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The post How Trump Has Exploited Pardons and Clemency to Reward Allies and Supporters appeared first on ProPublica.
Alice Marie Johnson, who received a pardon from Trump after she served 21 years in prison for cocaine trafficking, speaks during a celebration of the First Step Act in the White House in 2019. Johnson now advises the administration on pardons. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Liliana Trafficante is one of the thousands hoping for clemency. Like many of the people who have received pardons or commutations, she was convicted of a financial crime. But, unlike Charles Kushner, she had no family tie to the president’s inner circle. And unlike Santos, she had never been to Mar-a-Lago. She filed her petition for a pardon on her own.
Trafficante, who lives in the Bronx, pleaded guilty in 2010 to conspiracy to commit wire fraud in a multiyear scheme in which she collected more than $1 million in investments for a water park for foster children that she never built.
She served just over three years in federal prison and was ordered to pay $750,000 restitution to her victims. She said in an interview that she makes monthly payments but at times has been unable to keep up. She said in an interview that she feels remorse and accepts that what she did was wrong, though she maintains she was not the mastermind of the scheme.
Trafficante said that she now works as a chaplain who ministers to people in shelters and on the streets. This year, she announced on Instagram that she was running for the New York City Council. But under a 2021 city law, she could not legally take office even if voters elected her unless Trump pardoned her. She registered a campaign committee but ultimately didn’t enter the race.
Trump’s return to office inspired her to seek a pardon. “I mean, he was going through his own criminal court case and yet he’s the president,” she said. “I was like, ‘OK, this is my guy.’”
Tony Gene Broxton, a former fire department bookkeeper from the Florida Panhandle, was indicted in 2013 on federal charges of theft of public money and making false statements. Prosecutors said he stole more than $200,000 in government benefits from the Social Security Administration and the Department of Veterans Affairs over several years while working for his local fire district. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to five years of probation and a year of house arrest. He made restitution for the full amount, court records show.
As a convicted felon, Broxton lost his right to possess a gun. He applied for a pardon during the first Trump presidency, but it was finally denied by the Biden administration in 2023. After Trump returned to office, he applied again.
“I can’t go hunting with my rifles,” he said. “I can’t go target shooting with my wife. All my guns are in storage, locked up. I don’t even have access to them.”
He thought it was a good sign when, on his first day back in office, Trump pardoned the roughly 1,500 Jan. 6 defendants. He believed that Trump would have an attorney review petitions and start approving some of them.
He checks the status of his case every day.
“But,” he said, “every time I go online it just says, still pending.”
The post How Trump Has Exploited Pardons and Clemency to Reward Allies and Supporters appeared first on ProPublica.
Published: 2025-11-12T10:30:00
