President Donald Trump has taken an increasingly personal role in the government’s clemency process, wielding pardons aid his allies and advance his own political grievances.

A Reuters investigation found that 96% of Trump’s second-term clemency grants have gone to recipients who didn’t fulfill longstanding DOJ guidelines for such requests. Past presidents on have sidestepped those rules before, but fewer than 1% of those who received clemency during the Biden administration and just 14% of recipients in Trump’s first presidency failed to meet the guidelines.

Pardon applicants once had to comply with longstanding DOJ guidelines, such as a five-year wait after conviction or demonstrated remorse for their crimes. But a Reuters’ analysis shows that under Trump, clemency now is far more dependent upon access to his inner circle. They also found that “access is enhanced when an applicant can craft a narrative that resonates with the president’s own sense of victimization.”

During his first administration, Trump granted just 238 pardons and commutations, most of which came amid his frantic final days in office. But this term the White House has made clemencies a key part of its agenda.

As part of our weekly series “If You Can Keep it,” we discuss pardons in the second Trump Administration.

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