Trump Has Wiped £1.5B in Victim Repayments With Pardons; Now He's Promising More to His Own Staff

President Donald Trump has erased nearly £1.5 billion ($1.9 billion) in court-ordered repayments owed to crime victims and taxpayers through his clemency powers, and he is now reportedly promising blanket pardons to his own White House staff before he leaves office.

A new analysis by the California Governor's Office, published 5 March 2026, found that Trump's pardons across both presidential terms have wiped more than £1 billion ($1.3 billion) in court-ordered restitution and, when forfeitures and fines are added, total nearly £1.5 billion ($1.9 billion) in financial penalties that convicted criminals no longer have to pay.

On 10 April 2026, the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump has told senior aides he intends to pardon everyone who has 'come within 200 feet of the Oval' before he leaves office in January 2029, citing multiple people familiar with his private comments. Together, the two developments have reignited a fierce debate over whether Trump is using one of the Constitution's most powerful tools as a personal shield for allies and loyalists rather than a mechanism for justice.

The White House has not disputed the substance of either story.

The $1.3 Billion Restitution Wipeout: Cases, Criminals, and Victims Left Empty-Handed

The scale of the financial damage is documented in two independent sources. A June 2025 staff analysis by House Judiciary Committee Democrats, led by Ranking Member Jamie Raskin, found that Trump's pardons had wiped £1 billion ($1.3 billion) in restitution and fines owed directly to victims and U.S. taxpayers.

The California Governor's analysis, which drew on the Department of Justice's official clemency pages, reached nearly £1.5 billion ($1.9 billion) when forfeitures and asset seizures were factored in.

The individual cases are striking in their scale. Trevor Milton, founder of the electric truck company Nikola, was convicted of securities fraud and wire fraud and sentenced to four years in prison. Prosecutors had requested £524 million ($676 million) in restitution from shareholders. Trump pardoned him, and the restitution request was still pending at that time.

Ross Ulbricht, founder of the Silk Road darknet drug marketplace, had been ordered to pay roughly £143 million ($184 million) in restitution before Trump granted him a full pardon on the first day of his second term. Jason Galanis, a convicted fraudster who stole more than £62 million ($80 million) from union pension funds and a Native American tribe, was pardoned after cooperating with Republicans in their failed impeachment push against Joe Biden; his £65 million ($84.4 million) in court-ordered restitution was erased alongside his sentence.

Reality TV personalities Todd and Julie Chrisley, convicted of bank fraud and tax evasion, were pardoned in May 2025. Their pardon wiped away an order to repay £13.8 million ($17.8 million) to banks. Raskin said in a statement: 'Our new analysis reveals that when President Trump issued a mass blanket pardon to 1,500 January 6 felons and dozens of mostly white-collar criminals, he wiped out $1.3 billion in restitution payments and fines they owed directly to their victims and to American taxpayers.'

For context, the California analysis noted that Biden's 80 individual pardons over four years carried roughly £530,000 ($688,000) in combined financial penalties, a figure more than 2,000 times smaller.

The Pardon Office Dismantled: Liz Oyer's Firing and the Collapse of Clemency Standards

The institutional machinery meant to review pardon applications has itself been reshaped to serve political ends. Liz Oyer, who served as the U.S. Pardon Attorney from 2022 until March 2025, told NBC News and congressional committees that she was fired after refusing to recommend the restoration of gun rights to actor Mel Gibson, a close Trump ally who had pleaded no contest to misdemeanour domestic violence charges in 2011. Gibson had lost his firearms rights as a result of that conviction.

Oyer told NBC News that an official from Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche's office had contacted her and 'essentially explained to me that Mel Gibson has a personal relationship with President Trump and that should be sufficient basis for me to make a recommendation.' She refused.

Her termination notice, which she posted publicly on LinkedIn, consisted of three sentences and offered no stated reason. Blanche called her account 'false.' Attorney General Pam Bondi subsequently restored Gibson's gun rights. In written testimony before a joint hearing of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees on 7 April 2025, Oyer stated: 'I am here because I will not be bullied into concealing the ongoing corruption and abuse of power at the Department of Justice.'

The Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats' formal letter to Bondi, signed by ten senators including Senators Dick Durbin and Adam Schiff, found the situation 'particularly troubling' and warned that the DOJ's actions reflected a department willing to 'elevate politics over public safety to benefit the President's supporters.' Oyer was replaced in the pardon review process by Ed Martin, a former Stop the Steal activist, and Alice Marie Johnson, herself a former federal prisoner who received a sentence commutation from Trump in 2018, was named 'Pardon Czar' in February 2026.

'200 Feet From the Oval': Trump's Reported Promise of Pre-emptive Pardons for Staff

The Wall Street Journal reported on 10 April 2026 that Trump has repeatedly told senior administration officials he plans to pardon them before leaving office. According to the Journal, Trump told aides in a recent meeting: 'I'll pardon everyone who has come within 200 feet of the Oval.'

Multiple people familiar with his comments told the Journal that the radius in that quip appears to be shifting. Another source said Trump had earlier framed it as pardoning anyone within ten feet. In a separate conversation with advisers in the dining room adjoining the Oval Office, Trump reportedly said he would hold a news conference to announce the pardons in the final days of his term.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt responded to the Journal with a statement: 'The Wall Street Journal should learn to take a joke, however, the President's pardon power is absolute.' The outlet reported that sources were not aware of any specific pardon being offered to any specific individual for any specific act, but added that aides have raised the pardons so consistently in private conversations that 'some advisers laugh about it' while others believe Trump is serious. The Journal also noted that Trump has already issued approximately 1,600 clemency grants in his second term to date, a pace without modern precedent.

The legal basis for what Trump is describing already exists. In 1974, Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon before any charges were filed, establishing that a president may pardon preemptively. Trump used the same mechanism on 9 November 2025, when he signed a proclamation granting preemptive pardons to 77 people associated with the fake electors plot to overturn the 2020 election results.

Democrats, who polls suggest are positioned to regain the House in November's midterms, have signalled plans to investigate Trump's control of the Justice Department and his use of clemency. According to the Journal, Trump has discussed the pardons partly as a way to thwart those potential inquiries, with advisers confirming he has explored how to pre-empt possible congressional investigations.

With more than £1.5 billion already erased from victims' pockets and a promise of more pardons now aimed at his own inner circle, the question is not whether Trump will use clemency as a shield for his administration, but how wide that shield will be allowed to grow.