President Donald Trump pardoned Stephen Buyer, a former Republican congressman from Indiana. Buyer served close to two years in prison for illegal stock trades made with insider information after leaving office.
In 2023, Buyer was sentenced to 22 months in prison. He engaged in illicit trading while working as a consultant and lobbyist. The court ordered him to forfeit over $350,000, the amount of his illegal profits, and pay a $10,000 fine. He was released in 2025.
Trump granted Buyer a “full, complete, and unconditional pardon.” The pardon credited Buyer’s career as a judge advocate general in the Army and noted his productive tenure in the House of Representatives. The White House released Trump’s pardon, dated Thursday, on Friday.
Buyer claimed the pardon rectifies a “politically motivated prosecution.” He described being imprisoned as “horrific” for a crime he insists he did not commit. Trump shared letters on May 31 through his Truth Social platform, requesting a presidential pardon for Buyer, who is also a lawyer and Gulf War veteran. Buyer served as a House prosecutor during the impeachment trial of Democratic President Bill Clinton in 1998 and was part of Trump’s transition team in 2016, focusing on veterans’ issues.
More than 40 former Republican members of Congress supported Buyer. They suggested he was targeted due to his role in Clinton’s trial, calling him a victim of “lawfare” by the Biden Administration.
Current House Republicans also wrote to endorse Buyer’s pardon, including Tom Cole of Oklahoma, Ken Calvert of California, Marlin Stutzman of Indiana, Jack Bergman of Michigan, and Pete Sessions of Texas.
Buyer, 67, was convicted in an insider trading scheme related to the $26.5 billion merger between T-Mobile and Sprint, announced in April 2018. This included illicit trades involving the management consulting firm Navigant when his client Guidehouse planned to acquire it, a deal disclosed weeks later.
The U.S. Constitution grants presidents the authority to pardon federal crimes. Pardons can serve as acts of mercy or justice but do not erase a recipient’s criminal record.
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