KVIG Informative

A Reuters count of presidential clemency found that President Trump has pardoned or commuted the sentences of at least 85 officials charged with or convicted of corruption-related crimes, and the list skews heavily toward his own party. A former Las Vegas councilwoman is on it.

Reuters published the first comprehensive count of such clemency across Trump’s two terms on October 13. It identified at least 85 public officials, a figure the news agency called a minimum. The count covers people who held elected or appointed government roles or worked in the civil or uniformed services. It excludes at least 18 active-duty military, police and government employees charged over the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

The list is overwhelmingly Republican. Thirty-six of the 85 were elected as Republicans, and 19 more were Republicans appointed to political office, Reuters found. Nine others had campaigned for Trump or publicly backed his agenda. Only four were known Democrats.

The clemency changed what happened next for most recipients. Nearly three-quarters left prison early, avoided trial or sentencing, or regained rights such as owning a gun, according to Reuters. The agency estimated the pardons and commutations spared the officials a combined 130 years in prison and more than $15 million in financial penalties. More than three-quarters did not cooperate with prosecutors, and most neither pleaded guilty nor publicly expressed remorse.

One of them is Michele Fiore, a Las Vegas Republican. A federal jury in Las Vegas convicted her in October 2024 on six counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, returning the verdicts less than two hours into deliberations after an eight-day trial, 8 News Now reported. Jurors found she solicited donations for a statue honoring slain Las Vegas police officer Alyn Beck and used some of the money for personal expenses. Law&Crime put the amount at about $70,000.

Trump gave Fiore a full pardon on April 23, 2025, three weeks before her scheduled May 14 sentencing, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported. Reuters said the pardon spared her prison, criminal fines and restitution to the donors. A White House spokesperson told The Hill she had been targeted over her outspoken conservative views, Law&Crime reported. Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford and state Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro, both Democrats, condemned the pardon, while her trial attorney said her spending served her work as a councilwoman. Fiore told Reuters she is innocent.

The two sides of the debate split along familiar lines. A White House spokesperson, Lauren Bis, told Reuters that Trump grants clemency to Americans she said were unjustly prosecuted by a politicized Justice Department under President Biden. Phillip Halpern, a retired assistant U.S. attorney who prosecuted two Republican congressmen Trump later pardoned, told Reuters the pardons set a standard that encourages corruption. More than half of the 85 officials were charged or convicted in cases that involved the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section, Reuters found.

Reuters called its tally of 85 a minimum. The donors who gave to a statue fund in Las Vegas will not receive restitution, because the pardon erased it.