President Donald Trump campaigned on pardoning the January 6th political prisoners on day one, and the President kept his promise, pardoning a historic number of people in his first week. Trump has also issued a variety of pardons to other individuals, such as the 20 pro-lifers convicted by the Biden Department of Justice, who were prosecuted for praying at abortion clinics.
Trump pardoned or granted clemency to 237 people in his first term, many of them at the very end of his term in 2020. So far, just two weeks into Trump’s new term, he has pardoned over 1,500 individuals.
Several however, are still quietly lobbying the new Trump administration and its key staffers looking for pardons, hoping that their cases are not lost in the fast-paced Trump administration.
Just yesterday, Trump was lukewarm to a reporter’s question about a pardon for NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. Last May, Trump said he would give “very serious consideration” to pardoning Wikileaks’ Julian Assange.
But lesser-known individuals also still seeking pardons range from former Congressmen to pastors to State Senators and Bitcoin billionaires.
The Trump pardons are being coordinated within the Trump team by his Attorney General nominee Pam Bondi, but also David Warrington who has been named Trump’s White House Counsel. Warrington was previously a partner at the Dhillon Law Firm, alongside legal powerhouse Harmeet Dhillon who has been named as Trump’s head of the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice.
The media’s criticisms of Trump’s pardons have largely been ineffective and impotent since Joe Biden pardoned his felon son Hunter Biden with a ‘blanket pardon’ and, some allege, Biden may have even pardoned himself on his way out of office.
One unique case of someone who received a President Commutation in 2020 but who is still seeking a formal full pardon is former Congressman Steve Stockman, who received a commutation of his 2018 fraud conviction in the Southern District of Texas federal court, with a 10 year prison sentence. Stockman has always maintained his innocence, and the complicated federal argument about his guilt has always been incoherent.
While serving nearly three years in prison, Stockman says he met many others whom he claims were also persecuted by the Barack Obama and Joe Biden Department of Justice.
Stockman told the Gateway Pundit: “Personally I hope President Trump pardons someone every week. There’s a long list of people who were persecuted by Obama and then Biden, many of whom are still too afraid to speak out. They don’t have the ability to get noticed, they’re just languishing in prison. They’re worried about speaking out and being hurt by the Bureau of Prisons, they’re worried about being denied medical care while in prison, and they’re worried about a prison Warden just saying their loved ones can’t visit because of made-up reasons. Trump is freeing these political prisoners and making America Great Again, but I hope he can also make prison humane again and release all the political prisoners.”
Stockman received a December 2020 commutation by Trump of his 10 year sentence for 28 counts of fraud. Stockman as a Congressman was the first to propose impeachment articles of Eric Holder, Lois Lerner, and proposed impeaching then-President Barack Obama, making himself a target of the deep state. Even though he was convicted of a fraud that involved $800,000 in donor funds which Trump commuted, the deep state has assessed fines and fees against Stockman since his sentence was commuted, of over $2 million. The judicial system has imposed these various fines, fees, and other monetary penalties with the aim of sending Stockman back to prison, he says, even though Trump commuted his sentence.
This is similar to the way in which other Trump pardons and commutations are being harassed by the deep state, with state and local prosecutors vowing to imprison freed January 6th defendants on other charges. The Department of Justice has also already been caught using various as-yet-unindicted ‘process charges’ as excuses for refusing to release defendants who were otherwise pardoned by Trump.
Another family hoping for a pardon is that of Arkansas State Senator Jon Woods, currently serving an 18-year sentence at Bastrop FCI in Texas. Woods believes he was targeted for persecution because he was one of the first elected officials to endorse Donald Trump. Woods and Randall Shelton were convicted in 2018 of 15 counts that the DOJ claimed was a bribery case. Woods was sentenced to over 18 years in prison for an allegation that he obtained a state grant for a Christian College while being paid as a consultant. Shelton repeatedly refused to lie against Woods, and so federal officials came after him harder as a result.
The FBI Agent in the case who had targeted Woods plead guilty in 2022 of repeatedly illegally destroying evidence in Woods’ case, including going to professional electronics stores to have the devices wiped. The FBI Agent Robert Cessario made audio recordings and went out of his way to destroy all the audio files that were on the original device. Woods maintains that the other audio files would show that the FBI was threatening and coercing witnesses to lie in his case, the FBI says that is not the case. Courts have said they cannot release Woods without proof of what was on the tapes which were illegally destroyed. The FBI Agent, Stephen Cessario, received probation for the illegal destruction of evidence.
Roger Ver is a Bitcoin enthusiast who was indicted in April 2024 for, among other things, not paying enough taxes on his Bitcoin business. Because Ver allegedly underpaid his taxes by $48 million, the Department of Justice is trying to put Ver in prison for 30 years. Ver renounced his citizenship and attempted to pay the ‘exit tax’ that the U.S. government requires of citizens renouncing their citizenship. Ver attempted to pay that tax, but the government is upset at the way Ver valued his assets claiming that he personally owned digital currencies that Ver claims his business owned.
Even though Ver renounced his citizenship in 2014 to live as a citizen of Saint Kitts and Nevis, the government is coming after Ver for the taxes on a digital currency sale in 2017, three years after Ver stopped being an American. But since the government asserts a right in the future earnings of former citizens, unlike any other government in the world, they are now persecuting Ver.
John Kiriakou is a former CIA counterterrorism intelligence agent who was a 2007 whistleblower about the Bush-era torture of prisoners. The intelligence community asked Obama to prosecute him even though he had committed no crime in confirming the torture details and exposing that the Bush administration was lying about what was being done to prisoners. He later accepted a plea deal in 2012 of 30 months in prison because his family was bankrupted by his legal defense bills. Kiriakou, who is left-leaning, has claimed in interviews that he was asked in 2020 by Rudy Giuliani’s employees for $2 million in exchange for a then-Trump pardon. Memos released in discovery to Kiriakou have shown that Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder charged him with espionage even though he knew he did not commit the crime, they charged him in order to bankrupt him so that he would be forced to accept a plea. The espionage charges were later dropped, and Kiriakou spent almost three years in prison.
James David Wright is a League City, Texas preacher who became increasingly outspoken in local and state politics. He was convicted in 2015 of what the DOJ said was a fraudulent stock sale from 2004, and where he was an incidentally involved in the alleged crime and sentenced to over a decade in prison. The Department of Justice asked him repeatedly about what films and conservative documentaries he showed at his church, including a past showing of the movie “The Clinton Chronicles” at his church, South Shore Harbor. Wright is 69 years old, he’s currently scheduled for release in September 2026.
The official process for receiving a pardon is managed by the Department of Justice’s “Office of the Pardon Attorney.” Several, including Stockman and Kirakou, have argued that the presence of the pardon process within the Department of Justice presents a conflict of interest. One condition for the Department considering an official pardon through this process is that the applicant have served over a majority of their sentence, and that they admit their guilt.
Meaning that, if someone maintains their innocence and has a lengthy, unjust, prison sentence, they are ineligible to even be considered for clemency through the Department’s official process.
This complicated and opaque system has been difficult for inmates and their families to navigate. Many of these individuals do not have a large legal defense fund and have not otherwise been able to raise the profile of their cases. Recently pardoned “Silk Road” proprietor Ross Ulbricht is the exception to this rule, where he reportedly raised $6 million in 48 hours from friendly crypto enthusiasts to fund his effort to obtain a pardon.
The average defendant spent all of their funds, including in several cases the funds of their immediate family, on their defense.
Others have had patrons like Alveda King, pro-life niece of Martin Luther King, who intervened with the President on behalf of the 20 pro-life abortion clinic protesters.
But those others who lack the notoriety, fundraising power, or powerful patrons to intervene with the President are hoping for a miracle to get the President’s time and attention so that they, too, might receive a Presidential pardon.
This story originally appeared on TheGateWayPundit
