Here are all the people Trump has pardoned so far
Jack Johnson
Trump granted a rare posthumous pardon on May 24 to Jack Johnson, the American heavyweight boxing champion who died in 1946 and was convicted in 1913 of taking his white girlfriend across state lines.
Johnson's conviction reeked of racism and injustice at the height of the Jim Crow era. An all-white jury found Johnson guilty of violating the White Slave Traffic Act, also known as the Mann Act, which criminalized transporting women across state lines "for the purpose of prostitution or debauchery, or for any other immoral purpose."
Johnson's conviction and one-year prison sentence has prompted debate for years — and Trump is not the first president to consider a pardon.
Former President Barack Obama faced the same decision, but his Justice Department recommended against one, so as to focus more on pardons that could benefit living people, a former Obama administration official told The New York Times.
Johnson's case received a recent publicity boost from the actor Sylvester Stallone, who visited the Oval Office to watch Trump sign the pardon.
Lewis "Scooter" Libby
Trump in April pardoned Scooter Libby, a former Bush administration official convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice after a special prosecutor's investigation into the 2003 leak of the CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity.
Libby was originally sentenced to 30 months in prison, but former President George W. Bush commuted it. Despite intense pressure from his vice president Dick Cheney, who had hired Libby as his chief of staff, Bush declined to grant Libby a pardon, as well.
Trump said in a statement announcing the pardon that he didn't know Libby, but "for years I have heard that he has been treated unfairly."
Libby's case contained echoes of Trump's own legal battles — the president is the subject of a similar probe by a special counsel, Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russian election interference and possible coordination with the Trump campaign.
Kristian Saucier
In March, Trump pardoned Kristian Saucier, a former Navy sailor who took photos of classified areas inside a nuclear submarine in 2009. Saucier pleaded guilty in 2016 and served one year in prison.
He has previously said he took the photos merely as mementos for his military service. But federal prosecutors accused him of undermining national security by taking the photos, and then obstructing the investigation by destroying a laptop and camera.
Conservative media outlets such as Fox News had compared Saucier's case with that of Hillary Clinton, who used a private email server while she was secretary of state but was never prosecuted.
Trump used Saucier's case during his 2016 presidential campaign as a means to portray the perceived double standard of Saucier's treatment by federal investigators with that of Clinton's.
"Now you can go out and have the life you deserve!" Trump tweeted after granting Saucier's pardon.
Sholom Rubashkin
Late last year, Trump issued his first — and so far, only — commutation to Sholom Rubashkin, an Iowa meatpacking executive convicted of bank fraud in 2009 and sentenced to 27 years in prison.
Rubashkin had served eight years by the time Trump commuted his sentence and set him free.
Unlike Trump's other clemencies, the decision to commute Rubashkin's sentence had earned widespread bipartisan support, including from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California and Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah.
Rubashkin's clemency bid also received the support of more than 100 legal professionals, including US attorneys general and federal judges.
They argued in a letter to Trump that Rubashkin was a first-time, non-violent offender who received a much tougher sentence than many people sentenced to "murder, kidnapping, sexual abuse, child pornography, and numerous other offenses exponentially more serious than his."
Joe Arpaio
Last August, Trump gave his first-ever pardon to Joe Arpaio, the bombastic former sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona.
The 85-year-old ex-lawman is best known for illegally detaining Latinos and keeping inmates in brutal jail conditions during his 24-year tenure as sheriff. His aggressive tactics ultimately led to a criminal conviction after he violated a court order to stop racially profiling Latinos.
Arpaio had been an early and vocal supporter of Trump during his presidential campaign, often parroting Trump's hardline stance on immigration, so the move was widely expected.
Yet it was still an unusual pardon, as Arpaio had not even been sentenced at the time. Though Trump may pardon whomever he wishes, people who petition for presidential pardons are told by the Justice Department to wait at least five years after completing their prison sentences before they file applications.
Who could be next?
Kim Kardashian West visited Trump in the Oval Office on Wednesday to discuss prison and sentencing reform and encourage him to commute the sentence of Alice Marie Johnson, a 63-year-old grandmother. But Trump hasn't said anything about Johnson's case yet.
On Thursday, Trump told reporters he was considering pardoning Martha Stewart and commuting the sentence of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich of Illinois in a string of clemency announcements he unexpectedly made Thursday.
A jury found Stewart guilty in 2004 of obstructing justice and lying to investigators about the reasons she sold shares of a company. She served five months in prison.
Blagojevich is serving a 14-year prison sentence after being convicted of corruption stemming from a scheme to sell the Senate seat left vacant by Barack Obama, who was elected president in 2008. Blagojevich is not eligible for release until 2024.
The Constitution is quite sweeping in granting presidents the power to pardon, so Trump can pretty much decide carte blanche to legally forgive or free anyone who's been convicted of a federal crime.
"He shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment," Article II, Section 2 reads.
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