# The Pardon and Clemency Pipeline How a federal pardon or commutation actually gets granted, drawn as two tracks running in parallel. **Track A** is the formal route the regulations describe — a petition filed under 28 C.F.R. §§ 1.1–1.11, investigated by the Office of the Pardon Attorney, recommended up through the Deputy Attorney General, reviewed by the White House Counsel's office, and signed by the President. **Track B** is the informal route that now carries most of the consequential traffic — direct access to the President or to the people who control his schedule, with no petition on file, no FBI investigation, no waiting period, and no paper trail inside the Justice Department at all. Both tracks end at the same place, because the power itself has almost no structure. [[Pardon Power]] carries the constitutional text and doctrine; this map carries the machinery, and the machinery is mostly discretionary. The organizing point the map is built around: **every step in Track A exists by regulation, and a regulation cannot bind the President.** The five-year waiting period, the merit criteria, the investigation, the Pardon Attorney's recommendation — all of it is internal DOJ housekeeping that the President may ignore in any individual case without explaining why, because Article II, Section 2 grants the power directly and conditions it on nothing except that the offense be federal and the case not be an impeachment. This is the process spine that the vault's clemency case pages hang off. Do not look here for the cases themselves — [[Pardons as Currency]] carries the pattern, [[Trump 2025 Pardon Spree]] and [[J6 Mass Pardons]] carry the 2025 grants, [[Steve Bannon Pardon and We Build the Wall Fraud]] carries the first-term precedent for a pardon that erased a fraud prosecution, and [[Republican Officeholder Fraud]] carries the claim this map's shape supports: that proximity, not merit, is the best available predictor of who receives clemency. Sibling maps: [[Special Counsel Appointment and Removal Flow]] and [[DOJ Component Tree]] show the institutions Track A runs through; [[Impeachment and Removal Process Flow]] maps the one proceeding the pardon power cannot reach; [[How a Case Reaches the Supreme Court]] and [[Federal Judiciary Tree]] show the courts that have no role here at all. > [!note] How to read this chart > `──▶` = the main path · `└─▶` = a branch · `◇` = a decision point · `★` = a legally operative act · `✕` = the path is closed or dies here · `⚑` = a structural point worth stopping on · `◆` = a major branch of the tree. Regulatory cites are to 28 C.F.R. Part 1 unless noted; the constitutional cite is Article II, Section 2, Clause 1. Named officeholders appear only in the "who holds the seats" block and were verified as of 2026-09-11 — **two of the three gatekeeper seats turned over in the three weeks before that date**, see Notes. Everything else inside the fence is process, which is evergreen. Counts and dispositions are as of the same date. ``` THE PARDON AND CLEMENCY PIPELINE — the formal track, the informal track, and the missing checks │ Legend: ──▶ main path └─▶ branch ◇ decision ★ operative act ✕ closed ⚑ structural point │ Process evergreen · seats and dispositions verified 2026-09-11 · cites to 28 C.F.R. Part 1 │ ■ 0. THE FLOOR — one sentence of constitutional text, and four limits inside it │ │ Art. II, §2, cl. 1: the President "shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for │ Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment." │ │ ⚑ FOUR LIMITS LIVE IN THAT SENTENCE — AND THEY ARE THE ONLY ONES. │ ├─ 1. FEDERAL ONLY. "Offences against the United States" excludes every state crime. │ │ A pardoned defendant remains exposed to state prosecution for the same conduct. │ │ ✕ No president can reach a state charge, a state conviction, or a state fine. │ ├─ 2. NOT IMPEACHMENT. The one express carve-out. A pardon cannot stop, undo, or │ │ reverse an impeachment, a Senate trial, or a judgment of disqualification. │ ├─ 3. PAST CONDUCT ONLY. The offence must already have been committed. A pardon │ │ may issue BEFORE charge, indictment, or conviction (Ex parte Garland, 1866; │ │ the Nixon pardon, 1974) — but it cannot license future conduct. │ └─ 4. CRIMINAL ONLY. It reaches criminal penalties. It does NOT reach civil liability, │ private suits, professional discipline, immigration consequences in every case, │ or (in the ordinary case) a civil judgment owed to a victim. │ │ ⚑ EVERYTHING ELSE PEOPLE BELIEVE IS A LIMIT IS ACTUALLY A REGULATION. │ The waiting period, the application form, the FBI check, the "acceptance of │ responsibility" criterion, the Pardon Attorney's recommendation — all 28 C.F.R. │ Part 1, all internal to DOJ, all waivable by the President in any case, silently. │ ■ 1. THE FIVE FORMS — what the power can actually issue │ │ ├─ FULL PARDON .............. forgives the offence; restores civil rights (vote, firearms │ │ under federal law, office); does NOT expunge the conviction │ │ and does NOT erase the record. │ ├─ COMMUTATION ............. shortens or ends the SENTENCE; leaves the conviction intact │ │ and does NOT restore civil rights. │ ├─ REMISSION ............... cancels a fine, forfeiture, or restitution obligation. │ │ ★ This is the form that moves money. See block 7. │ ├─ REPRIEVE ................ postpones execution of a sentence (temporary, not final). │ └─ BLANKET / CATEGORICAL ... a proclamation covering a defined CLASS rather than named │ individuals (the J6 proclamation, Jan. 20, 2025; Carter's │ 1977 draft-evader amnesty). No petitions, no files, no names. │ │ ◇ Preemptive (pre-charge) clemency? ──yes──▶ lawful; no petition exists to process; │ Track A has no role at all. This is the purest form of Track B. │ ■ 2. TRACK A — THE FORMAL ROUTE (28 C.F.R. §§ 1.1–1.11) │ │ ◆ 2a. ELIGIBILITY GATE (§§ 1.1–1.2) — a filing rule, not a power limit │ │ ├─ Pardon: wait ≥ 5 YEARS from release from confinement, or from conviction if │ │ │ no prison term was imposed (§ 1.2). │ │ ├─ Generally no petition while on probation, parole, or supervised release. │ │ ├─ Commutation: petition while still serving (§ 1.3); exhaust other remedies first. │ │ └─ ⚑ WHO IS EXEMPT FROM THE FIVE-YEAR RULE: everyone the President wants to be. │ │ The waiting period binds the CLERK, not the PRESIDENT. A grant that skips it │ │ is not irregular and not reviewable — it simply never entered Track A. │ │ │ ◆ 2b. PETITION FILED (§ 1.1) — addressed to the President, delivered to the Pardon │ │ Attorney. Sworn. Offence, sentence, restitution status, employment, references. │ │ │ ◆ 2c. OFFICE OF THE PARDON ATTORNEY — investigation and recommendation │ │ ├─ FBI background investigation · court and BOP records pulled │ │ ├─ Views solicited from the prosecuting U.S. Attorney's office (§ 1.6) │ │ ├─ Victim input where applicable │ │ ├─ Merit criteria applied: post-conviction conduct, seriousness and recency of the │ │ │ offence, acceptance of responsibility, need for relief, official recommendations │ │ └─ ★ WRITTEN RECOMMENDATION prepared for the Deputy Attorney General (§ 1.6) │ │ ⚑ Advisory only. § 1.11 says so in terms: the regulations are "advisory only" │ │ and create NO enforceable rights in any person. │ │ │ ◆ 2d. DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL (28 C.F.R. § 0.35–0.36) — the DOJ signature layer │ │ └─▶ transmits the recommendation, or does not. A recommendation that stops here │ │ is not appealable and the petitioner is not told why. │ │ │ ◆ 2e. WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL'S OFFICE — the real chokepoint of Track A │ │ └─▶ staff review → Counsel to the President → Chief of Staff controls whether │ │ the case ever reaches the Oval Office at all. │ │ │ ◆ 2f. ★ THE PRESIDENT SIGNS — or does nothing, forever. Denial and inaction are │ indistinguishable to the petitioner. § 1.8: notice of denial issues, and the │ petitioner may refile after two years. No reasons are given. │ │ ⚑ TRACK A'S THROUGHPUT IS A POLICY CHOICE, NOT A CAPACITY LIMIT. │ ≈14,000 clemency applications were pending before DOJ as of Aug. 2026 (House Judiciary │ Cmte. minority staff report, Aug. 21, 2026). The backlog had been cut from ≈18,000 to │ ≈3,000 under the career Pardon Attorney removed in March 2025, with ≈6,000+ pending on │ the day of that removal. The office is staffed at roughly 40 attorney and non-attorney │ personnel. Nothing in Track A is fast, and nothing in Track B has to be. │ ■ 3. TRACK B — THE INFORMAL ROUTE (no regulation governs this and none can) │ │ ENTRY POINTS ──▶ ◆ direct access to the President (rally, club, dinner, phone) │ ──▶ ◆ the White House "pardon czar" — a staff role created Feb. 2025 with │ │ no statutory basis, no confirmation, and no place in Part 1 │ ──▶ ◆ the White House Counsel's office (staff attorney → Counsel) │ ──▶ ◆ the Chief of Staff, who controls the Oval Office schedule │ ──▶ ◆ family members and longtime allies outside the government │ ──▶ ◆ retained advocates: lawyers, lobbyists, former officials │ │ ├─ NO petition required. ├─ NO five-year wait. │ ├─ NO FBI investigation. ├─ NO prosecutor's views solicited. │ ├─ NO victim notice. ├─ NO DOJ file — so no FOIA-able record of the ask. │ └─ NO written recommendation, therefore nothing later to compare the grant against. │ │ ◇ What makes a Track B case succeed? Two things, per every account of the operation: │ └─▶ ACCESS (who can physically get the case in front of the President), and │ └─▶ NARRATIVE (whether the case can be framed as political persecution — a │ weaponized prosecution, a hostile judge, a Biden-era target). │ │ ⚑ TRACK B IS NOT A LOOPHOLE. IT IS THE CONSTITUTIONAL DEFAULT. │ Track A is the thing that was built on top. When the two disagree, Track A loses, │ and there is no forum in which to say so. │ │ ⚑ THE MARKET THAT FORMS AROUND AN UNREVIEWABLE POWER. │ Because access is the scarce input, access is what gets priced. Advocacy fees in the │ millions have been reported by people inside the process, including fees taken from │ defendants on whose behalf nothing was ever done — a market with no disclosure regime, │ no registration requirement that clearly covers it, and no remedy for nonperformance. │ ■ 4. THE ACT ITSELF — what it takes to make a pardon legally effective │ │ ├─ FORM: the Constitution specifies none. The Fourth Circuit has held that a pardon │ │ need not be written or signed to be effective — the text imposes no such limit. │ │ ⚑ This is why the autopen argument fails on its own terms: if no signature is │ │ required at all, the manner of signature cannot be what voids a grant. The │ │ live question is AUTHORIZATION (did the President decide?), not INK. │ ├─ DELIVERY AND ACCEPTANCE: a pardon must be accepted to take effect as to the │ │ recipient (Burdick v. United States, 1915 — a pardon may be REFUSED, and Burdick │ │ refused one to keep his Fifth Amendment privilege). A commutation, by contrast, │ │ may be imposed without consent. │ └─ ✕ NO REVOCATION. Once delivered and accepted, a pardon is done. A later President │ cannot void a predecessor's grant by proclamation, post, or order. An assertion │ that prior grants are "null and void" has no operative effect on its own; it │ would have to be tested by charging someone and litigating the defence. │ ■ 5. WHAT A PARDON DOES AND DOES NOT DO │ │ DOES ──▶ ends the punishment · restores federal civil rights (vote in federal elections │ where state law follows, hold federal office, federal firearms disability lifted) │ · removes the conviction as a bar to many federal benefits and licenses │ │ DOES NOT ──▶ ✕ expunge or seal the conviction — the record survives │ ──▶ ✕ establish innocence — acceptance has long been read as carrying an │ imputation of guilt (Burdick) │ ──▶ ✕ reach state charges arising from the same conduct │ ──▶ ✕ automatically restore state-law rights (voting, firearms, licensure) │ ──▶ ✕ bar a congressional subpoena — and, once criminal exposure is gone, │ the Fifth Amendment privilege against testifying largely goes with it │ ■ 6. THE CHECKS — drawn as a list of things that are not there │ │ ✕ NO Senate vote. ✕ NO judicial review of a grant or a denial. │ ✕ NO statutory criteria. ✕ NO disclosure requirement for who asked, or was paid. │ ✕ NO reversal. ✕ NO conflict-of-interest rule that reaches the President. │ ✕ NO appeal from a denial. ✕ NO recusal mechanism for a self-interested grant. │ │ WHAT ACTUALLY REMAINS: │ ├─ IMPEACHMENT — the only formal remedy, and the one proceeding a pardon cannot touch │ ├─ CONGRESSIONAL OVERSIGHT — hearings, staff reports, subpoenas (enforcement is weak) │ ├─ BRIBERY PROSECUTION of the INTERMEDIARIES — the pardon is unreviewable; a payment │ │ made to obtain one is still a federal crime for everyone below the President │ ├─ STATE PROSECUTORS — the jurisdiction no pardon reaches │ └─ ELECTIONS │ │ ◇ Can the President pardon himself? ──▶ UNRESOLVED. Never done, never litigated, │ never decided by any court. A 1974 DOJ Office of Legal Counsel memorandum concluded │ he could not, on the nemo iudex principle; OLC binds the executive, not a court. │ ⚑ The map states this as open. Anyone who tells you it is settled is wrong in both │ directions. │ ■ 7. ⚑ THE MONEY DOOR — remission, and why it is the part that matters most │ │ A full pardon in the ordinary case does not cancel a restitution obligation already │ reduced to a civil judgment — but a REMISSION expressly can, and a commutation can be │ drafted to relieve the balance of a financial penalty along with the sentence. │ │ ──▶ fine remitted ──▶ forfeiture remitted ──▶ restitution obligation lifted │ └─▶ the victims' claim is extinguished by an act no victim can contest, │ in a proceeding with no notice, no hearing, and no record. │ │ SCALE (attributed, not settled): the House Judiciary Committee minority staff put the │ second-term total of erased restitution, fines, and forfeitures at ≈$1.7 BILLION as of │ Aug. 21, 2026, up from its own ≈$1.3 billion estimate a year earlier. These are the │ minority's figures and include contested valuation choices; no neutral official total │ exists, because no office is required to compute one. │ │ ⚑ THIS IS THE STRUCTURAL POINT OF THE WHOLE MAP. The clemency power is generally │ discussed as mercy toward a prisoner. Its largest measurable effect in 2025–26 has │ been the transfer of money away from crime victims and the Treasury — through the │ one instrument in American government with no review, no disclosure, and no appeal. │ ■ 8. STATE OF THE PIPELINE — as of 2026-09-11 │ │ ├─ ≈1,700+ people granted clemency since Jan. 2025 (press tallies), of which ≈1,500 │ │ came from the single Jan. 20, 2025 J6 proclamation — a Track B categorical act │ ├─ Individual grants have come in bursts, with long gaps: only two new individual │ │ grants between early June and late Oct. 2025; a group of ≈30 announced by the │ │ White House pardon czar in early Sept. 2026 │ ├─ ≈14,000 applications pending in Track A (HJC minority staff, Aug. 2026) │ ├─ A Reuters investigation cited in that report identified 290 advocates behind 197 │ │ successful second-term bids, 624 advocacy efforts, ≥110 known allies │ └─ Removal of the career Pardon Attorney (Mar. 2025) → litigation still live in 2026 │ │ ◆ WHO HOLDS THE SEATS (web-verified 2026-09-11 — ⚑ TWO OF THREE TURNED OVER IN 3 WEEKS) │ ├─ President .......................... Donald Trump [the only decision-maker] │ ├─ White House Chief of Staff ......... Susie Wiles [controls Oval Office access] │ ├─ Counsel to the President ........... Will Scharf [since Sept. 1, 2026] │ │ └─ predecessor: David Warrington, Jan. 20, 2025 – Sept. 1, 2026 │ ├─ White House "pardon czar" .......... Alice Marie Johnson [since Feb. 2025; │ │ special government employee — capped at 130 days/yr, may earn outside income] │ ├─ Attorney General ................... Todd Blanche [confirmed Aug. 8, 2026] │ ├─ Deputy Attorney General ............ Trent McCotter (acting) [since Aug. 10, 2026] │ └─ Pardon Attorney .................... ✕ VACANT / [unconfirmed] │ └─ Ed Martin departed after the President's Aug. 21, 2026 announcement; │ no successor or acting designee had been publicly named as of Sept. 2026. │ Predecessor: Elizabeth Oyer, career SES, removed March 2025. │ │ ⚑ READ THAT SEAT LIST AGAIN. The office the regulations put at the centre of the │ process is EMPTY, and the process has not slowed down — because the regulations were │ never what was moving it. │ ■ 9. WHAT THE SHAPE SHOWS │ │ 1. TRACK A IS A COURTESY. Every step in it is regulatory, every regulation is │ advisory by its own terms (§ 1.11), and none of it binds the one person deciding. │ 2. THE FIVE-YEAR RULE IS A FILING DEADLINE FOR STRANGERS. It screens the people │ who have to apply. It has never screened anyone who could telephone instead. │ 3. THE GATEKEEPERS ARE SCHEDULERS. Chief of Staff, Counsel, czar — the contest is │ over whose case gets in front of the President, not over whether it qualifies. │ 4. THE ABSENCE OF REVIEW CREATES A MARKET. An unreviewable, undisclosed, unappealable │ power with a scarce input (access) prices that input. That is not a scandal about │ individuals; it is what this structure does. │ 5. THE ONLY REAL LIMITS ARE JURISDICTIONAL. State charge, impeachment, future conduct. │ A state attorney general is a harder constraint on this power than a federal judge, │ because a federal judge has no role in it at all. ``` ## Notes - **⚑ Two of the three gatekeeper seats turned over in the three weeks before September 11, 2026, and the map would have been wrong if built from February 2026 reporting.** The most detailed public account of the operation (NOTUS, Feb. 17, 2026) describes a chain running staff attorney → **David Warrington** → **Susie Wiles**. Warrington left the White House Counsel's office effective **September 1, 2026**; **Will Scharf**, previously staff secretary, replaced him after an August 10, 2026 announcement. Separately, **Ed Martin**'s departure as Pardon Attorney was announced by the President on **Friday, August 21, 2026** — framed as a move to outside election litigation for the midterms and 2028 — with no successor named. As of September 11, 2026 the Pardon Attorney's office has no publicly confirmed head, which is why the seat is drawn `✕ VACANT / [unconfirmed]` rather than filled with a guess. - **The Pardon Attorney was already sidelined before the seat emptied.** Reporting in early February 2026 described Martin as layered by then-Deputy Attorney General [[Todd Blanche]], with his role in clemency reduced largely to paperwork and his office moved out of Main Justice. That matters structurally: the vacancy did not create the bypass, it confirmed one that had already been operating for roughly a year. - **The career Pardon Attorney's removal is still in litigation.** [[Elizabeth Oyer]], a career Senior Executive Service member, was removed in March 2025; she has said publicly that the removal followed her refusal to recommend restoring firearm rights to a Trump acquaintance. She has since sued for reinstatement, and as of September 2026 was arguing that the Merit Systems Protection Board route was a dead end — the same jurisdictional trap that has appeared in the vault's inspector-general and grant-termination maps. The map carries the removal as a dated fact and does not characterise the merits. - **On the $1.7 billion figure: it is a partisan staff estimate and is labelled as one inside the fence.** It comes from *Pardons, Inc.*, the House Judiciary Committee minority staff report released August 21, 2026 by ranking member [[Jamie Raskin]], which revised the minority's own earlier ≈$1.3 billion estimate upward. No neutral official total exists, because no office is required to compute one — so the map gives the number with its author attached rather than laundering it into prose. The same report is the source for the ≈14,000 pending applications and for the Reuters advocate counts (290 advocates / 197 successful bids / 624 efforts / ≥110 known allies), which are Reuters' figures as cited by the committee, not independently reconstructed here. - **The ≈1,700 clemency total is a press tally, not a DOJ count, and it is dominated by one act.** Roughly 1,500 of it is the single January 20, 2025 proclamation covering January 6 defendants — a categorical Track B grant with no petitions behind it. Reporting the number without that decomposition makes an ordinary individual-clemency pace look extraordinary; reporting only the individual grants understates the power's reach. Both are given. The early-September 2026 group of ≈30 was announced by the pardon czar rather than by DOJ, which is itself a data point about which track is operating. - **The autopen question is framed here as an authorization question, not a signature question, and that framing is load-bearing.** The Fourth Circuit has held that the Constitution imposes no form requirement on a clemency act at all — no writing, no signature. If no signature is required, the *manner* of signature cannot be what invalidates a grant; the only coherent challenge is that the President never actually decided. A public assertion that a predecessor's grants are "null and void" does not, by itself, do anything: it would have to be tested by indicting a pardoned person and litigating the pardon as a defence. No court has voided a delivered clemency grant on autopen grounds. - **The self-pardon question is left open on purpose.** It has never been attempted, never been litigated, and never been decided. The 1974 Office of Legal Counsel memorandum concluding a President may not pardon himself binds the executive branch's own lawyers and nobody else. Sources asserting that self-pardon is clearly permitted, and sources asserting it is clearly barred, are both overclaiming. - **What the map deliberately omits.** The individual cases — they live on [[Trump 2025 Pardon Spree]], [[J6 Mass Pardons]], [[Pardons as Currency]] and [[Steve Bannon Pardon and We Build the Wall Fraud]], and re-narrating them inside a process map would duplicate four pages and date the map on the day the next grant issues. Also omitted: state governors' clemency boards (a genuinely different structure, and a candidate for its own crosswalk); military clemency and courts-martial review; and the Office of Legal Counsel's internal role, which is real but undocumented in any public procedure. - **No claim inside the fence rests on a single source.** The regulatory structure is from 28 C.F.R. Part 1 itself (§§ 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.6, 1.8, 1.11) and the DOJ Office of the Pardon Attorney's own "Legal Authority Governing Executive Clemency" page; the seat changes are from wire and network reporting of the August 21 and September 1 transitions plus a public staff directory; the operational description of Track B is from NOTUS's February 2026 reconstruction corroborated by the August 2026 committee report; the doctrinal points are from *Ex parte Garland*, *Burdick v. United States*, and the Fourth Circuit form holding. Where only one source existed — who, if anyone, is currently acting Pardon Attorney — the map says `[unconfirmed]` instead. ## See also - [[Foundations Hub]] — parent hub for the map series - [[Pardon Power]] — the constitutional concept this map turns into machinery - [[Pardons as Currency]] — the pattern page; this map is its process spine - [[Republican Officeholder Fraud]] — the proximity-predicts-clemency claim - [[Trump 2025 Pardon Spree]] · [[J6 Mass Pardons]] · [[Steve Bannon Pardon and We Build the Wall Fraud]] — the case pages - [[Office of the Pardon Attorney]] — the DOJ component at the centre of Track A - [[Ex parte Garland]] · [[Burdick v. United States]] — the two doctrinal anchors - [[First Step Act]] — the sentencing-relief statute that routes around clemency for some cases - [[Alice Marie Johnson]] · [[Elizabeth Oyer]] · [[Ed Martin]] · [[Will Scharf]] · [[David Warrington]] · [[Susie Wiles]] · [[Todd Blanche]] · [[Trent McCotter]] — the seats, present and prior - [[Jamie Raskin]] — ranking member behind the August 2026 staff report - [[Department of Justice]] · [[Attorney General]] · [[DOJ Component Tree]] — the department Track A runs through - [[Special Counsel Appointment and Removal Flow]] — the sibling map for the other unreviewable DOJ discretion - [[Impeachment and Removal Process Flow]] — the one proceeding clemency cannot reach - [[How a Case Reaches the Supreme Court]] · [[Federal Judiciary Tree]] — the courts with no role here - [[Unitary Executive Theory]] — the theory that reads this power as the model for all the others - [[Corruption Hub]] · [[Judiciary Hub]] · [[Federal Agencies Hub]]