Records: Trump’s Second-Term Clemency Erased At Least $119 Million in Victim Restitution and About $120 Million in Fines

A CBS News investigation, backed by Justice Department clemency records, found that President Donald Trump’s second-term pardons and commutations wiped out at least $119 million in unpaid court-ordered restitution owed to crime victims and canceled about $120 million in fines.

The financial impact matters beyond pardon politics. Restitution is money that courts order defendants to pay identifiable victims. Fines, while distinct from restitution, can help fund the federal Crime Victims Fund, which supports victim-assistance programs. When clemency erases those obligations, the effect can reach both individuals and public programs.

The issue drew fresh political attention Tuesday when the Democratic National Committee released a statement highlighting new reporting on the cost of Trump’s clemency actions. But the core numbers come from CBS and the Justice Department’s Office of the Pardon Attorney, which maintains the government’s public list of clemency grants and the sentence entries showing restitution or fines. Larger figures now circulating, including the DNC’s roughly $1.1 billion estimate, rely on broader counting methods that include joint obligations and restitution requests that had not yet been finalized by a judge. CBS’ $119 million figure is the more conservative documented minimum for unpaid restitution already on the books.

Justice Department records show several large-dollar examples.

Carlos Roy Watson, the former Ozy Media executive, received clemency on March 28, 2025. The Justice Department entry for his case lists $36,769,153.97 in restitution.

Paul Walczak received clemency on April 23, 2025. His Justice Department entry lists $4,381,265.76 in restitution.

Reality TV figures Todd and Julie Chrisley received clemency on May 28, 2025. Todd Chrisley’s Justice Department entry shows $17,270,741.57 in restitution, while Julie Chrisley’s shows $4,740,645.04.

The clemency list also includes major financial penalties in corporate and financial crime cases. HDR Global Trading Limited, the company behind the cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX, received clemency on March 27, 2025; the Justice Department entry lists a $100 million fine. Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, the cryptocurrency executive, received clemency on Oct. 21, 2025; the department lists a $50 million fine. Another recipient, Joseph Schwartz, had a Justice Department entry dated Nov. 12, 2025, showing $5 million in restitution.

Those case-by-case records help explain the lower CBS total. They reflect amounts already entered in court and then affected by clemency. Higher estimates use a wider lens.

The clearest example of the gap is Trevor Milton, who received clemency on March 27, 2025. Prosecutors had sought hundreds of millions of dollars in restitution, with reporting putting the request at roughly $660 million to $695 million. But much of that figure was a request, not a final court judgment. Some tallies include it; more conservative ones do not.

That is also why another Democratic estimate ran even higher. A review by House Judiciary Democrats, publicized June 17, 2025, put the total at about $1.3 billion. But that review used broader inclusion rules than CBS’ “at least $119 million” in already-ordered, unpaid restitution.

The broader scrutiny of Trump’s clemency program has extended beyond the dollar figures. CBS reported that about 70% of Trump’s second-term clemency actions did not go through the traditional Justice Department pardon-review process. Its reporting also described a market of outside “pardon brokers” who charged clients large fees, in some cases up to $3 million, to press clemency requests.

Congressional Democrats have investigated whether donations or lobbying influenced some clemency decisions, and CBS, Forbes and others have reported that many recipients had political, financial, legal or fundraising ties to Trump or people around him. The DNC said “at least 18” recipients whose fines or restitution were affected had White House ties, but that figure does not come from a single official government tally.

Ed Martin, speaking in the CBS and “60 Minutes” reporting, denied seeing evidence of improper influence. “I’ve not seen it. I haven’t heard it,” he said. “I sat with a thousand people in the last year in my office, and I listened to them tell- some of them ended up with clemency. Some of them were pardoned.”