Methodology

Record spine

Every clemency record on PardonInfo starts from an official act of clemency. The DOJ Office of the Pardon Attorney's lists and warrant pages provide names, dates, action types, and case detail; the Federal Register provides proclamation text from 1936 onward; White House releases and archival records fill additional source gaps where records permit.

PardonInfo uses precise legal terminology: pardon, commutation, remission, and reprieve. A recipient page should make clear what was granted, who granted it, when it was granted, and what source supports the record.

Cross-reference layers

After the clemency act is established, related public records can be joined to the recipient or grant. Those layers include FEC donor history, Senate LDA and House Clerk LD-2 lobbying disclosures, FARA filings, federal court dockets, BOP inmate records, restitution and victim records, co-defendant outcomes, business records, and contemporaneous reporting.

A connection is a factual label for a sourced relationship. It does not imply motive, causation, influence, corruption, or agreement unless a source explicitly establishes that fact.

Evidence tiers

• Primary-source verified: court records, official filings, FEC/LDA/FARA records, DOJ and Federal Register documents, White House releases, government databases, official business records, or other public records that directly support the connection.
• Reported: reputable news or investigative reporting, attributed by outlet and date, used only when the reporting itself is the source for the relationship.
• Research lead: unverified material useful for internal investigation. Research leads should not be shown publicly until upgraded to a primary-source verified or reported connection.

What is live now

• Recipient, president, category, grant, and article pages are live.
• DOJ warrant ingestion covers multiple historical page formats, including modern tables, Clinton-era tables, Obama vertical-label tables, and older date-per-row tables.
• AI summaries are cached from structured factual records and are not generated inside page render paths.
• OpenFEC donation ingestion exists as a high-recall name-match pass. It should be treated as preliminary until reconciliation with geography, occupation, employer, timing, or other corroborating records is added.
• Relationship tracing to presidents, family members, friends, businesses, campaigns, lobbyists, donors, and other entities is the next data layer, not a substitute for the clemency record itself.

Editorial principles

• Lead with the warrant or proclamation.
• Link primary sources on first mention when available.
• Separate primary-source verified records from reported material.
• Use precise clemency terminology.
• Show timelines and source trails; let readers evaluate them.
• Do not infer motive, significance, or causation from a connection label alone.