When Donald Trump pardoned the operators of the BitMEX crypto exchange in his second term, he wiped away a $100 million fine that was scheduled to be paid just hours later. That money was supposed to flow into a federal fund designed to help shooting survivors pay medical bills, rape victims access counseling, and domestic violence survivors find shelter. Instead, it vanished.
Trump has issued pardons and commutations to 117 people and entities so far in his current term. An analysis by the Trace found that at least $113 million in fines and penalties have been forgiven through these acts of clemency, money that would have gone directly into the Crime Victims Fund. The BitMEX pardon accounts for most of that figure, but the broader pattern is alarming to those who run victim services across the country.
The Crime Victims Fund, created by the 1984 Victims of Crime Act, relies almost entirely on fines levied in federal white-collar cases. By law, every dollar collected must go into this pool, which is then distributed to state and local programs serving survivors. Gun violence victims, families of the deceased, and survivors of sexual assault have depended on this money for decades.
What makes Trump's approach unusual is the language he is using in the pardon documents. The BitMEX pardon called for the "remission of any and all fines, penalties, forfeitures, and restitution." None of Trump's first-term pardons contained such language. This time around, roughly a third of his clemency grants do. Remission means the debt disappears and can never be collected again.
Steve Derene, who helped draft the original VOCA legislation in 1984 and has spent decades administering it, explained the mechanics plainly: "Just a couple settlements can really mean the difference in keeping this fund afloat." Federal prosecutions of major corporations tend to yield enormous fines. A single 2017 case against Volkswagen for emissions fraud brought in $2.8 billion. Since the fund's inception, just 90 cases have accounted for two-thirds of all deposits.
The impact on victim services is already visible. In 2021, the Crime Victims Fund distributed $3.7 billion to programs nationwide. By 2024, that figure had dropped to $2.2 billion, a 40 percent decline. The number of people served fell from nearly 10 million in 2021 to 7.1 million in 2024.
States are scrambling. Maine's governor has proposed allocating $6 million annually from the state budget to compensate. Oklahoma victim programs reported 80 percent funding cuts over the past decade. Pennsylvania's domestic violence programs are facing a 7.5 percent VOCA reduction. Sexual assault survivor organizations in New Mexico asked the state for $2 million to cover a shortfall.
Michaela Weber, executive director of Victim Support Services in Washington state, described the consequences in human terms: "When that bridge is strained and victims don't receive timely support, the ripple effects can impact their safety, stability and long-term recovery." Her organization gets most of its funding from VOCA and now faces difficult decisions about which survivors it can help.
The broader threat concerns veterans of the field. Derene worries that federal prosecutors, knowing their major cases could be erased by a presidential pardon, will stop pursuing white-collar prosecutions altogether. "We don't know what cases they're not bringing," he said.
The contrast with Biden is stark. During his entire four-year term, Biden pardoned recipients who had incurred less than $1 million in total fines. Most had already served their sentences decades earlier and paid what they owed. Biden's pardons never interrupted active financial obligations except for foreign nationals released in prisoner exchanges.
There are other pressures on the fund. Federal white-collar prosecutions have plummeted since 2011, with the sharpest declines during Trump's first term. In the opening months of Trump's current administration, the Justice Department declined to prosecute more than 23,000 cases to redirect staff toward immigration work, including over 900 cases involving federal fraud.
Congress is considering the Crime Victims Fund Stabilization Act, which would allow the fund to draw on money from government fraud convictions. The bill passed the House in January but sits awaiting Senate action.
Derene, who spent years believing that prosecutorial decisions were made on the merits regardless of politics, expressed a shift in perspective. "I'm not so willing to say that now," he said, reflecting on how decisions at the top appear to filter down through the Justice Department in ways that affect whose crimes get pursued and who pays.
Author James Rodriguez: "A fund built on Republican principle and bipartisan compromise is being hollowed out by the same party that created it, and the people paying the price are survivors who had nothing to do with any of this."
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