Donald Trump's second term has turned presidential mercy into a marketplace. Pardon brokers charge up to $3 million to get a case in front of the president, according to 60 Minutes. Families of people seeking clemency have written seven-figure checks to his super PAC, and at least one of those pardons came just weeks later. Meanwhile the Trump family is collecting hundreds of millions from crypto ventures and foreign deals while he holds office.

Corruption depends on nobody keeping the receipts. I'm keeping them.

I'm John Prodromidis, and I edit The Inner Circle Ledger (innercircleledger.com). It is a free, sourced public record of who received clemency from President Trump in his second term, who lobbied or paid around each grant, and the money flowing to the Trump family from crypto ventures, foreign deals and settlements.

Here is some of what the record already shows:

Reuters reviewed the second-term clemency grants and found that 96 percent went to people who did not meet the Justice Department's longstanding guidelines.

FEC filings show Elizabeth Fago gave $1 million to the pro-Trump super PAC MAGA Inc. on April 3, 2025. Twenty days later, her son Paul Walczak was pardoned for employment-tax crimes.

The rapper Boosie Badazz told 60 Minutes he paid pardon brokers $600,000 up front. He got no pardon and is now trying to win back $300,000 of it in arbitration.

Every entry links to the Justice Department's record or a named news outlet, and every entry includes the response of the person named, or says plainly when none is on record. I don't need to exaggerate. The ledger never claims a donation bought a pardon; it lays out the dates, the dollars and the documents, and lets you judge. That is exactly what makes it hard to wave away as spin.

The ledger now has 29 entries on pardons and 18 on money deals, and anyone can download the full data as a free spreadsheet. A weekly newsletter, The Pardon Ledger, explains what changed each week.

Why I'm raising money

This is an independent project with no outside backers. Your support pays for court records and public filings (PACER fees and records requests), about $500; my time researching, checking and updating the ledger every week, about $2,000; and website, newsletter and email costs, about $500.

What your gift does not do

It does not buy coverage, change a finding or remove a record. Donors get no say over what is published. Corrections come from evidence, and anyone can send one through the contact page on the Ledger's website.

This is not a charity or a political campaign, and gifts are not tax-deductible. Funds go to me, the publisher, for the costs listed above. I will post an update here every month on what the money paid for and what the ledger added.

If you can't give, the most useful free thing you can do is subscribe to the newsletter at pardonledger.substack.com and share one entry with someone who would care.

Thank you.

John Prodromidis

Editor, The Inner Circle Ledger