Trump is pardoning allies and backers. Who’s seeking clemency now?

President Donald Trump has doled out dozens of executive clemency grants in the past few weeks alone, issuing pardons and commutations to major business figures, political supporters and other allies.

Some hope he’s just getting started.

Trump started wielding his presidential mercy powers aggressively on the first day of his second term, when he pardoned roughly 1,500 people who were charged in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. Presidential pardons erase federal criminal convictions, while commutations shorten or cancel prison sentences, and sometimes related fines.

In subsequent months, clemency recipients have included a slew of well-known names, including former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, ex-Hunter Biden business partner Devon Archer, Nikola founder Trevor Milton, reality TV stars Julie and Todd Chrisley, disgraced former U.S. Rep. George Santos and Binance founder Changpeng Zhao.

On Monday, Trump granted largely symbolic pardons to more than six dozen people who were involved in efforts to overturn his loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential race, U.S. pardon attorney Ed Martin revealed on social media. The people included in the batch of pardons are not facing federal charges related to the 2020 election. The presidential pardon power does not extend to state-level prosecutions.

That group includes Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s onetime personal lawyer and former New York City mayor, as well as his former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.

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Some recipients of Trump’s clemency, including multiple people involved in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, have since been charged with new crimes.

The Department of Justice’s Office of the Pardon Attorney has a formal process for people to apply for clemency, and the agency has established standards for considering petitions. But Trump’s White House has reportedly taken over much of the process, including by appointing a former clemency recipient, Alice Johnson, as the administration’s “pardon czar.”

Prior presidents have been accused of misusing their clemency powers, including Biden, whose last-minute pardons for his family members and preemptive pardons for others generated bipartisan condemnations.

But Trump’s approach, which has at times favored famous figures and those who have heaped praise upon him, has spurred unique criticism.

“It’s like a celebrity pardon-a-thon,” John Yoo, a former George W. Bush administration official, told The Washington Post in June.

It has also given rise to a cottage industry of lawyers and lobbyists who are charging steep fees to help their clients seek Trump’s clemency, the online publication NOTUS reported.

Trump pulled back on the pardons over the summer, after White House officials grew concerned about the efforts to profit off the process, NBC News reported last month. But the raft of clemency actions in recent weeks suggests that Trump does not currently share those concerns.

That could be good news for a number of high-profile figures who have been eyed as possible candidates for pardons or commutations from Trump.

Based on public reports and the president’s own remarks, here’s who that list might include:

The House Judiciary Committee’s Democratic minority on Monday shared “whistleblower information” that Maxwell, the longtime accomplice of notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, is preparing a “commutation application” for the Trump administration.

Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for acting as a procurer of teenage girls for Epstein. The Supreme Court in early October declined to take up Maxwell’s appeal of her conviction.

She “has good reason to believe” that she “may receive the extraordinary grant of clemency from you,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., the committee’s ranking member, accused Trump in a letter seeking answers from him.

“Feigning ignorance and distancing yourself from the situation, you have pointedly refused to rule out clemency for her,” Raskin wrote to Trump.

Trump has given ambiguous answers when asked on multiple occasions about that possibility of pardoning Maxwell.

Asked on Oct. 6 if he was considering a pardon for her, Trump said, “I haven’t heard the name in so long. I can say this, that I’d have to take a look at it. I would have to take a look.”

“I will speak to the DOJ,” Trump said when asked to clarify if he was considering it. “I wouldn’t consider it or not consider — I don’t know anything about it.”

A White House spokeswoman, in response to the whistleblower claims shared Monday, told NBC that it “does not comment on potential clemency requests.”

“As President Trump has stated, pardoning Ghislaine Maxwell is not something he has thought about,” the spokeswoman said.

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Lauren Hersh, national director of anti-trafficking group World Without Exploitation, said in a statement Tuesday that Maxwell’s sentence “should be upheld like anyone else’s.”

“To now entertain a commutation would sadly send a clear message to survivors of her crimes — and to countless others who have been victimized sexually — that her power outweighs truth and that the justice owed to survivors can be denied,” Hersh said.

Music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs’ path to clemency currently appears narrow at best.

Combs was sentenced to more than four years behind bars in early October over his conviction on two prostitution-related charges.

After his conviction, Combs’ lawyers reached out to Trump to seek a pardon, a member of his legal team told CNN.

“It’s my understanding that we’ve reached out and had conversations in reference to a pardon,” attorney Nicole Westmoreland told the news outlet.

Trump said in an Aug. 1 interview with Newsmax that he was leaning against pardoning Combs.

On Oct. 6, Trump confirmed that Combs’ team had reached out.

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“A lot of people have asked me for pardons. I call him ‘Puff Daddy,’ [he] has asked me for a pardon,” Trump said in the Oval Office.

After TMZ reported on Oct. 20 that Trump was considering commuting Combs’ sentence, the White House pushed back, calling the story false.

Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of Theranos, in late 2022 was sentenced to more than 11 years in prison for deceiving investors about her now-shuttered company’s blood-testing technology.

Trump has not commented on Holmes, and she has not explicitly pleaded for clemency, though she has maintained she was “wrongly convicted of defrauding investors.”

Holmes is nevertheless included in the online betting site Polymarket’s list of possible Trump pardon subjects, with her chances currently on par with Maxwell’s.

On Tuesday, Politico reported that some people who identify with the pro-Trump “Make America Healthy Again” movement have thrown their support behind Holmes.

In late August, Holmes resumed posting on her dormant social media account on X. Some of her posts appear to approvingly reference Trump and officials in his administration, while others detail her allegedly harsh prison conditions.

On Oct. 31 she reached out to Santos, whose sentence Trump had recently commuted, writing, “Glad you are working to fix the many problems you have experienced personally.”

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On Nov.3, she responded to a post calling Trump the “Best President Ever” in response to the president reportedly stepping in to help provide medical treatment to Scott Adams, one of his supporters.

SBF is serving a 25-year prison sentence following his conviction in late 2023 for defrauding customers of his cryptocurrency exchange FTX.

The 33-year-old and his parents have reportedly pursued a pardon, in part by consulting a lawyer with ties to Trump, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal both reported in March. Bankman-Fried has also expressed more conservative political views in media interviews conducted after Trump returned to the White House.

Trump has embraced the crypto industry in his second term, but there is no indication that he is considering a pardon for Bankman-Fried.

After Trump pardoned Zhao, the founder of crypto exchange Binance, on Oct. 23, SBF’s chances of getting a pardon spiked on Polymarket.

Asked in a CBS “60 Minutes” interview why he pardoned Zhao, Trump said: “Okay, are you ready? I don’t know who he is.”

Allies of Menendez, the former Democratic U.S. senator from New Jersey, have made multiple attempts to ask Trump for a pardon or commutation of his 11-year prison sentence, NBC reported in May.

While Trump has not ruled out clemency for Menendez, some of the former senator’s allies believe the president will ultimately decline to do so, NBC reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

Menendez, 71, was convicted in July 2024 of bribery and other charges. He reported to prison in June.

— CNBC’s Dan Mangan contributed to this report.