President Donald Trump has issued a full, complete, and unconditional pardon to Stephen Buyer, a former Republican congressman from Indiana who previously served nearly two years in prison for insider trading.
Buyer, 67, was sentenced to 22 months in prison in 2023 after being convicted for making illegal stock trades based on inside information obtained while working as a consultant and lobbyist. His conviction involved the $26.5 billion merger between T-Mobile and Sprint, as well as trades involving the management consulting company Navigant. In addition to his prison sentence, which ended with his release in 2025, Buyer was ordered to pay a $10,000 fine and forfeit more than $350,000 in illegal gains.
In granting the pardon, which was dated Thursday and released by the White House late Friday, President Trump cited Buyer’s career as a judge advocate general in the Army and his time in the House of Representatives as “distinguished and highly productive.”
Buyer, who left office in 2011, maintained his innocence following the announcement. He stated that the pardon “corrects a politically motivated prosecution” and described his imprisonment as “horrific for a crime that I did not commit.”
The pardon follows a campaign by Republican allies to secure clemency for the former congressman. On May 31, President Trump shared two letters on his Truth Social platform advocating for the pardon. One letter, signed by more than 40 former Republican members of Congress, claimed Buyer was “targeted by the deep state” due to his role as a House prosecutor during the 1998 impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton. The signatories further characterized Buyer as a “victim of lawfare conducted by the Biden Administration.”
A second letter, submitted in June 2025, was signed by five current House Republicans: Tom Cole of Oklahoma, Ken Calvert of California, Marlin Stutzman of Indiana, Jack Bergman of Michigan, and Pete Sessions of Texas. They argued that a pardon would bring justice to the case.
The Supreme Court had previously declined to hear Buyer’s appeal in May, leaving his conviction in place prior to this presidential action. While the Constitution grants the president broad authority to issue pardons for federal crimes, such actions do not erase an individual’s criminal record. Moving forward, the pardon may be viewed as an act of mercy or justice by supporters, though it remains a point of contention regarding the nature of the original prosecution.
