Method

How this record is built

Rules that decide what gets published, what gets marked unknown, and what never gets inferred.

Scope

Complete named coverage from 1977 to present, built president by president from the Department of Justice Office of the Pardon Attorney lists. Aggregate counts from 1897 to 1976 come from DOJ clemency statistics. Before 1897 there is no complete name-level source, and this record will say so rather than fill gaps with guesswork.

What is loaded, by president

President	Pardons	Commutations	Mixed batches	Total
Jimmy Carter (1977-1981)	544	31	0	575
Ronald Reagan (1981-1989)	393	13	0	406
George H. W. Bush (1989-1993)	74	3	0	77
Bill Clinton (1993-2001)	412	65	0	477
George W. Bush (2001-2009)	189	11	0	200
Barack Obama (2009-2017)	209	1,695	0	1,904
Donald J. Trump (first term)	144	94	0	238
Joe Biden (2021-2025)	76	181	0	257
Donald J. Trump (second term)	100	15	54	169
Total				4,303

Counts are the named individuals the Department of Justice enumerates on its own clemency recipient pages, read at import time. Where DOJ lists a group rather than names, the group is counted as one class record or is not listed at all, and this table does not inflate it into individuals. DOJ's recipient lists do not always sum to its published aggregate statistics; where they differ, this record follows the named list and says so.

Known limits in the source

• DOJ's Biden commutation page does not name the individuals covered by the mass commutations announced in December 2024 and January 2025. Those were group actions; they are not expanded here into invented rows.
• Where a named DOJ list is shorter than a commonly cited total, the named list wins and the gap is stated, not filled.
• Before 1977 there is no complete name-level federal source. Aggregate counts from 1897 to 1976 are the next import, and they will be labeled as aggregates, never as names.

Unknown is not zero

A blank financial field means we have not attached the primary document yet. It never means the amount was zero. A zero is published only when a court document states zero.

Pardon, commutation, remission

A pardon forgives the offense. A commutation reduces or ends the sentence. Remission cancels an unpaid financial obligation. They are different acts and are never merged in this record.

What a pardon does to money

• Money already paid to the Treasury is not refunded. A pardon creates no refund right.
• A full and unconditional pardon can remit unpaid restitution and fines, per the Office of Legal Counsel opinion on the effects of a presidential pardon.
• Third-party civil claims survive. A victim's right to sue is not extinguished.

That is why the record separates four numbers: imposed, paid, outstanding at pardon, and relief granted. Collapsing them into one figure is how other lists get it wrong.

Political giving

Documented contributions by the pardoned person or by a named associate are recorded as a separate, sourced dataset. See Political Giving for the matching standard and the limits.

Corrections

Each record carries an ID. Corrections require a primary source and are logged as versions. Nothing is silently overwritten.