On Tuesday, May 27, 2025, the White House announced two more presidential pardons. The recipients were Scott Howard Jenkins, a former sheriff from Virginia sentenced to ten years in prison for bribery and fraud, and James Callahan, a labor union official convicted of filing false reports in Washington, D.C.

These cases are just the latest in a growing list of pardons and commutations issued by President Donald Trump since returning to office in January. While on paper the beneficiaries range widely, a clear pattern has emerged: many are Trump allies, donors, or public supporters, and several have claimed they were unfairly prosecuted because of their political views.

According to The New York Times, Trump described Jenkins as “a victim of an overzealous Biden Department of Justice” who “doesn’t deserve to spend a single day in jail.” Ed Martin — recently appointed as pardon attorney — echoed that sentiment after his ceremonial swearing-in, posting on social media: “No MAGA left behind” and “Freedom for Captives!”

Martin is not a career official. As The Times reported, he is the first political appointee in recent memory to serve as pardon attorney, a role traditionally held by nonpartisan Justice Department lawyers. He was named after the dismissal of a DOJ official who had refused to restore gun rights to actor Mel Gibson, a prominent Trump supporter. Martin also leads the “Weaponization Working Group,” an internal DOJ initiative focused on investigating alleged abuses by the Biden administration.

This marks a sharp departure from the traditional clemency process, in which applications are vetted based on criteria such as remorse, rehabilitation, and time served. As The New York Times noted, Trump has largely abandoned the formal DOJ process, favoring loyalty-driven petitions that often mirror his own rhetoric.

Take the case of former Tennessee state senator Brian Kelsey, who pleaded guilty in 2022 to funneling illegal campaign donations. He unsuccessfully tried to withdraw his plea, then submitted a pardon request claiming he had been targeted for his political ties. Two weeks after reporting to prison, he was pardoned.

In an essay published Wednesday, Kelsey wrote: “The Biden administration waged unprecedented lawfare against President Trump,” and added, “it also waged lawfare against Trump supporters, including me.”

Paul Walczak, a former nursing home executive who pled guilty to tax fraud, struck a similar tone. His pardon application suggested his family was targeted because of their support for Trump. Less than three weeks after his mother attended a \$1 million-a-head fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago, Walczak received a pardon.

The same dynamic played out in the case of Daniel Rodriguez, who used a stun gun to assault a police officer during the January 6 Capitol riot. Although Rodriguez expressed remorse during sentencing and was labeled a “one-man army of hate” by the judge, he was included in Trump’s first-day pardons, which declared the prosecutions of Jan. 6 offenders to be “a grave national injustice that has been perpetrated upon the American people over the last four years.”

That logic extended to a series of white-collar pardons. Trump recently pardoned reality TV stars Todd and Julie Chrisley, convicted of bank fraud and tax evasion. In February, their daughter Savannah Chrisley read their pardon application aloud on her podcast, describing her parents as “vocal supporters of President Trump.”

The application argued that the Chrisleys’ prosecution “exemplifies the weaponization of justice against conservatives and public figures, eroding basic constitutional protections.” The same lawyer, Alex Little, who represented Kelsey, also drafted the Chrisley petition. He drew links between the federal prosecutors in the case and Fani T. Willis, the Georgia district attorney who charged Trump in 2023 over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

According to The New York Times, the growing number of such cases has fueled a cottage industry of clemency consultants and lobbyists — legal professionals who specialize in tailoring pardon requests to appeal to Trump’s political grievances.

While not every clemency recipient is politically connected — some include rappers or reformed gang members — the overarching trend suggests a weaponized use of presidential pardon power, designed to reward allies and reaffirm Trump’s narrative of political persecution.

As The Times concluded, this evolving approach has transformed clemency from an act of exceptional mercy into a tool of political restoration, undoing convictions not necessarily because justice failed, but because loyalty was rewarded.