President Donald Trump has issued a pardon to Stephen Buyer, a former Republican congressman from Indiana who served nearly two years in prison for making illegal stock trades based on inside information after he left office. Buyer sentenced to 22 months in prison in 2023 for making those trades while working as a consultant and lobbyist. He maintains that he is innocent. Trump cited Buyer’s career as a judge advocate general in the Army and in the House that was “distinguished and highly productive.” Buyer says the pardon “corrects a politically motivated prosecution” and that it was “horrific to be imprisoned for a crime that I did not commit.”
Former Colorado elections clerk and conspiracy theorist Tina Peters has been released from state prison. She served less than a quarter of her nine-year sentence for her role in a scheme to copy her county's election system. Democratic Gov. Jared Polis commuted her sentence last month after pressure from President Donald Trump. Peters was released Monday and then appeared on right-wing podcaster Steve Bannon's program. Polis had said he would shorten Peters’ sentence if she expressed regret about her actions. But in her interview with Bannon, Peters repeated the debunked conspiracy theory that voting machines cheated Trump out of reelection in 2020.
Many of the convicted rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, are clamoring for payouts from the nearly $1.8 billion settlement that the Trump administration has set up for people claiming to be victims of a weaponized government.
The U.K. government is set to release confidential papers related to the former Prince Andrew’s appointment as trade envoy. Lawmakers approved a motion in February demanding publication of the documents after the one-time prince, now known simply as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, was arrested on charges related to allegations that he shared government reports with Epstein while he was trade envoy. The move followed the U.S. Justice Department’s release of millions of pages of documents related to Epstein. Those files showed how the wealthy financier used an international web of rich, powerful friends to gain influence and sexually exploit young women and girls.