President Donald Trump talks to reporters as he departs the White House on October 24, 2025. Allison Robbert/AP/File

So much of the coverage of President Donald Trump’s pardons is focused on how political they are. And they are certainly political — extraordinarily so.

But as Trump’s latest batch of pardons reinforces, that’s only half the story.

The more ominous trend is not just that he’s pardoning political allies; it’s that he’s pardoning allies in very transactional ways .

He’s pardoning lots and lots of people who helped Trump, specifically.

After previously dangling pardons over allies involved in sensitive investigations involving Trump himself — and later delivering those pardons — he’s now pardoned oodles of people who took illegal or legally dubious action on his beha

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