Political giving

Documented contributions, with the limits stated

Money in politics is public record. So is the fact that most pardons have no donor and most donors never got a pardon. This dataset exists to show what is documented, not to imply why an act happened.

What gets published

• Verified FEC transactions only. Contributor name, committee, date, amount, and the FEC transaction identifier, linked to the filing.
• A sourced relationship. Self, spouse, parent, child, sibling, business partner, employer, or attorney, each backed by a court filing, business registration, or reporting. A shared surname is not a relationship.
• Window and context. Contributions are shown with dates relative to the pardon. A donation eight years earlier and one three months earlier are not the same fact, and the record shows which it is.
• Other public money where it exists. Inaugural committee donations and lobbying disclosures are added when a primary filing exists.

What never gets published

• Name-only matches. If identity cannot be resolved with a second identifier, it stays out.
• Donations to organizations that do not disclose contributors. Absence of a record is not evidence of a donation.
• Any phrasing that asserts a payment caused a pardon.

Coverage limits by era

FEC electronic individual-contribution records are reliable from the 2000s forward, partial in the 1990s, and do not exist before 1979. For earlier pardons, this dataset will be empty and say so.

Published records

3 verified records, $3,012,835 in itemized contributions. Each one cleared the identity standard above before publication. Every other candidate stays out until it does.