'Make a pitch': Attorney reveals secret to getting a pardon from Trump
U.S. President Donald Trump makes an announcement about a trade deal with the U.K., in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 8, 2025. REUTERS/Leah Millis
The pardon process during President Donald Trump's second term is being described as the "Wild West" in a new Wall Street Journal report. And an attorney for clients seeking a pardon from the 47th president says there's a specific type of defendant Trump likes more than most.
In a Tuesday article, the Journal's Eliza Collins, Rebecca Ballhaus and Corinne Ramey detailed how the Trump White House has all but completely transformed the presidential pardon process since his second term began. The report observes how defendants are expected to enlist a combination of lobbyists, lawyers and deep pockets to win the stroke of Trump's pardon pen.
"Trump has turned the pardon process into the Wild West," wrote Collins, Ballhaus and Ramey. "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."
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For starters, defendants usually have to rely on the good word of those in Trump's immediate vicinity whose word he trusts. According to the Journal, this has included everyone from Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and former Trump lawyers Jesse Binnall and Jim Trusty.
Longtime Trump confidant Roger Stone – who personally received a pardon from Trump in 2020 when he was facing several years in federal prison — is also advocating for several defendants angling for a presidential pardon. The Journal reported that Stone has been paid roughly $600,000 for two months of work toward a pardon for Roger Ver (also known as "Bitcoin Jesus") who is facing decades in prison after being criminally indicted for tax evasion last year. Some of Ver's associates have alleged that his charges are politically motivated – which one lawyer with clients seeking pardons says could work in his favor.
"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," defense attorney Eric Rosen told the Journal.
An unnamed administration official confirmed this to the paper, saying that while defendants who want a pardon are subjected to "extensive vetting," it helps if they make a case that they were targeted by "unfair justice." The Journal noted that Trump began his second term by pardoning roughly 1,500 people charged and/or convicted in connection with the January 6, 2021 insurrection, and argued that he was the victim of politically drive prosecution throughout his third campaign for the White House.
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Click here to read the Wall Street Journal's full report (subscription required).
