Democrats Preview a New Attack: Trump’s Pardons Are Majorly Expensive

A new internal memo to House Judiciary Committee Democrats zeroes in on a new attack line: President Donald Trump’s nearly 1,600 pardons are expensive.

According to the document, Trump’s pardons are costing crime victims and taxpayers potentially $1.3 billion.

“Not only has President Trump issued an unprecedented number of pardons in his second term,” the memo states, “he has used his clemency powers to take an estimated $1.3 billion away from victims and survivors of crime, allowing perpetrators to keep profiting from their crimes — a sharp break with established practice.”

The document delineates how much each of Trump’s pardon recipients owed in restitution, forfeiture and fines. Jan. 6 defendants, for example, owed an estimated total of $3 million for damaging the U.S. Capitol Building and assaulting police officers. Ross Ulbricht, the creator of the infamous Silk Road black market, owed $184 million in forfeiture and fines, which Trump explicitly waived.

Some of the costs identified by the committee Democrats are more speculative.

For example, the $1.3 billion figure factors in $676 million the federal prosecutors calculated electric truck start-up founder Trevor Milton owed for defrauding his company’s shareholders. But a judge had not determined Milton’s restitution before Trump pardoned him in March, so it’s unclear precisely how much Milton would have had to pay.

Even then, Democrats are eager to bring attention to the potential grand total.

“President Trump’s pardon spree has also swept in big-time corporate fraudsters, millionaire tax evaders, and other white-collar criminals,” the memo says. “Thanks to President Trump’s pardons, these convicted criminals now get to keep $1.3 billion in ill-gotten gains they stole from their victims and American taxpayers.”

According to the memo, the unpaid restitution and fines are a departure from traditional Department of Justice guidance, which expects pardon candidates to have already made restitution to victims before receiving clemency.

As Democrats search for messages that break through to voters, this latest charge might find some legs. After all, the Trump administration has focused much of its first five months on cutting costs, with the House of Representatives codifying $9.4 billion in Department of Government Efficiency cuts last week.

But pardons also remain a touchy subject for a party still licking its wounds after the Biden administration. In his final days, President Joe Biden pardoned his son Hunter Biden and preemptively pardoned other family members, outraging Democrats who hoped the president would let the criminal justice system run its course.

Still, fines and restitution ever owed by Biden pardon recipients totaled less than $2 million, according to the Department of Justice.

With the party’s latest memo, it’s apparent Judiciary Democrats don’t plan to shy away from the subject.

As NOTUS has reported, Trump has rewarded people who donated heavily to Trump and his allies — like Milton, who gave $1.8 million to the president’s reelection bid and contributed to now Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign. As one source familiar with Trump’s pardons told NOTUS, the clemency process boils down to a “‘what has that person done for me lately’ type of situation.”

“Whoever said crime doesn’t pay clearly never lived under a Trump presidency,” the memo says.

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Riley Rogerson is a reporter at NOTUS.