President Trump issued 30 clemency grants on Thursday, including to a drug dealer-turned-business executive, a longtime Philadelphia union boss convicted of bribery and a former Navy sailor imprisoned for firearms offenses.
The clemency grants were confirmed by White House officials and representatives for the recipients.
They went to an eclectic group, continuing Mr. Trump’s unpredictable and unorthodox use of pardons that wipe away most consequences of convictions and commutations, which cut short sentences.
While other presidents have drawn criticism for using clemency to reward supporters or protect allies, Mr. Trump has taken it to a new level. His use of clemency has spawned a cottage industry of lawyers and lobbyists offering to use their connections to bring cases to his attention in exchange for hefty fees.
Thursday’s beneficiaries included some prominent figures. But the pardons also encompassed lower-profile people who were facing long sentences and lacked obvious connections to the president or his allies.
Among them was Holly Leanne Frantzen, who had served more than a decade of a nearly 17-year sentence for drug charges. The White House did not indicate whether she had received a pardon or a commutation.
In a statement pleading for clemency on the website of a prisoners’ rights group, Ms. Frantzen admitted to past struggles with drug addiction. But she indicated that she was working on completing an apprenticeship in plumbing, and that her rehabilitation behind bars had “compelled me to believe that there is hope.”
Alice Marie Johnson, the White House pardon czar, who has focused on elevating the cases of women and nonviolent drug offenders, highlighted Ms. Frantzen in a statement Friday announcing the clemency grants.
“My prayer is that each of these 30 people makes the most of this extraordinary second chance and becomes a greater blessing to their families, communities and the world,” Ms. Johnson said in a post on social media.
Mr. Trump also pardoned Emory Clash Jones, who served more than a decade in prison for a conviction related to selling crack cocaine.
A longtime associate of the rapper Jay-Z’s, Mr. Jones has been out of prison since 2010, according to Bureau of Prisons records. He has worked as an executive at Roc Nation, Jay-Z’s sprawling company.
In her statement, Ms. Johnson praised Mr. Jones as “an entrepreneur and creative leader whose journey reminds us how much people can grow — and how much good they can still do.”
In a letter to the judge overseeing the case in 2009, Jay-Z, writing under his given name Shawn Carter, indicated that he had known Mr. Jones for 15 years, and urged his release, praising his “intelligence, interpersonal skills and solid work ethic.”
Mr. Jones and Roc Nation did not respond to requests for comment.
Another clemency grant went to John Dougherty, who led a Philadelphia-based unit of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers for nearly three decades until he resigned in 2021 after he was convicted of bribing a City Council member there.
Mr. Dougherty, who is known as “Johnny Doc” and had exerted outsized influence in Philadelphia politics for decades, had served less than two years of a six-year prison sentence. The remainder of the sentence was wiped away by a commutation issued by Mr. Trump.
A White House official, who requested anonymity to discuss the president’s clemency decisions, said that Mr. Dougherty’s sentence was commuted to allow him to care for his terminally ill wife. Her father had been caring for her, but he passed away while Mr. Dougherty was in prison, the official said.
George Bochetto, a lawyer for Mr. Dougherty, said in an email on Friday that his client had been released from prison and was headed to Philadelphia “to be by his wife’s side.”
A pardon was granted to Patrick Adamiak, a former sailor who was sentenced in 2023 to 20 years in prison for possessing and selling illegal firearms from his home in Virginia.
The case of Mr. Adamiak, who goes by “Tate,” was championed by gun rights backers who supported Mr. Trump. They argued that his conviction was the result of unclear regulations and a frame job by a confidential informant.
Adam Kraut, the executive director of the Second Amendment Foundation, said in a statement that the case was “every gun owner’s worst nightmare.” Mr. Kraut added that “while Tate shouldn’t have endured what happened to him in the first place, we are thrilled he has finally received the pardon he deserves.”
