U.S. President Donald Trump has issued a pardon for Stephen Buyer, a former Republican congressman from Indiana, who served nearly two years in prison for conducting illegal stock trades based on inside information after leaving office.
The pardon order was signed on June 5 and released by the White House late on June 6 local time.
Buyer, 67, was sentenced to 22 months in prison in 2023 for transactions made while working as a consultant and lobbyist. He was ordered to return more than $350,000 in illegal profits, along with a $10,000 fine. Buyer was released in 2025.
In May, the U.S. Supreme Court had rejected Buyer's appeal without comment or objection.
In a "full, complete, and unconditional" pardon for Buyer, President Trump cited the politician's contributions, including his service as a judge advocate in the U.S. military and his tenure in the House of Representatives. Trump described Buyer's career as "outstanding and productive."
Buyer, for his part, called the pardon "a correction of a politically motivated prosecution" and described imprisonment as "dreadful for a crime I did not commit." He maintained his innocence.
On May 31, Trump used Truth Social to share two letters urging the pardon for Buyer, a lawyer and Gulf War veteran who left Congress in 2011.
Buyer served as a House prosecutor during the 1998 impeachment trial of Democratic President Bill Clinton, and in 2016, he worked on Trump's transition team focusing on veterans' issues.
A letter signed by more than 40 former Republican lawmakers contended that Buyer had been "targeted by the deep state" because of his involvement in the Clinton trial. "Like you, Mr. President, Steve has been a victim of litigation pursued by the Biden Administration," the letter wrote in April 2025.
A second letter, from five sitting Republican House members, argued that pardoning Buyer would deliver justice in the case. The June 2025 letter was signed by Tom Cole (Oklahoma), Ken Calvert (California), Marlin Stutzman (Indiana), Jack Bergman (Michigan), and Pete Sessions (Texas).
Buyer was convicted for insider trading in connection with the $26.5 billion merger between T-Mobile and Sprint announced in April 2018, as well as illegal trading in shares of management consulting firm Navigant as his client Guidehouse prepared to acquire the company in a deal announced weeks later.
The U.S. Constitution grants the president broad power to pardon federal crimes. A pardon does not erase the recipient's criminal record but can be seen as an act of clemency or justice.
