Trump’s pardons are costing shooting survivors millions | Donald Trump

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Since returning to office last year, Donald Trump has pardoned dozens of white-collar criminals. Room forgiven fines, penalties and compensation, billions. Some of that revenue was supposed to go to a fund to help victims of violent crime, and the organizations that serve them are feeling the pinch.

Established by the Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) in 1984, the Crime Victims Fund is sustained by criminal fines and convictions in federal cases, often in white-collar prosecutions. All of this money must be deposited into the fund by law. The money is distributed to state and local programs, including domestic violence shelters, rape crisis centers and child abuse treatment programs. Gun violence victims and families of deceased victims rely on routinely VOCA funding to cover medical expenses, funeral expenses, and lost wages.

Reducing company fines means less money for the Crime Victims Fund. The Trace analyzed all 117 of Trump’s messages pardons and commutations It has been published so far in its second term. We verified from court records whether the defendants’ fines were paid or whether Trump granted pardons before the debt was paid. According to our calculations, without Trump’s pardon, at least $113 million in forgiven fines would have gone to the fund. Not included in this figure returnIt goes directly to victims of crime.

Most of this figure belongs to a single case. Last year, Trump pardoned HDR Global Trading Limited, which owns and operates crypto exchange BitMEX. ordered will pay a $100 million fine for violating anti-money laundering laws. Trump issues pardon First for a company, just a few hours before the payment is due. Because forgive He calls for “all court-ordered fines, forfeitures and reparations to be forgiven,” saying the $100 million could never be transferred to the Crime Victims Fund.

“What really galvanized the fund is these very large, very small numbers of cases that were all corporate cases,” said Steve Derene, who co-founded the National VOCA Benefit Administrators Association and played a role in shaping the 1984 legislation. Quoted from 2017 residential Volkswagen was sued for cheating on emissions tests, causing the German automaker to pay a $2.8 billion fine; This was a windfall for the Crime Victims Fund. Two-thirds of the money deposited into the fund since its inception has come from just 90 cases, Derene said. “Just a few settlements could really make a difference in keeping this fund afloat.”

“Remission of all penalties,” meaning someone can stop paying, is not the typical language of a presidential pardon. None of Trump’s pardons in his first term He called for the fines to be forgiven, but only one-third of his amnesties this term were granted.

Going forward, this shift towards debt forgiveness for white-collar criminals could deprive the fund of a vital source of revenue. Especially “remission” not means refund. Criminal fines and penalties cannot be refunded once they are deposited in the Crime Victims Fund, a judge recently ruled reigned In a lawsuit filed by two recipients of Trump’s pardons who are suing to get some of their money back.

Some of the fines imposed on people who received Trump’s pardons were not pardoned, including a $50 million payment from the CEO of Binance, another cryptocurrency exchange, to resolve money laundering violations. But Trump’s pardons threaten to deprive the fund in other ways. Many of those pardoned had not appeared in court before receiving pardons, so criminal fines had not yet been imposed. This means the amount of money the fund lost was probably more than the $113 million we calculated.

Derene, who was VOCA director in Wisconsin for many years, worries that Trump’s pardons of white-collar criminals will deter federal prosecutors from taking on cases that tend to result in large fines; because all of these works can be erased by the president’s pen. “We don’t know which cases they didn’t bring,” he said.

The $113 million in fines Trump has pardoned in the last 14 months is far more than the fines pardoned by Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, during his four years in office. Biden’s forgive the recipients were subject to civil penalties of less than $1 million, and most had already been paid because they had served their sentences decades earlier. The only case in which Biden’s pardon was interrupted involved foreign nationals who were released as part of prisoner swaps with other countries.

An amount like $113 million could make a big difference for states and territories allocated from the crime victims fund based on population. More than a third accepted less than $10 million last year. The fund has been expanded especially since the pandemic and states have begun to look for other sources of revenue.

Maine Governor Janet Mills including The latest budget proposal calls for an annual allocation of $6 million to crime victims in the state to close the VOCA gap. Some VOCA-funded programs in Oklahoma reported 80% reduction in funding over the last decade. Pennsylvania’s domestic violence programs was shot a 7.5% reduction in VOCA funding for the coming year. Sexual assault survivor organizations in New Mexico he asked The state will provide $2 million to close the VOCA gap.

The amount of money in the fund fluctuates depending on the number of federal prosecutions. In 2000, Congress placed a limit on the funds that could be distributed each year to keep some of the money in the bank during times of trouble. So the fund remains relatively stable no matter who is in office, but payments fluctuation with funding limit.

The fund allocated more than $3.7 billion to crime victim service programs in 2021. accordingly federal data. By 2024, this figure has fallen to approximately $2.2 billion, a drop of approximately 40%. Less money means fewer victims helped: Nearly 10 million people were served by VOCA-funded organizations in 2021; In 2024 it was 7.1 million.

“The decline in VOCA funding has created significant uncertainty for victim service providers,” said Michaela Weber, executive director of Victim Support Services, a nonprofit organization that provides advocacy services to victims of violent crime in Washington state. most of its financing From VOCA. “For organizations like ours, this means making difficult decisions about staffing, capacity, and how many victims we can realistically serve at any given time.”

Getting VOCA help is already difficult. Only 6% of violent crime survivors aged 12 and over attempt to access victim compensation programs. accordingly Center For American Progress, a left-leaning think tank. low attendance stems from There is limited awareness of VOCA programs — especially in Black and brown communities — a difficult application process and strict eligibility criteria that exclude victims with criminal histories, among other barriers.

“Victim service organizations often act as bridges between individuals in crisis and the legal, medical and financial systems they must navigate,” Weber said. “When this bridge is strained and victims cannot receive timely support, the ripple effects can impact their safety, stability, and long-term recovery.”

There is Mother Jones reported He said the fund has also been strained as federal prosecutors have sought more non-prosecution agreements and delayed prosecutions in recent years, giving defendants more time to pay in exchange for cooperating with the government or allowing them to avoid charges altogether.

Meanwhile, Senate Republicans blame the Biden administration unsuccessful collect $1 billion in unpaid fines and penalties; this money would be transferred to the Crime Victims Fund. There is also the Ministry of Justice defined There is approximately $10 billion in additional fines and penalties outstanding. meeting of GOP senators persistently The ministry published last year guidance To prosecutors about the process of collecting fines. Republican senator Chuck Grassley he asked Then-attorney general Pam Bondi was offered an update in February, but it is unclear whether the department provided one. Grassley’s office did not respond to requests for comment.

Congress is considering allowing the Crime Victims Fund to benefit from money collected from people convicted of defrauding the government. The bill, the Crime Victims Fund Stabilization Act, passed the House in January and is now sits in the Senate.

But the shortfall in funding also has more political reasons, including Trump’s sweeping cuts to the federal workforce. “If you look at what’s happening with the justice department these days, the prosecutors, the assistant U.S. attorneys, the people tasked with collecting this money have either been fired, resigned, or are doing immigration work,” VOCA guru Derene told Trace.

White-collar prosecutions have seen a steep decline since 2011; The steepest decline was during Trump’s term in office. accordingly Data compiled by the nonprofit Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University. Trump’s justice department also dropped an unprecedented number of criminal cases so staff could focus on immigration. In the first six months of his administration, according to a recent ProPublica analysisThe Justice Department declined to prosecute 23,000 cases, many of which were referred by law enforcement in previous administrations. That number includes more than 900 cases of federal program or procurement fraud. “Practically speaking, when you look at the low level of cases filed, I think this could have a significant impact in the near future,” Derene said.

Crime Victims Fund as of February 2026 balance It was over $3.6 billion – higher Compared to when Biden was in office. But historical data shows the fund fell during Trump’s first term. Accordingly figures Department of Justice Programs, which manages the fund, had a balance of $3.1 billion in 2009, when George W Bush left office. By the time Barack Obama completed his second term in 2017, the fund had reached an all-time high of $13 billion. When Trump left four years later, that figure dropped again to $3 billion.

VOCA was spearheaded by Republican president Ronald Reagan, and the legislation was crafted through bipartisan consensus. Derene said he has always believed that the federal government decides which criminal cases to pursue based on good faith, not partisanship. “I’m not really willing to say that right now.”