How many people President Donald Trump has pardoned this September is a question about presidential power—and whether the public record can answer it. The reporting available for this story does not establish a verified monthly total. A prediction market offers a strong view of what traders currently believe, but it is not a count of pardons and cannot fill that gap in the record.
On Kalshi, traders put the chance that the count falls within the market’s broadest range at 97% as of 1:56 p.m. ET on Sept. 29. The contract’s other ranges are priced at 11% and 1%. Those figures describe traders’ beliefs, not an official tally or an objective forecast. The market is also a poor substitute for reporting a count: the higher ranges had no contracts traded over the last day, while the leading range had 33 contracts traded over the last day and 2,381 contracts open. The prices have not changed over the past day or week, according to the market data.
The available commentary speaks to why the question matters but does not settle it. A Philadelphia Inquirer editorial said Trump granted pardons in his second term, including to political allies and people convicted of fraud. It put his second-term tally at 166 pardons and compared that with 80 pardons for Biden during Biden’s four-year term. Neither figure supplies a September total. The editorial’s broader argument is that the use of pardons raises questions about equal treatment under the law; that is an argument about the significance of clemency, not a dated accounting of this month’s grants.
There is also a case for treating clemency as a remedy, not only as a source of concern. A Boston Globe editorial argued that pardons can correct unjust sentences and laws that have not kept pace with changing public values. It said many Trump clemency grants bypassed the Justice Department’s usual review process, citing a figure of 70 percent. That figure covers pardons and clemencies, according to the editorial’s account, and should not be mistaken for a September pardon count. The same piece cited Biden’s commutations for people convicted of nonviolent drug offenses, describing nearly 2,500 people. Pardons and commutations are distinct forms of clemency, so a total that combines them would not answer the market’s narrower question. These arguments illustrate why a raw tally alone cannot explain how clemency was used or whether each grant was justified.
For now, the market favors its broadest count range, but the sourced reporting here cannot confirm whether that range is right. Establishing the monthly count requires a current, authoritative record and clarity about which grants it includes. The market’s price can show where traders place their belief among the listed ranges, but it does not establish what happened. Until the record is checked, the market is best read as a snapshot of uncertainty—not evidence that a particular number of people have been pardoned.
