{"id":540,"date":"2026-06-11T20:39:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T20:39:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/?p=540"},"modified":"2026-06-11T20:39:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T20:39:17","slug":"you-will-be-shocked-to-learn-that-donald-trump-pardoned-a-corrupt-politician","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/?p=540","title":{"rendered":"You Will Be Shocked to Learn That Donald Trump Pardoned a Corrupt Politician"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
\n<\/div> <\/div>\n
\n\n
\"A<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

With Donald Trump\u2019s<\/span> pardon of former Indiana Rep. Steve Buyer over the weekend, he has now pardoned at least 11 former GOP politicians, almost all of them on charges of corruption or somehow violating the public trust.<\/p>

Read more My Half-Baked Attempt to Cook Through the World Cup<\/a><\/p>\n

Buyer served in Congress from 1993 to 2011, and after leaving office, he promptly went to work as a consultant and lobbyist for many of the companies that used to lobby him. In 2018, while golfing with an executive from T-Mobile, Buyer learned that the company was reviving its bid to take over Sprint, a fact that was not yet public. He promptly began buying hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of Sprint stock. In 2019, Buyer learned of another impending merger through his work and bought shares of Navigant\u2014a move that would later earn him several hundred thousand dollars.<\/p>\n

In 2022, Buyer was convicted of insider trading and sentenced to 22 months in prison, which he served. The Supreme Court declined to hear his appeal. In May, Trump posted letters written by Buyer\u2019s former GOP colleagues, alleging that Buyer\u2014who had made $354,000 from his two insider trading schemes\u2014was a victim of the \u201cdeep state.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLike you, Mr. President, Steve has been the victim of lawfare conducted by the Biden Administration,\u201d the Republican lawmakers insisted.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s official pardon of Buyer doesn\u2019t list any specific reasons or rationale, other than the support of the other GOP politicos. Maybe it was Buyer\u2019s penchant for golf\u2014not only did he learn some of the insider info on the golf course, he was known in Congress for his love of the sport.<\/p>\n

Regardless of the reasoning, Buyer\u2019s crimes sound a lot like those committed by another onetime elected official who received clemency from Trump.<\/p>\n

In December 2020, after losing re-election to Joe Biden, Trump pardoned former New York GOP Rep. Chris Collins, who had pleaded guilty to insider trading charges just a few weeks earlier. Collins admitted that, while attending a party at the White House in 2017, he received a phone call from the board of directors of a health care company warning that one of the company\u2019s products had failed an important regulatory test. Collins promptly sold his shares, avoiding nearly half a million in losses he would have incurred if he had waited until the news broke publicly.<\/p>

Read more FIFA Peace Prize Recipient Vows to Hit Iran \u2018VERY HARD\u2019 on First Night of World Cup<\/a><\/p>\n

Congress is currently debating\u2014and has been for years and years\u2014provisions to restrict stock trading by sitting lawmakers. Current laws ban insider trading for everyone\u2014not just members of Congress\u2014but that definition doesn\u2019t cover members of Congress buying and sell stocks that could be affected by legislation they vote on. One of the proposed reforms would ban members of Congress from trading individual stocks, but the most recent version, advanced by the Republican majority, would allow current members to hang onto the individual stocks they already own.<\/p>\n

Federal employees are banned from owning stocks that might be affected by their work, but the president is exempted from that. Trump does disclose his financial transactions, and earlier this spring, revealed he had made more than 3,600 stock trades this year, including numerous stocks directly impacted by decisions he made as president.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s pardons and commutations for politicians haven\u2019t been limited to insider trading. In all, he\u2019s given clemency to 13 former members of Congress, all of whom were either charged with or convicted various forms of financial wrongdoing or corruption.<\/p>\n

The list includes:<\/p>\n