Democrats Probe How Much Trump Pardon Recipients Paid to Get Free

Democrats in Congress are investigating whether President Trump’s pardons came with a payout for him.

CBS News reports that Democratic Representatives Dave Min and Raul Ruiz, as well as Senator Peter Welch, have sent letters to over a dozen of the people Trump has pardoned or given some form of clemency, investigating whether they received the clemency “through intermediaries, financial contributions, or other forms of influence.”

The letters note that many of Trump’s pardons have gone to his allies, and the lawmakers asked pardon recipients for contracts showing how much money they paid to lobbyists, social media influencers, lawyers, and others to persuade Trump.

The lawmakers said in the letters that Trump’s pardons and clemency are “depriving victims of compensation and justice,” pointing out an analysis from California Governor Gavin Newsom’s office that found the president’s actions nullified almost $2 billion in recovered money from Medicare and tax fraud, as well as victim repayment.

If the recipients of the letters 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 told CBS. He added that Trump’s pardons send the message that people can “get around the justice system,” which “gets to the heart of what is wrong with America right now under this administration.”

Democrats are investigating pardoned financial criminals like Changpeng Zhao, who made billions from cryptocurrency before pleading guilty to money laundering, and Trevor Milton, who was sentenced to four years in prison for securities and wire fraud charges in 2023 for defrauding investors with his electric truck company, Nikola.

Milton owed millions of dollars to his victims, and he’s one of many pardoned by Trump who are now off the hook for the restitution they owe. But since Democrats don’t control Congress right now, they don’t have subpoena power, so these letters carry little—if any—legal weight. In the meantime, Trump can collect rewards from all of the people he has pardoned.