Trump pardons recipients face congressional investigation over “pay-to-play” questions

Senate and House Democrats have launched an investigation into whether or not pardons and commutations issued by President Trump had been pushed by “pay-to-play dynamics,” in keeping with letters obtained by CBS News.

Among the pardons being examined by legislators are these granted to cryptocurrency billionaire Changpeng Zhao, who pleaded responsible to cash laundering; nursing residence operator Joseph Schwartz, who was convicted of tax crimes; and entrepreneur Trevor Milton, sentenced to 4 years in jail in 2023 after being convicted of mendacity to traders.

On Thursday, California congressmen Dave Min and Raul Ruiz, in addition to Vermont senator Peter Welch despatched letters to greater than a dozen recipients of government clemency — searching for to unearth how they might have obtained favorable remedy from Mr. Trump or his advisers “through intermediaries, financial contributions, or other forms of influence.”

The Democrats are additionally inspecting the influence of pardons and commutations on 1000’s of monetary victims. The letters be aware that Mr. Trump’s acts of clemency are “depriving victims of compensation and justice,” citing the president’s elimination of hundreds of millions of {dollars} in restitution — cash owed to crime victims — and functions.

Clemency has come underneath scrutiny throughout Mr. Trump’s second time period together with his pardons or commutations of the sentences of quite a lot of allies who confronted prosecution — as well as those who hired individuals near him. In the letters, the Democrats argued the president has appeared to reward his allies in a fashion that departs from the Supreme Court’s description of government clemency “as ‘an act of grace’ exercised for the ‘public welfare.'”

The lawmakers requested for any contracts exhibiting how a lot cash has been paid by the clemency recipients to legal professionals, lobbyists, social media influencers and others who advocated on their behalf to Mr. Trump.

They additionally requested communications between the recipients or individuals performing on their behalf with federal officers, information exhibiting any donations to Mr. Trump or teams affiliated with him and different paperwork associated to clemency efforts.

“If they don’t respond, they run the risk of highlighting themselves — of being the subjects of future congressional investigations and creating more of a target on their backs for potential further criminal prosecutions,” Min advised CBS News, including that the concept individuals can “get around the justice system” after being convicted “gets to the heart of what is wrong with America right now under this administration.”

Because Democrats are within the minority in each the House and the Senate, they lack subpoena energy and might solely request cooperation from the pardon recipients. But this uncommon pipeline for clemency will seemingly be a prime oversight space for Democrats ought to they take again majorities in both chamber of Congress within the midterm elections this yr. That would give them the authority to compel paperwork on clemency and different areas of oversight.

Perhaps essentially the most high-profile clemency act that the legislators are investigating is Mr. Trump’s pardon last year of Zhao, the founding father of crypto trade Binance. Federal disclosures present that the clemency push was led by Ches McDowell, a lawyer and lobbyist who’s a good friend of Donald Trump Jr., in addition to Teresa Goody Guillén, a lawyer who has represented Zach Witkoff, the son of Mr. Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff.

In a letter to Zhao, Democrats cited reporting on how Binance partnered with World Liberty Financial, a crypto firm based by the Trump and Witkoff households. “Public reporting also indicates that you and Binance played an important role in brokering a massive investment in the Trump family’s crypto business, raising the Trump Stablecoin to a $2.1 billion valuation,” the letter learn.

The White House denied any impropriety within the Zhao pardon and others. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that anybody “spending money to lobby for pardons is foolishly wasting their money” and that the administration has a “robust pardon review process.” Goody Guillén has additionally stated there was no “quid pro quo.”

“President Trump’s abuse of the presidential pardon has let criminals walk free and deprived victims of hundreds of millions of dollars in restitution, with little to no explanation,” stated Welch, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which oversees clemency on the Department of Justice. The DOJ historically handles pardons and commutations however its former pardon lawyer, Liz Oyer, previously told CBS News that the Trump administration “appears to be working around” the company slightly than with it “to vet and review applications for pardons.”

“This was a departure from over 100 years of practice,” Oyer stated, claiming that clemency has been run out of the White House “without input from the Office of the Pardon Attorney.”

The letters to the clemency recipients requested for responses by May 22.

Schwartz, who pleaded responsible to costs stemming from a $38 million payroll tax fraud scheme involving nursing properties he owned, he had served simply three months of his three-year jail sentence outdoors New York City when Mr. Trump pardoned him. It adopted Schwartz’s funds to right-wing operatives and legal professionals who’re near the president and Alice Marie Johnson, Mr. Trump’s “pardon czar,” the New York Times reported.

The lawmakers are additionally probing clemency to former healthcare government Lawrence Duran — who was convicted of Medicare fraud and obtained a commutation from Mr. Trump wiping away $87 million in owed restitution. And they despatched questions to Milton, the founding father of the since-bankrupt automotive firm Nikola.

In March 2025, Mr. Trump pardoned Milton — letting him off the hook for roughly $680 million in restitution to shareholders. It got here after Milton and his spouse donated not less than $3 million to Mr. Trump’s 2024 marketing campaign and different political teams in his orbit.

A White House official stated earlier this yr that Milton’s donations “played absolutely no role” in his pardon.

Others dealing with congressional scrutiny embody former non-public fairness government David Gentile, who was convicted of working a $1.6 billion Ponzi scheme and noticed his $15.5 million in restitution wiped away when Mr. Trump commuted his sentence. Senate Democrats raised considerations concerning the commutation final December — arguing that it “represents a betrayal of more than 17,000 innocent Americans from all walks of the political spectrum that lost over $1 billion in life savings because of their crimes.”

Also receiving letters had been Paul Walczak, a pardoned tax cheat whose mom raised thousands and thousands of {dollars} for Mr. Trump, and actual property developer Timothy Leiweke — who was pardoned after hiring lawyer and Trump ally Trey Gowdy following a conviction for alleged contract bid rigging. After that pardon, senior Justice Department officers “felt completely kneecapped by the president,” a former Trump administration official told The Free Press.

“The thing that rankles me even further is the deprivation of restitution, money that they were supposed to pay back to the victims of their frauds,” Min, a member of the House Oversight Committee, advised CBS News.

“Now the victims get hit twice, because not only are the people who defrauded them not serving their time — not paying their debt to society — they’re literally not paying their debts to the people they defrauded,” the congressman added.