President Trump pardoned former Indiana Republican Rep. Stephen Buyer, wiping out a 2023 insider-trading conviction that sent the onetime House manager of Bill Clinton's impeachment trial to federal prison for nearly two years. The pardon was dated Thursday and released by the White House late Friday.
The grant of clemency closes a case the Supreme Court declined to reopen only last month, when justices rejected Buyer's appeal without comment or noted dissent. It restores the political standing of a 67-year-old Gulf War veteran who served on Trump's 2016 transition team and adds another Republican ally to a widening list of pardon recipients in the president's second term.
The conviction
Buyer was sentenced to 22 months in prison in 2023 for trades made while working as a consultant and lobbyist after leaving Congress in 2011. He was ordered to forfeit more than $350,000, representing the amount of the illegal gains, and pay a $10,000 fine. He was released in 2025.
Prosecutors tied the trades to two deals. One was the $26.5 billion merger of T-Mobile and Sprint, announced in April 2018. The other involved the management consulting firm Navigant, which Buyer's client Guidehouse was preparing to acquire in a transaction disclosed publicly weeks after the trades.
The pardon
In granting what the White House called "a full, complete, and unconditional pardon," Trump cited Buyer's career as a judge advocate general in the Army and in the House that was "distinguished and highly productive," according to PBS NewsHour, which carried the Associated Press account.
Buyer said the pardon "corrects a politically motivated prosecution" and that it was "horrific to be imprisoned for a crime that I did not commit." He maintains that he is innocent.
The push for clemency was public. Trump used his Truth Social platform on May 31 to share two letters seeking a pardon. A letter signed by more than 40 former Republican members of Congress, dated April 2025, said Buyer was "targeted by the deep state" because of his role in Clinton's 1998 impeachment trial. A June 2025 letter from five sitting House Republicans, signed by Tom Cole of Oklahoma, Ken Calvert of California, Marlin Stutzman of Indiana, Jack Bergman of Michigan and Pete Sessions of Texas, urged Trump to act.
What a pardon does
The Constitution gives a president broad power to grant pardons for federal crimes. Pardons do not erase a recipient's criminal record but can be seen as an act of mercy or justice. The forfeiture and fine Buyer paid are not reversed by the grant.
Counterpoint
Today's dossier carries only the AP wire account distributed by PBS NewsHour. The Justice Department prosecutors who secured the 2023 conviction, and lawyers who briefed the Supreme Court against Buyer's appeal last month, are not represented in the reporting available at press time, and no response from them was reflected in the wire.
Buyer's pardon is the latest in a series Trump has issued to political allies since returning to office. The White House has not signaled which case it will take up next.