John Oliver took aim at Donald Trump’s use of pardons on his HBO show last night and discussed how the US president prioritizes supporters and Maga donors.
“The executive power to pardon someone from federal crimes is enshrined in the constitution, and it’s basically unchecked,” Oliver said on Last Week Tonight. That can often be a good thing, but Trump has often pardoned his own allies and well-known figures such as George Santos and Rudy Giuliani.
While Trump issued 238 commutations in his first presidential term, he has given out nearly 2,000 less than two years into his second term, with 250 more pardons rumored to be planned to celebrate the US’s 250th birthday.
Past presidents have shown favoritism with granting pardons, such as Gerald Ford’s decision to pardon Richard Nixon and Joe Biden’s decision to pardon his son, Hunter Biden. But such cases were “the exception”, Oliver said.
Trump has often used his power as president to side-step the traditional system, allowing him to pardon “cronies and friends” in his first term like, Charles Kushner and Paul Manafort, as well as issue deserving pardons such as Alice Marie Johnson, who was serving a life sentence for drug trafficking and was advocated for by Kim Kardashian.
In his second term, Trump has used his pardon power to a “truly ridiculous degree”, Oliver said. After his inauguration, he pardoned January 6 Capitol rioters, including the leader of the far-right Proud Boys group as well as 600 protesters charged with assaulting law enforcement or resisting arrest.
“Legal experts say that no president has started a term with so many pardons that violate longstanding policies and norms,” said Oliver.
Trump has also attempted to set up a $1.8bn “anti-weaponization” fund to compensate anyone who says they were unfairly prosecuted under Biden. One pardoned January 6 rioter, Andrew Paul Johnson, was arrested six months later for child sexual abuse, and reportedly tried to buy the silence of one victim by promising money he was due to receive from Trump’s fund.
“I don’t know if there is any clearer example of ‘two wrongs don’t make a right’ than trying to silence your child victim with your treason money,” said Oliver.
More than 50 of Trump’s pardons in his second term have been for white-collar offenses such as fraud and money laundering. Among those pardoned was Trevor Milton, the founder of the electric car startup Nikola who was convicted of wire fraud and had donated more than $1.8m to Trump’s re-election campaign fund. The pardon also wiped away more than $600m that Milton owed to his investors in restitution costs.
“Milton is not a one-off,” Oliver said. “Trump’s second term pardons have taken away over $1.3bn from victims and survivors of crime.
“It sure feels, to the extent that there is any rhyme or reason in how people get pardons, that it has little to do with any of the established criteria … Instead, we now seem to have a system where things like media coverage, money and appeals to Trump’s vanity are key.”
In 2023, the crypto company Binance and its CEO, Changpeng Zhao, pleaded guilty to failing to stop money laundering after allowing Russian drug traffickers, Hamas militants and other criminal organizations to move money through the platform. The company paid $4bn in fines, but Trump gave Zhao a full pardon in October 2025. When the president was asked his reasons on 60 Minutes, he said: “I don’t know who he is … I just heard it was a Biden witch-hunt.”
“There it is!” Oliver exclaimed. “Trump’s classic move of pretending he doesn’t know someone after it turns out that his association with them might be a problem.”
It turned out that, months before Zhao’s pardon, Binance set up the Trump family with a crypto deal that would net them about $30m a month, which might have had something to do with it.
“What can we do? Legally, there’s not much we can do,” said Oliver. While some have suggested reining in the president’s pardon power, that could set a dangerous precedent given that “historically, the harm of sketchy pardons has been offset by clemency coming for many more who actually deserve it”.
“The problem is that now it feels that that ratio has been reversed, and outside of a few exceptions, it’s basically just the scumbags and fraudsters with connections to Trump that get pardons.
“Trump loves to rail about how tough he is when it comes to law and order,” the host concluded. “But that toughness is clearly deeply selective. Because he’ll happily put violent people and fraudsters right back in the streets to victimize people again just because they support him.”
