Trump Quietly Rejected Nearly 6,000 Clemency Requests While Pardoning Fewer Than 20

The Trump administration quietly rejected nearly 6,000 applications for clemency this month, turning down thousands of people who had waited in the Justice Department's formal pipeline even as the president granted mercy to a small circle of allies, according to reporting first published by The New York Times.

The wave of denials followed internal discussion that Trump might mark the nation's 250th birthday with a burst of clemency — as many as 250 grants, according to talk inside the administration. A White House official now describes that figure as an idea floated by staff rather than a commitment. In the end, Trump issued fewer than 20 pardons on July 3, including for violators of the Clean Air Act and a political donor.

A July 14 letter from U.S. Pardon Attorney Ed Martin to federal prosecutors said his office had begun issuing denials on July 10. The rejected applications came overwhelmingly from people who lacked political connections and had spent months or years waiting patiently in a queue, according to the reporting. Their petitions were processed through the traditional Office of the Pardon Attorney channel, which reviews cases on their merits and forwards recommendations to the White House.

The contrast has become a defining feature of Trump's approach to the clemency power. Throughout his second term, he has granted pardons and commutations to political allies, donors and high-profile figures who bypassed the standard review process entirely — including a former Republican congressman convicted of insider trading and a group of mechanics convicted of rigging truck emissions controls. Critics say the pattern has turned one of the presidency's most personal powers into a reward for loyalty and access.

Legal experts and advocates for sentencing reform said the mass denials were a blow to the thousands of ordinary applicants — many of them nonviolent drug offenders — who had pinned their hopes on a president who campaigned as a champion of the forgotten. The formal clemency system, already strained by a backlog that stretches back years, processes far more requests than any president typically grants, but the scale and timing of the rejections drew unusual attention.

The White House did not dispute the number of denials. Supporters of the president argue that clemency is inherently discretionary and that no applicant is entitled to relief. But the episode crystallized a criticism that has dogged Trump's use of the pardon pen: that mercy under his administration has flowed most readily to those with the connections to reach him directly, while the people waiting in line were left with form-letter rejections.