Trump allies may have been pardoned, but here’s why their legal woes aren’t over yet

Published November 16, 2025 7:00am ET



President Donald Trump’s pardons of more than 70 allies involved in efforts to challenge the 2020 election have collided this week with new turns in the state-level prosecutions targeting the so-called “alternate electors” strategy.

The clemency order, a “full, complete, and unconditional pardon” for “all United States citizens” connected to the alternate-elector plan or to “efforts to expose voting fraud,” was signed last Friday and posted online Sunday night by Pardon Attorney Ed Martin. Although it does not apply to Trump, the proclamation covers dozens of high-profile aides, lawyers, and activists who were once scrutinized by former special counsel Jack Smith and by Democratic prosecutors in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, and Wisconsin.

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