Trump’s “Bobby” circle turns clemency into access play

Trump’s clemency – In a privately described plea just before President Donald Trump granted a pardon last year, Trevor Milton was told to “call Bobby” — a reference to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The episode, alongside a wider review of Trump-era cl

When Trevor Milton walked toward his freedom in early 2025. the pardon had been set in motion well before any public paperwork caught up. Days before President Donald Trump granted it in March. the president phoned the electric-vehicle entrepreneur and Republican donor who had been convicted of defrauding investors of more than $660 million.

In previously unreported details of the call reviewed by MISRYOUM Politics News. Trump told Milton that high-profile advisors convinced him Milton had been unfairly prosecuted by the Justice Department of President Joe Biden. Among those who, in the president’s telling, put in a good word was U.S. health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Trump’s message carried a sharp personal instruction: Milton should call “Bobby” and thank him. “Bobby Kennedy. You have to call Bobby and thank him,” Trump told Milton.

Milton’s conviction stemmed from lies to shareholders about Nikola Corp.’s electric-truck progress. and he was ordered to spend four years behind bars before he was later pardoned by Trump. In an emailed statement. Milton did not answer Reuters questions about the exchange or any support he received from Kennedy or others. The Department of Health and Human Services, where Kennedy is serving as secretary, did not respond to requests for comment.

The call now sits inside a larger portrait of how Trump’s second term has reshaped the pardon process — and why that change has so disturbed legal traditionalists and DOJ officials. A Reuters analysis of pardon. lobbying. and electoral records found that under Trump. clemency increasingly depends on access to the president’s inner circle and the people around him. rather than on the Justice Department’s older expectations.

Under longstanding DOJ guidelines. pardon applicants once had to comply with requirements such as a five-year wait after conviction or demonstrated remorse for their crimes. Reuters’ analysis shows that in Trump’s second term. 96% of clemency grants have gone to recipients who did not fulfill those guidelines. For comparison. Reuters found that fewer than 1% of people who received clemency during the Biden administration failed to meet the guidelines. and 14% of recipients in Trump’s first presidency fell outside them.

The Milton call captured the mechanism in miniature: Trump framed the case as an example of targeting by Biden-era prosecutors. and he pointed Milton toward a personalized advocate network tied directly to people with the president’s ear. Trump also told Milton. “You had a lot of support. ” and the president’s emphasis on “Bobby Kennedy” reflected how insiders described the new clemency landscape — less like a set of rules and more like a set of relationships.

Reuters reviewed thousands of records to document a cast of characters involved in pardons or commutations granted by Trump since he returned to the presidency. Using public databases and artificial intelligence to search. compile and analyze records. Reuters identified many of the recipients. their advocates. and Trump administration insiders involved in clemency for more than 1. 700 people since January 2025.

From that review, Reuters identified 290 advocates — influencers — who helped secure clemency for 197 recipients. Some advocates worked on behalf of multiple candidates, producing 624 different acts of influence. Reuters said 73 of those influencers helped secure more than one pardon or sentence commutation. Among those identified, Brett Tolman, a former U.S. attorney now in private practice in Utah, was involved in at least 12 pardons or commutations. Roger Stone, a veteran political consultant and longtime Trump confidant, had a hand in at least five.

At least 110 of the influencers Reuters identified are known Trump allies. Eleven of those allies received clemency themselves from Trump during his first term. High-profile advocates and pardon recipients included Stone and Angela Stanton King. a conservative author and campaign advisor to Kennedy before she ditched her 2024 run for the presidency and backed Trump. Stanton King has also been pictured alongside Kennedy during his presidential run.

Trump’s White House has defended its procedures while leaving unanswered the most pointed parts of this new reporting. Abigail Jackson. a White House spokesperson. wrote in a statement: “The constitutional authority to issue pardons and commutations rests solely with the president.” Jackson said the White House has “a rigorous pardon review process” that includes White House counsel. the Department of Justice. and “ultimately the president.” The statement did not answer Reuters questions about Trump’s call with Milton or the role of Kennedy or other specific officials in clemency decisions.

A DOJ spokesperson said in a separate statement that the department plays “a key role in assisting the president with exercising his constitutional authority.” The DOJ said it continues to make “recommendations to the president that are consistent. unbiased. and uphold the rule of law. ” and added: “There has been no departure from this long-standing process.”.

Reuters’ dataset also showed the influence network running alongside money. politics. and spectacle — though the paper found it hard to quantify the price tag of access. Six people familiar with recent clemency acts told Reuters that intermediaries with proven access can charge as much as $2 million for their services. Reuters, however, could not establish how much each advisor it identified had charged for help with a given pardon.

Even when conventional influence paths were used, the results were mixed. In the influencer-heavy model now described by Reuters, personal proximity appears to be more decisive than traditional lobbying. Reuters said it identified only two successful pardon recipients who disclosed hiring registered lobbyists, paying a combined $2.7 million. Another 26 people, Reuters reported using lobbying records, spent a total of nearly $1.9 million on lobbyists without receiving clemency.

That shift doesn’t just change how applicants try to win mercy. It changes what applicants believe they’re buying when they reach for the White House.

Stanton King. who told Reuters she helped advocate for recipients. put it plainly: “I have access. I have relationships. ” she said. “Because of that. I’m in the perfect position to be able to advocate and make sure that someone’s name or application isn’t just sitting over somewhere in a pile getting dusty.”.

Legal experts and critics have argued that the informal system looks like it can resemble a pay-to-play arrangement. even if no explicit transaction is proven. But ethics researchers cited by Reuters and the paper’s own accounting also emphasized that it is not a crime for a president to grant clemency to donors or party allies unless an explicit agreement to “sell forgiveness” exists.

The money around clemency is not hidden. According to Federal Election Commission records cited by Reuters. 10 recipients. influencers. and companies they ran — including Milton — donated more than $10 million to Trump-related political coffers. both before and after clemency decisions. Reuters also said others benefited after politically influential groups pushed their cases.

A pattern that appears across cases is the same one Milton’s phone call seemed to capture: clemency often follows a narrative of grievance — an insistence that federal prosecutors went too far and that the applicant was treated like an enemy rather than a defendant. Reuters said that access to Trump’s network is enhanced when applicants craft a story that resonates with Trump’s own sense of victimization. a sentiment he has regularly expressed since being indicted twice by federal prosecutors during the four years he spent outside the White House.

Trump’s second term clemency also began with a mass action that would never have met DOJ guidelines. Reuters reported that starting his first day back in office. Trump immediately granted clemency to an estimated 1. 500 people who stormed the U.S. Capitol in 2021, none of whom would have qualified under DOJ guidelines. More than 200 other pardons and commutations followed. including at least two pardons initiated by the White House before recipients had even sought one.

The Milton case sits among those broader moves. but it also shows the human mechanics that critics say make the system feel different now. In the phone call described by Reuters, Trump did not speak like a distant constitutional authority. He spoke like someone directing a favor inside a web of people — “Bobby. ” “a lot of support. ” and a conviction that Biden-era prosecutors were the scum in the story.

After Milton’s pardon, he expressed little of the remorse the DOJ guidelines describe. DOJ guidance cited by Reuters says a petitioner should be “genuinely desirous of forgiveness rather than vindication.” Instead. the day after the pardon. Milton wrote in a social media post that he was among Americans “railroaded by the government” and said “trust and confidence in the Justice Department has eroded to nothing.”.

In his statement to Reuters. Milton blamed a plot among the media. financial markets and federal prosecutors to “burn my company to the ground.” He said he was targeted because of his longstanding support for Trump. offering no substantiation. “They came after me, my family, and everything I had built because of it.”.

For Trump allies. that grievance story is familiar — and for the White House. it may serve as a bridge into the clemency pipeline. Reuters reported that multiple people familiar with recent clemency acts described a “hybrid” process combining personal appeals. influential intermediaries. political donations. and a narrative that Biden-era prosecutors targeted the applicant.

One detail from the Milton call — “You have to call Bobby and thank him” — lands like a window into the system’s center of gravity. It suggests that clemency. in practice. can turn on who can make contact with Trump and who can translate a case into language that fits Trump’s own instincts about fairness. persecution. and punishment.

The constitutional power remains the president’s. But the process around it. as documented by Reuters. now appears to be driven by a network that’s hard to measure in court filings. The organization could be formal only at the margins: the White House, DOJ counsel, and the president. The rest — the access, the intermediaries, the calls, the “Bobby” instructions — happens in the spaces between guidelines and announcements.

And in that space, the stakes aren’t abstract. When clemency determines whether prison time shrinks or evaporates. the question becomes brutally personal for anyone waiting their turn: not only what their case is. but whether someone with a line into the president can make it the kind of story Trump wants to hear.

Trump pardon Trevor Milton Robert F. Kennedy Jr. DOJ pardon guidelines Roger Stone Angela Stanton King Alice Marie Johnson clemency process White House counsel Robert F. Kennedy Jr. influence U.S. politics federal clemency