Donald Trump has pardoned Stephen Buyer, the former Indiana congressman who spent nearly two years in federal prison for illegal stock trades executed while serving as a consultant and lobbyist after leaving office.
Buyer, 67, was convicted in 2023 and sentenced to 22 months for trading on nonpublic information related to two major corporate transactions. He was ordered to forfeit more than $350,000 in illegal gains and pay a $10,000 fine. He was released in 2025 after the Supreme Court rejected his appeal without comment or noted dissent.
The pardon, issued Thursday and released Friday by the White House, came as Trump's administration has publicly emphasized efforts to crack down on fraud in Democratic-led states. The decision marks another instance of Trump using presidential clemency to absolve financial crimes by Republicans.
In the pardon document, Trump highlighted Buyer's military service as a judge advocate general in the U.S. Army and his record as a "distinguished and highly productive" congressman. Buyer left the House in 2011 and later served on Trump's 2016 transition team focused on veterans' affairs. He was also a House prosecutor during Bill Clinton's 1998 impeachment trial.
Buyer maintained his innocence in a statement following the pardon, calling it a correction of a "politically motivated prosecution" and describing his imprisonment as "horrific" for a crime he said he did not commit.
The push for clemency included backing from more than 40 former Republicans in Congress, who submitted a letter claiming Buyer was "targeted by the deep state" because of his role in Clinton's impeachment. In separate correspondence from five current House Republicans signed in June 2025, lawmakers argued that pardoning Buyer would deliver justice in his case. The signatories were Tom Cole of Oklahoma, Ken Calvert of California, Marlin Stutzman of Indiana, Jack Bergman of Michigan, and Pete Sessions of Texas.
Buyer's illegal trades involved the $26.5 billion merger of T-Mobile and Sprint, announced in April 2018, and transactions in the management consulting firm Navigant ahead of its acquisition by Guidehouse, a deal that was disclosed weeks later. His conviction rested on the use of material nonpublic information for personal profit.
Under the Constitution, presidents hold broad authority to grant pardons for federal crimes. While such pardons do not expunge a recipient's criminal record, they are typically viewed as acts of mercy or assertions of executive justice.
Author James Rodriguez: "The pattern here is unmistakable, and it speaks to how differently financial crimes are treated depending on party affiliation."
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