Wall Street Journal: “The Wild West of Presidential Pardons in Trump’s Second Term”
May 19, 2025
9 min read
The Wall Street Journal continues to echo the agenda of the mainstream media—spreading narratives, distorting facts, and deceiving the public.
It no longer informs, it manipulates.
The American people deserve honest journalism. Here’s their latest attack on President Trump:
“Bitcoin Jesus was on the hunt for a pardon, and he was willing to pay.
Donald Trump had just been elected president for the second time, and allies of the wealthy cryptocurrency investor, whose real name is Roger Ver, saw an opportunity to avoid a possible decadeslong sentence over criminal tax-evasion charges.
Associates of Ver contacted at least five lobbyists and lawyers in Trump’s orbit, making extravagant offers of monthly retainers and what are called success fees, payments if a pre-emptive pardon or dismissal of Ver’s case was secured.
They offered one lobbyist $5 million, and two others $10 million, according to people familiar with the discussions.
At one point, Ver’s associates urged him to pay as much as $30 million for his pardon quest, some of the people said. Ver ultimately balked at that sum, and several lobbyists and lawyers declined to take on his case.
But one did: Roger Stone Jr., a longtime friend of Trump who in 2020 received his own presidential pardon.
Ver has paid Stone $600,000 so far for two months of work lobbying on issues related to his case, according to lobbying records. Ver hasn’t received a pardon.
Stone said his work focused on advising Ver’s lawyer and lobbying members of Congress, not the White House.
Ver was never willing to pay anyone to secure a pardon, said his lawyer, David Schoen. He said there was absolutely no merit to the case against Ver.
Trump has turned the pardon process into the Wild West. What had long been a sober legal proceeding done by career officials in the Justice Department increasingly resides in the White House and depends on the whims of a president who is receptive to arguments of political persecution.
The president, according to a senior administration official, has taken a particular interest in the work of Alice Johnson, the pardon czar he appointed earlier this year.
He regularly asks her, “Where are my pardons?” The White House is expected to announce a substantial batch of pardons in the coming weeks, the official said.
Pardon seekers are shelling out to hire lawyers and lobbyists who tout access to those in the president’s inner circle.
Others seek to make their case to Trump or his inner circle at places they frequent, showing up at events at Mar-a-Lago in Florida, GOP hangouts on Capitol Hill and a collegiate wrestling match. And still others connect with conservative influencers, pitching their case on shows Trump consumes.
The president is listening. Several of the pardons he has issued so far followed advocacy by people close to him. Some lawyers with close ties to Trump, including the president’s former lawyers Jesse Binnall and Jim Trusty, have helped clients pursue pardons, people familiar with the matter said.
Alice Johnson received a pardon from President Trump in 2020. Photo: kevin lamarque/Reuters
Others who have received pardons got boosts from Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and former GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz, a longtime ally of Trump’s.
Stone already has at least one notch on his belt. Arthur Hayes, a co-founder of the crypto exchange BitMEX who was pardoned in March, had hired Stone to help him get one, according to people familiar with the matter.
Stone and Hayes, who pleaded guilty to violating U.S. anti-money-laundering laws, didn’t respond to requests for comment on the arrangement. BitMEX declined to comment.
Pardon seekers have found success drawing parallels between their cases and those of Trump, a felon who has railed against his own experience with the justice system.
“You need someone who can get in front of the president for five minutes and make a pitch of how a person was wrongfully targeted,” said Eric Rosen, a defense attorney who has clients seeking pardons.
A senior administration official said that pardon applicants undergo “extensive vetting,” conducted by the pardon czar’s office, the White House Counsel’s Office and the Justice Department.
The administration’s priority, the official said, is to pardon those who were the targets of “unfair justice” or those deserving of a second chance.
Pardon shopping
Former President Joe Biden also skirted the pardon system. In his final minutes in office, he issued pre-emptive pardons for members of his family, as well as for top targets of Trump such as former National Institutes of Health Director Anthony Fauci.
Trump has issued more pardons than any of his predecessors at this stage of a presidential term, mostly due to pardoning the bulk of the 1,500 Jan. 6 rioters on his first day in office. In addition, he has granted clemency to 42 people and one company so far.
Nikola founder Trevor Milton’s pardon bid reached the president with the help of Health Secretary Kennedy, according to people familiar with the matter. Milton was convicted of fraud in 2022 for lying to investors about the technology and viability of his environmentally friendly trucks.
In a call with Trump recorded by Milton, the president told the entrepreneur that “Bobby“ said great things about him, according to people who heard the recording.
President Trump displayed an Executive Grant of Clemency for Devon Archer at the White House in March. Photo: evelyn hockstein/Reuters
Milton and his family members donated more than $1 million to Kennedy’s presidential campaign and political committees associated with the failed bid.
Most of those contributions came after Kennedy had ended his campaign and was seeking to pay off debt. Milton and his wife also donated nearly $2 million to a super PAC to elect Trump around the same time.
Representatives for Kennedy and Milton didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Pardon shopping has become popular over the past decade, reaching a fever pitch in the final days of the first Trump administration, when several people close to the president were charging seven figures to lobby for a pardon.
“A pardon is supposed to be for somebody who has paid his debt to society and is remorseful or to right an injustice,” said Peter Zeidenberg, a former public-corruption prosecutor in Washington. “It’s not for the highest bidder.”
Liz Oyer, a former U.S. pardon attorney, says the office was sidelined after President Trump took office. Photo: Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images
Traditionally, the Justice Department’s Office of the Pardon Attorney has played a key role in the clemency process. The office was sidelined after Trump took office, according to Liz Oyer, who had been the pardon attorney until she was fired in March.
Her dismissal came after she said she had a disagreement over restoring actor Mel Gibson’s gun rights. (The Justice Department restored them after she left.)
Oyer said at the time of her departure that the resources of the office were being used to build out a system to restore gun rights to ex-felons, and there had been zero communication between the office and the White House, which is unusual.
A Justice Department official said that the Trump administration is continuing to rely on the pardon attorney’s expertise, noting the criticism was from a former employee.
Trump recently said Ed Martin would become pardon attorney at the Justice Department, in addition to leading a new working group focused on what the president and his allies call the weaponization of the Justice Department under Biden.
Trump pulled Martin’s nomination this month as Washington’s top prosecutor after it became clear he couldn’t get enough Republican support to be confirmed. Martin has been among the most vocal advocates for the rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol.
Getting Trump’s attention
Trump has shown preference to defendants he thinks have been wrongly prosecuted.
Devon Archer, a former business partner of Hunter Biden’s, was convicted of fraud. But Archer, who had become a top witness for Republican investigators into Hunter Biden, got lucky when he attended the NCAA wrestling championship in March with another one of Hunter Biden’s former business partners turned Trump backer, Tony Bobulinski.
Bobulinski mentioned to the president that Archer was also in attendance, said Miranda Devine, a conservative columnist who has written books on Biden’s son and attended the match with Archer and Bobulinski. Devine said Trump sent for Archer.
Archer told Devine the president said to him, “The Bidens screwed you, they screwed me, you’re gonna get a full pardon.” He was pardoned days later.
A lawyer for Archer didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Roger Ver is seeking to avoid a possible decadeslong sentence over criminal tax-evasion charges. Photo: Paul Yeung/Bloomberg News
Ver was arrested in April 2024 in Spain and indicted on charges including mail fraud and tax evasion that prosecutors said had caused a $48 million loss for the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. He renounced his U.S. citizenship in 2014 and is awaiting extradition to face trial in the U.S.
Days after Trump won the 2024 election, Ver’s lawyer began contacting lobbyists close to the incoming administration to discuss the possibility of a pardon, according to people familiar with the conversations.
As his team pursued behind-the-scenes advocates, Ver also took his case public.
“If there’s anybody that knows what it’s like to be the victim of lawfare for spreading American ideals, it’s Donald Trump,” Ver says in a video posted on X in January that includes footage of Trump hugging the American flag.
After hiring Stone, associates of Ver continued to hunt for another lobbyist to bring Ver’s case directly to the White House, and dangled increasingly eye-popping sums.
At one point, Ver appeared open to paying $10 million, according to a person with knowledge of the discussion. But when his associates pitched him on putting another $20 million in escrow, to be split among his team if they obtained a pardon, Ver stopped responding.
Schoen, Ver’s lawyer, said Ver was never willing to pay $10 million to secure a pardon.
“I hope he enjoys his Con Air flight,” Matt Argall, one of the people who had been advising Ver on how to get a pardon, told The Wall Street Journal, referring to the U.S. Marshals airline that transports inmates.”
