Government Accountability
A Government That Works for the People—Or a System That Manages Us for Someone Else?
Two clemency orders. One larger question. Is the American government serving the people, or managing the people on behalf of concentrated power?
Today, I published a few executive orders of my presidency.
They are not hypothetical. They are not campaign promises wrapped in talking points. They are draft proclamations, dated for the first day of the next presidential term-January 20, 2029-and they are posted in full on this website for every American to read, to scrutinize, and to hold me accountable to if I am elected.
These two men did what they did for the American people. They exposed what was being done in our name, in secret, without our consent. And for that, they were punished.
I am not here to relitigate every detail of their cases. The legal recitations are in the orders themselves. I am here to say what the political establishment will not:
Edward Snowden and John Kiriakou are not enemies of the state. They are witnesses to what the state became when it thought no one was watching.
Published executive orders
The question we must ask
771,000 human beings experienced homelessness in 2024, the highest number ever recorded by the United States government. More than a third of them slept outside, not in shelters, because there was nowhere to go.
35.9 million Americans, 10.6% of our population, live below the federal poverty line. Nearly 44 million more hover just above it, one medical bill or lost paycheck away from collapse.
Over 80,000 Americans died from drug overdoses in 2024. Even with a historic decline from the year before, that is still more than 220 people every single day.
Think about those numbers. Not as statistics. As people.
Half of this country is self-medicating to survive inside the system. The other half is medicating with illegal drugs to escape the very same system. The system itself has become the disease, and we are being told the cure is more of the same.
We have to ask ourselves: Is our government actually working for us, or is it managing us for someone else?
Because when a government builds a surveillance apparatus that treats every citizen as a potential threat, but cannot house its own people-that is not governance. That is a protection racket.
When a government spends trillions on war, bailouts, and corporate subsidies while 35 million of its own citizens live in poverty-that is not public service. That is a wealth transfer.
When whistleblowers go to prison while the architects of systemic failure collect bonuses and board seats-that is not justice. That is damage control.
Why I am pardoning Snowden and Kiriakou
Because we cannot fix what we are not allowed to see.
Edward Snowden revealed to the American people that their own government was collecting their communications in bulk, without warrants, without suspicion, without consent. Whatever you think of his methods, the facts he exposed are not in dispute. The programs were real. The courts later ruled them illegal. The laws were changed.
John Kiriakou was the first CIA officer to confirm that the United States was torturing people. Waterboarding. Enhanced interrogation. Call it what you want-he told the truth, and he went to prison for it. He served his time. He accepted responsibility. And the practices he exposed are now prohibited.
These men did what the system was designed to prevent: they told us what was being done in our name. That is not espionage. That is citizenship of the highest order.
A pardon is not an endorsement of every decision a person made. It is a recognition that, when weighed against the scale of what was hidden from the American people, the truth served the public interest more than the secrecy served it.
The others under review
Earlier, I stated that I am prepared to pardon individuals who committed financial crimes-the white-collar offenders, the Ponzi schemers, the insider traders-on one condition: that they teach our education system everything about how they did it and what we need to fix so it does not happen again.
I meant it.
The following individuals are under active review for potential executive clemency:
Sam Bankman-Fried
Convicted in 2023 for stealing $8 billion from FTX customers. Sentenced to 25 years and ordered to forfeit $11 billion. He understood the regulatory gaps, the crypto loopholes, and the oversight failures. If he can teach us how to close them, his knowledge is worth more to the American people than his silence in a prison cell.
Allen Stanford
Serving a 110-year sentence for a $7.2 billion Ponzi scheme that defrauded 18,000 victims. In 2025, a federal court finalized a $5.9 billion civil judgment that will largely go uncollected. He knows every seam in the financial regulatory fabric. I want him to show us where it ripped.
Bernie Madoff
Deceased in 2021. His $64.8 billion scheme spanned decades and 40,000 victims. The Madoff Victim Fund has recovered over $4.3 billion, achieving a recovery rate of nearly 94%. I invoke his name not to pardon a dead man, but to make a point: the system failed to catch him for thirty years. What does that say about the system? Would you trust it to protect your retirement tomorrow?
Raj Rajaratnam
Convicted of insider trading, sentenced to 11 years, and released in 2019 after serving 7.5 years. He has already published a memoir detailing what he calls prosecutorial overreach and systemic unfairness. The question is whether his inside knowledge of how information moves before the rest of us see it can be turned to the public good.
Bernard Ebbers
Former WorldCom CEO, convicted of orchestrating an $11 billion accounting fraud. Released early from a 25-year sentence due to deteriorating health and died in 2020. The WorldCom scandal was the largest corporate fraud in American history at the time. The lessons are not academic. They are operational.
Wong Kwong Yu (Huang Guangyu)
Formerly China's richest man, convicted of insider trading and bribery, sentenced to 14 years, and released on parole in 2020. His case highlights the global nature of financial crime and the jurisdictional limits of any one nation's pardon power. I include his name because the conversation about transparency must be international.
I am reviewing each of these cases carefully. Not every review will end in a pardon. But every review will be conducted openly, with the American people able to see my reasoning.
I am open to pardoning anyone who can help us move this country in the correct direction. That is not a slogan. It is a governing philosophy. If you have knowledge that can prevent the next fraud, expose the next cover-up, or close the next loophole, and you are willing to teach what you know-I will consider your case.
A closing word
I am running as an independent. I am not part of the ordinary party politics. I call out the issues as I see them, and because of that, I tend to be ignored.
I understand that. The system is not designed to respond to outsiders. It is designed to manage them.
But I am here anyway. Because this country does not belong to the donors. It does not belong to the party bosses. It does not belong to the intelligence agencies, the Wall Street firms, or the political consultants who tell us what we are allowed to say and think.
It belongs to us.
And the first step to taking it back is to demand the truth-from our government, from our institutions, and from each other.
That is what these pardons represent. Not forgiveness without accountability. Accountability without truth is a punishment exercise. Truth without accountability is a confession without consequence. We need both-and we need them in service of the American people, not in service of a system that has lost its way.
Let's get to work.