after a Medicaid fraud investigation spanning districts in both Arkansas and Missouri, according to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Hutchinson, who previously represented a portion of Little Rock, misappropriated thousands of dollars in campaign funds for personal use.
Hutchinson is the son of former U.S. Sen. Tim Hutchinson and nephew of former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson.
John Rowland
Trump pardoned former Republican Connecticut Gov. John Rowland on May 28.
Rowland, who served three terms in Congress and as governor, faced two federal convictions, one of which spurred his resignation from the state’s highest office. He also received a 30-month prison sentence in 2015 related to illegal involvement in multiple congressional campaigns.
Alexander “P.G.” Sittenfeld
In his latest clemency act, Trump pardoned former Democratic Cincinnati City Councilman Alexander “P.G.” Sittenfeld.
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Prior to his conviction, Sittenfeld was a top contender for Cincinnati mayor. One of several council members ousted by an FBI sting operation at Cincinnati City Hall, he accepted up to $20,000 in bribes from undercover FBI agents. He was convicted in June and July 2022 of bribery and attempted extortion.
Sittenfeld started appealing his conviction in May 2024, when he was released from prison pending the appeal. During his trial, he stated that he would most likely not return to the political arena.