Trump pardons Stephen Buyer, ex-congressman jailed for insider trading
President Trump has granted a full pardon to former Republican congressman Stephen Buyer, convicted in 2023 for illegal stock trades. Buyer served nearly two years in prison before his release in 2025.
Trump grants full pardon to ex-Indiana congressman convicted of insider trading
President Donald Trump has pardoned Stephen Buyer, a former Republican congressman from Indiana who served nearly two years in prison for making illegal stock trades based on non-public information, aljazeera.com reports.
The pardon, dated Thursday, was released by the White House late Friday night. It describes the clemency as "full, complete, and unconditional".
Buyer was sentenced in 2023 to 22 months in prison for trades carried out while he worked as a consultant and lobbyist after leaving Congress. A court ordered him to forfeit more than $350,000 in illegal gains and pay a $10,000 fine. He was released in 2025.
In May, the Supreme Court rejected Buyer's appeal without comment or noted dissent.
Trades tied to two major corporate deals
Buyer, now 67, was convicted in connection with two sets of illegal trades. The first involved the $26.5 billion merger of T-Mobile and Sprint, announced in April 2018. The second concerned trades in the management consulting firm Navigant ahead of its acquisition by Guidehouse — a deal publicly disclosed weeks after Buyer's transactions.
Trump cites "distinguished" career
In granting the pardon, Trump pointed to Buyer's record as a judge advocate general in the US Army and his years serving in the House of Representatives, describing his career as "distinguished and highly productive".
Buyer responded by saying the pardon "corrects a politically motivated prosecution" and called his imprisonment "horrific". He maintains he is innocent of the charges.
Trump had used his Truth Social platform on 31 May to share two letters requesting a presidential pardon for Buyer, a lawyer and Gulf War veteran who left office in 2011.
Letters from Republican colleagues
A letter signed by more than 40 former Republican members of Congress claimed Buyer had been "targeted by the deep state" because of his role as a House prosecutor during Democratic President Bill Clinton's 1998 impeachment trial. "Like you, Mr President, Steve has been the victim of lawfare conducted by the Biden Administration," the April 2025 letter stated.
A separate letter, dated June 2025 and signed by five sitting House Republicans — Tom Cole of Oklahoma, Ken Calvert of California, Marlin Stutzman of Indiana, Jack Bergman of Michigan, and Pete Sessions of Texas — argued that pardoning Buyer would bring justice to his case.
Buyer also served on Trump's transition team in 2016, where he focused on veterans' issues.
Under the US Constitution, the president holds broad authority to grant pardons for federal offences. A pardon does not expunge a recipient's criminal record but can be issued as an act of mercy or as a statement of perceived injustice.
Source: Google News MT