Former Indiana Congressman Stephen Buyer has received a full presidential pardon from President Donald Trump, wiping away a federal conviction that sent the former lawmaker to prison for insider trading.
The White House announced the clemency action through a June 4 proclamation granting Buyer a “full, complete, and unconditional pardon.” The document offered no detailed justification but noted that the decision followed recommendations from more than 50 current and former members of Congress, including Republican Senators Roger Wicker and Lindsey Graham.
The pardon closes a chapter in a case that drew national attention after federal prosecutors accused Buyer of using confidential business information to profit in the stock market after leaving Congress.
Buyer, a Republican who represented Indiana in the House of Representatives, was sentenced to 22 months in prison in 2023. A federal jury found him guilty on four counts of securities fraud tied to two separate insider trading schemes that generated nearly $350,000 in profits.
According to regulators and prosecutors, Buyer purchased large amounts of Sprint stock in 2018 after learning that the telecommunications company was preparing to merge with T-Mobile, a client of his consulting business. Authorities said he earned more than $126,000 once news of the merger became public.
Investigators also alleged that Buyer acquired over $1 million worth of stock in Navigant Consulting after receiving nonpublic information that one of his clients planned to buy the company. Prosecutors said he later sold those shares for a profit of approximately $227,000 on the day the acquisition was announced.
Federal authorities under the Biden administration also accused Buyer of giving misleading explanations about both stock trades during testimony at his 2023 trial.
After the sentencing, former U.S. Attorney Damian Williams sharply criticized the former congressman’s conduct.
“He abused positions of trust for illicit personal gain, and today he faced justice for those acts,” Williams said in a statement.
Buyer consistently denied wrongdoing throughout the legal battle. He challenged his conviction through the appeals process and ultimately sought review from the Supreme Court. The nation’s highest court declined to hear the case.
Following the pardon, Buyer told The Associated Press that the action “corrects a politically motivated prosecution.”
Trump has not publicly explained his decision. However, he recently shared letters on Truth Social from supporters advocating clemency for the former lawmaker.
One letter, signed by dozens of former Republican members of Congress, argued that Buyer had been unfairly targeted because of his role during President Bill Clinton’s 1998 impeachment proceedings.
“Like you, Mr. President, Steve has been the victim of lawfare conducted by the Biden administration,” the group wrote, claiming he was “targeted by the deep state.”
The same letter urged Trump to erase the conviction and intervene in related legal matters.
“Your full pardon for his criminal conviction and having DOJ dismiss the SEC civil case against him, will free Steve from the burden of public guilt wrongly placed upon him by the politically weaponized legal process,” they wrote.
The U.S. Constitution grants presidents broad authority under Article II to issue pardons and commute sentences for federal offenses. Trump has made extensive use of that power during his second term, issuing more than 1,600 pardons and commutations across a wide range of cases.
Buyer was released from prison in 2025. With Trump’s action, the former congressman’s federal criminal conviction is now formally pardoned, adding another high-profile name to the president’s growing list of clemency recipients.
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