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Show HN: Pardonned.com – A searchable database of US Pardons
https://pardonned.com https://pardonned.com
Inspired by the videos of Liz Oyer, I wanted to be able to verify her claims and just look up all the pardons more easily.
Tech Stack:
Playwright - to sccrape the DOJ website
SQLite - local database
Astro 6 - Build out a static website from the sqlite db
All code is open source and available on Github.
- cs702 5mo agoThank you. Apologies in advance for nitpicking, but I think the correct spelling is "pardoned" (a quick search on Google confirms it).
- SpyCoder77 5mo agoMost likely that domain was already taken.
- SpaceL10n 5mo agoPardon me, but this is a list of pardons given to pardoned people.
- ceejayoz 5mo agoI'd presumed this was a wordplay on Donald Trump.
- vidluther 5mo agocorrect.
- vidluther 5mo agoIt's a play on Donald Trump, after watching a Liz Oyer video linking a very plausible pardon for sale scheme, I wanted to initially build a site that showcased pardons just by Trump, but I realized that would be partisan and not as useful.
- cs702 5mo agoAh, OK. Sorry I didn't get it right away!
- emiliazar 5mo ago[dead]
- dailoxxxx 5mo ago[dead]
- CatDeveloper_ 5mo agocool project :D
- jsiepkes 5mo ago> Pardons granted by Donald J. Trump (Second Term) Not Including the January 6th Pardons Why not include the January 6th pardons?
- vidluther 5mo agoThat disclaimer is there for now to make it clear that we're not showing that data yet. I need to figure out how to show the mass commutations done by Biden as well. Working on a comparison tool, so we can see # of pardons over admins, it seems the number of pardons has been going up each administration.
- ks2048 5mo agoJust yesterday, Trump said he's going to “pardon everyone who has come within 200 feet of the Oval.” [1] Free reign for crimes for the next 2.5 years. Maybe removing this pardoning power could be a bipartisan goal... I guess we shouldn't hold our breath. [1] https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/trump-promises-pardon-everybody-leaves-202224304.html https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/trump-promises-pardon-ev...
- CobraMode 5mo agoAs long as they can still pardon the turkey.
- Lio 5mo agoPardon him for what? What is the charge here? Being a meal? Being a succulent Chinese meal?
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- winstonewert 5mo agoFor anyone who might be confused about the pardoning a turkey reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Thanksgiving_Turkey_Presentation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Thanksgiving_Turkey_P...
- DonHopkins 5mo agoOr the succulent Chinese meal reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4bPMxeCnos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4bPMxeCnos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Manifest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Manifest
- draw_down 5mo ago[dead]
- 5mo ago
- kupadapuku 5mo agoLove this idea - if I were to extend it, I'd add some kind of analysis breaking down the % composition of pardons (fraud vs drug offences vs financial crime) by President to see if there's some common trend. I was a little surprised to see the Obama number quite so high, until it became apparent that the vast majority were drug offenders being pardoned
- vidluther 5mo agoA bunch of mass commutations have occurred under Obama, Biden, and most recently under Trump, I'm working on a comparison tool, so we can visualize the change in number of pardons by president, further breakdown of composition is an interesting idea as well.
- GorbachevyChase 5mo agoA more interesting analysis to me would not be the number pardoned, but rather the monetary value of correlated donations or direct financial interests. Pardons are one of the many services for sale, it seems.
- nonameiguess 5mo agoI'm pretty sure the numbers are going up simply because 1) 90s sentencing laws got insanely strict and prisons are full of old guys serving inflated sentences, 2) drug laws eventually became more lax and people are in prison for things that aren't even criminal any more, and 3) prisons have simply run out of space and it's easier to release people than build more. This kind of topic is bound to bring up a lot of outrage, but I'd invite people to remember it's the Marc Richs of the old buying pardons that you should be directing that toward. There are plenty of people locked up for a very long time who really don't deserve it. I recall a Chumash woman I worked with at the LA County Museum of Natural History 24 years ago. I gave her a ride home a few times and eventually realized I was taking her to a halfway house, and it came out that the FBI has busted her in the early 90s for criminal conspiracy and her only actual offense was refusing to testify against her husband, who'd been selling marijuana on their reservation under the logic that he didn't believe US law should apply because of the historical treaties about tribal land. She did 10 years in federal prison for that.
- koolba 5mo agoAre there any longer or more generic than this: > For any nonviolent offenses against the United States which they may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 1 2014 through the date of this pardon (JAN 19, 2025). https://pardonned.com/pardon/details/biden-family/ https://pardonned.com/pardon/details/biden-family/ That’s 11+ years with no detail or description.
- vidluther 5mo agoSo this was the first time (i think) anyone got a preemptive pardon, the actual warrant on the DOJ website says what it says.. https://www.justice.gov/pardon/media/1385756/dl?inline https://www.justice.gov/pardon/media/1385756/dl?inline Will have to crunch through the offenses in the db and see if anything else like this shows up.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- lelandfe 5mo agoPreemptive meaning they hadn't yet been convicted. Nixon was pardoned by Ford in this manner (for "all offenses against the United States" between Jan. 20, 1969—Aug. 9, 1974). Carter preemptively mass-pardoned draft dodgers, etc.
- vidluther 5mo agoI did not know that. Thanks for the lesson.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- ceejayoz 5mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pardon_of_Richard_Nixon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pardon_of_Richard_Nixon https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/proclamation-4311-granting-pardon-richard-nixon https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/proclamation-4311-... > Now, Therefore, I, Gerald R. Ford, President of the United States, pursuant to the pardon power conferred upon me by Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution, have granted and by these presents do grant a full, free, and absolute pardon unto Richard Nixon for all offenses against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 20, 1969 through August 9, 1974. Not quite as long, but much more significant. (No violence exception, the criminal was the President, and they were crimes against the entire country, not some random drug/tax charges.)
- digdugdirk 5mo agoYour numbers seem a bit off on the second Trump term. Trevor Milton was on the hook for over half a billion dollars of restitution alone.
- vidluther 5mo agoThanks for the heads up on that.. there's a lot of massaging/cross checking that still needs to be done. Right now the numbers are based purely on what the sentence is described on the DOJ website. https://www.justice.gov/pardon/clemency-grants-president-donald-j-trump-2025-present https://www.justice.gov/pardon/clemency-grants-president-don... cmd-f trevor milton .. if the text for the sentence column doesn't say anything about a fine or restitution the system is not going to be able to figure that out. The numbers for the prison time reduced is also technically incorrect, Ross Ulbricht, Rod Blagojevich and many others had already served many years in prison, so technically we should not count that as time reduced.
- soumyaskartha 5mo agoThis kind of civic data should have been easily searchable for years. The fact that someone had to build it says a lot about how accessible government records actually are.
- takahitoyoneda 5mo ago[dead]
- andrewstuart 5mo agoPardon power can serve no reasonable goal in a functioning democracy except to subvert justice.
- fernmyth 5mo agoIt’s an alternative to coups and civil wars. The deal made in private conversations is something like “Give up power peacefully. Everybody gets pardoned and goes home to their families. Nobody needs to do anything crazy or violent out of desperation to avoid prison.”
- glerk 5mo agohttps://pardonned.com/search/?president=obama-2&categories=drug+offense https://pardonned.com/search/?president=obama-2&categories=d... I haven’t looked into each case here, but I assume these are a bunch of non-violent drug offenders serving years and decade-long sentences. I see 30 years for “possession with intent to distribute”. That’s just crazy. When the justice system is clearly broken, it’s ok to subvert it.
- layer8 5mo agoThe parent’s wording does actually imply that subverting justice is a reasonable goal.
- ceejayoz 5mo agoThere's some value to "the President can correct some wrongs". There are genuine miscarriages of justice sometimes and it's kinda nice to have a release valve for them. The recent presidential immunity decision just made the downsides way more likely.
- salawat 5mo agoJustice is a moving target mate. Should people who had a few pounds of reefer still be serving 30 year sentences? 90's adults would probably say yes. Today? Not so much. Part of being human is being open to the fact you were wrong. The Pardon is the release valve that lets the Chief Executive remove the targets the System has painted on people's backs in response to a clear shift in public conscience. The public in recent history, threw all prudence to the wind and put a con man in office. Surprise, surprise when a con man uses the office to do what con men do.
- mpassman 5mo agoNice. But why show Restitution Abandoned etc. if you have no way to calculate it?
- vidluther 5mo agoi am calculating it if it's available in the sentence details. If the sentence details don't have a fine or restitution then we can't calculate it.
- elicash 5mo agoWould love if you can track this more deeply and sort/filter/search through restitutions and fines. The ones you know about, that is.
- siliconc0w 5mo agoWe should at least ban the "preemptive" pardon if not all pardons. Pardon means forgiveness for a specific convicted crime, not a means to grant blanket immunity.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 5mo agoThe preemptive pardon is ridiculous. Pardon for what? What if it comes out someone is a child cannibal? Are they pardoned for that?
- conception 5mo agoThere’s no /s so I’m assuming you didn’t know that child cannibalism was in the Epstein files https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/fact-check-breaking-down-mentions-140000640.html https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/fact-check-breaking-down... So to answer your question, seems like Yes, pardons for all!
- fwipsy 5mo agoFrom the article you linked, child sacrifice allegations came from an anonymous FBI interview in 2019 and are not confirmed by any credible evidence. There are no cannibalism allegations; the word "cannibal" only appears in innocuous contexts. So child sacrifice and cannibalism are only technically "in the Epstein files;" there's very little evidence that anyone did those things. For other readers, if you hadn't heard about this, that's probably why.
- royaltjames 5mo agoLittle evidence that I was abused as a child too, must not have happened.
- OtomotO 5mo ago
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- devcraft_ai 5mo ago[dead]
- Luki1234 5mo agocool
- insane_dreamer 5mo agoPresidential pardons should be banned, period. All presidential pardons are political in nature, and therefore not based on justice.
- JuniperMesos 5mo agoThis is equally true of the criminal justice process that sentences people to crimes at all.
- hk1337 5mo agoI would have thought a lot of the drug offense pardons by Obama would have been for marijuana but looking at the first few pages, they’re not. > 118 of 2,791 GRANTS Only 118 list marijuana in the pardon text
- shimman 5mo agoReminder that the pardon is a vestigial leftover from monarchism. The idea that one single person can go "nuh uh" in a democratic country is just another massive failure of the US constitution, a legal document written to suppress the will of the people and allow for minority rule but too sacrosanct to change for "reasons" that all seem to only benefit a small minority of people. Relegate pardon powers to only amount to commutations, at the bare minimum. Oh fun fact, Alexander Hamilton thought monarchies were the best form of government.
- millbj92 5mo agoPresidents shouldn't have the right to outright pardon people. It should have to go through some sort of body beforehand and be voted on like everything else.
- salawat 5mo agoThe Pardon is a structural check on the legislative and judiciary. It cannot be done away with safely without causing massive problems down the road. If anything, this should be a learning experience for the country not to put criminally inclined presidents in office.
- dabinat 5mo agoThe pardon has been abused by almost every president in recent history to pardon their family or associates (as far as I’m aware, Obama is the only one who didn’t, but please correct me if I’m wrong). It’s in dire need of reform or replacement.
- rootusrootus 5mo agoDid Biden pardon anyone that was not being floated by the incoming president for retribution?
- huhkerrf 5mo agoGW Bush also probably matches with Obama for your description, though he did commute (but not pardon) Cheney's Chief of Staff, which caused a permanent rift between Bush and Cheney. He also revoked a pardon when he discovered that one had his father donate large sums to the RNC.
- cheema33 5mo ago> this should be a learning experience for the country not to put criminally inclined presidents in office If the country didn't learn after the first term, what makes you think they will after the second term? All signs indicate that the electorate is getting dumber.
- 5mo ago
- vunderba 5mo agoThanks for this. As engineers, I think it’s natural for us to look at things like executive orders and pardons, tools that seemingly have no real restrictions or caps, and immediately see them as open to exploitation by bad actors. The pardon system in particular needs a serious overhaul. For every case where a pardon is used to correct an "unjust ruling", it swings just as easily in the opposite direction. Frankly I have more faith in a decision that goes through the proper judicial process than in one made unilaterally by a single person with zero oversight. There's a reason it's been historically called the "royal pardon". We need a combination of: - hard caps on the maximum number of pardons a president can issue per term - congressional review before those pardons take effect
- dopidopHN2 5mo agoLand of the free ( white collard criminals )
- xrd 5mo agoReally terrific. Such fun to see overviews and then dig into the details to see how assumptions about each situation were inaccurate at first glance.
- lateforwork 5mo agoAre you able to track repeat pardons of the same offender? If not you have a bug. https://pardonned.com/pardon/details/adriana-isabel-camberos/ https://pardonned.com/pardon/details/adriana-isabel-camberos... Adriana Camberos was in fact pardoned twice. In 2021, convicted fraudster Adriana Camberos was freed from prison when President Trump commuted her sentence. Rather than taking advantage of that second chance, Ms. Camberos returned to crime. She was convicted again in 2024 in an unrelated fraud. In 2026, Mr. Trump pardoned her again. Full story here: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/16/us/politics/trump-fraudster-pardon.html https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/16/us/politics/trump-fraudst...
- vidluther 5mo agoInteresting story, but I do not see her name in the list of pardons and commutations on the source website twice. https://www.justice.gov/pardon/commutations-granted-president-donald-j-trump-2017-2021 https://www.justice.gov/pardon/commutations-granted-presiden... She only shows up here https://www.justice.gov/pardon/clemency-grants-president-donald-j-trump-2025-present https://www.justice.gov/pardon/clemency-grants-president-don...
- yorwba 5mo agoThe first time was under the name Adriana Shayota: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdca/pr/federal-jury-convicts-siblings-fraud-defendants-made-tens-millions-dollars-lying-0 https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdca/pr/federal-jury-convicts-s...
- dylan604 5mo agoCommutation and Pardon are not the same thing though. If she was commuted the first time, she couldn't have been "pardoned again" as you state. Commutation is ending any punishment for a conviction, but the conviction stands. A pardon wipes out the conviction.
- lateforwork 5mo agoThat's a difference without a distinction. In both cases Trump let her out of jail.
- fgkuescvricky 5mo agoHave you created a linked data SPARQL endpoint?
- vidluther 5mo agoI don't know what SPARQL is.. so no :)
- jimkleiber 5mo agoI like the concept. I'd love to see more types of data available, especially maybe race, age, connection to the president or their families, donations that the pardoned/commuted people have given and to whom, and more. I'd find that fascinating for seeing deeper patterns.
- hdjdodododood 5mo ago[flagged]
- wavint 5mo agoThis is exactly the kind of thing the DOJ website should have provided natively. Good reminder that "public record" and "actually accessible" are very different things. Bookmarked.
- spuz 5mo agoThis is the kind of data I would like to see on ourworldindata.org. They have good tools for visualising data and comparing between countries.
- DM70 5mo agoMay I ask you if your project does what nobody else does in USA?
- vidluther 5mo agoare you asking me? if so.. I don't think I understand your question.
- varenc 5mo agoExtracted all the raw pardons here: https://gist.githubusercontent.com/varenc/cb2e2dacf1c92d36bcee2fab04a44631/raw/pardonned.com_2026-04-11_paradons.json https://gist.githubusercontent.com/varenc/cb2e2dacf1c92d36bc... I wanted to do some stuff with this data so need a raw format. (process was so easy since its included on a single page load, so I assume you don't mind! thanks for making this )
- vidluther 5mo agoI'm thinking of exposing the sqlite db, and now possibly this JSON file as well.. I can take both during the build process and throw them up on CF. Great idea, thank you.
- eu 5mo agoconsider http://datasette.io/ http://datasette.io/ as well
- vidluther 5mo agoI'm exposing the database that I use to build the site now as well. https://pardonned.com/pardonned.db https://pardonned.com/pardonned.db
- JKCalhoun 5mo agoThe numbers suggest that 94% of all Fines Abandoned were just from Trump's first term.
- dboreham 5mo agoI've yet to see any justification (not even a bogus one) for why the pardon power needs to exist in the modern world. It seems to have been invented originally as a counterbalance against corrupt or crazy judges. We have other ways to deal with that problem now.
- mark124mj 5mo ago[flagged]
- sensarts 5mo ago[flagged]
- arto 5mo agoRoss Ulbricht: https://pardonned.com/pardon/details/ross-william-ulbricht/ https://pardonned.com/pardon/details/ross-william-ulbricht/
- dbg31415 5mo agoGonna make for a depressing read.
- totetsu 5mo agoCan someone overlay this with recorded political donations?
- nerder92 5mo agohttps://pardonned.com/pardon/details/cindy-marie-griffith-fka-cindy-marie-schafer/ https://pardonned.com/pardon/details/cindy-marie-griffith-fk... How come this ended up in the drug offence category? The sentence reads: “Distribution of satellite cable television decryption devices”
- vidluther 5mo agogood catch, I think the classifier saw the "distribution" in the sentence and assumed it was drug related. I could probably run each sentence against an ai model to classify things.. probably run it against something small like haiku and not cost me an arm and a leg.
- KingOfCoders 5mo agoThe benefits of an absolute monarch. Glad we don't have that in a democracy.
- KingOfCoders 5mo agoDemocrats in the US ignore the destruction of democracy by their own presidents, Clinton only came into the office to grift, no interest in the gravitas at all, and Obama, OMG 1904 pardons. Trump is an extension of what Clinton and Obama did, more extreme, more grift, more corruption, more executive powers, no guardrails, but not new.
- spiderfarmer 5mo agoNeeds a filter to see how much they paid to Trump.
- nottorp 5mo agoWho owns the domain with the correct spelling? :)
- huang4fun 5mo ago[dead]
- guest__user 5mo agowould be nice to search by district