The Trump Pardons (and the Man Behind Them)

The White House is doling out pardons to political allies and big donors. And there’s a new figure behind it all.

Trump pardons Todd and Julie Chrisley. Photos courtesy of The Shade Room.

Trump pardons are back in the news. We’re familiar with how, earlier this year, he issued mass pardons for the January 6 defendants, broadly signaling his support for political violence when conducted on his behalf.

He has now moved on to pardoning other criminals, and there are two main things we need to understand about this.

First, the White House intends to politicize pardons to a greater extent than ever, rewarding criminals when they are politically aligned with him, helped his campaign, and lined his pockets.

Second, there’s a new figure in charge of White House pardons named Ed Martin. You may remember him from his brief stint as acting head of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in D.C. When the GOP-controlled Senate balked at his nomination to permanently head it, Trump withdrew his name but then put him in charge of White House pardons.

Today let’s take a quick look at three pardons that Trump recently issued and understand how deeply corrupt and politicized they are. Then we’ll examine the piece of work that is Ed Martin, who now wields considerable and dangerous powers at the Justice Department.

Pay one million, but save on over four

Last month Trump issued a pardon to Paul Walczak, a Florida healthcare CEO who stole millions in withheld employee Social Security contributions from his own company’s doctors and nurses. He then spent that money on pricey purchases from high end retailers including Bergdorf Goodman and Cartier and even bought himself a $2 million yacht with the money.

You really can’t make this up.

Facing a lengthy sentence, Walczak applied for a Trump pardon, arguing that his case was politically motivated. He pointed out that his mother, Elizabeth Fago, had raised millions of dollars for the Trump campaign and the GOP, and (checks notes) had tried to sabotage the Biden campaign through publication of Ashley Biden’s diary, which has drawn legal scrutiny from authorities. His prosecution, he claimed, was payback for all that.

Elizabeth Fago (left) attended a fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago in April. Three weeks later her son Paul Walczak (right) received a full and unconditional pardon from President Trump. Photo by Nick Mele/Patrick McMullan via Getty/Bill Ingram/Imagn.

None of that seemed to sway the White House, however. Weeks went by after Trump’s inauguration, and still no pardon for Walczak. So what’s a doting mother to do? Buy a ticket to a $1 million-a-plate Trump dinner, of course!

The New York Times reported yesterday that Walczak’s pardon came only after his mother attended that dinner. Coincidence? The timing was a boon for Walczak. In exchange for that meal ticket, Walczak was off the hook for millions. As the Times noted drily,

It came just in the nick of time for Mr. Walczak, sparing him from having to pay nearly $4.4 million in restitution and from reporting to prison for an 18-month sentence that had been handed down just 12 days earlier. A judge had justified the incarceration by declaring that there “is not a get-out-of-jail-free card” for the rich.

The pardon, however, indicated otherwise.

The pardon scheme here reminds me of Trump’s tariff game, where everything is pay to play. Whenever Trump has an opportunity to extort money, he will.

Fiction from reality

As part of the rash of pardons, Trump also let reality TV stars Todd and Julie Chrisley off the hook. They’re best known for their TV show “Chrisley Knows Best,” though apparently she did not: The two were convicted in 2022 of tax evasion and bank fraud totaling over $30 million to support—you guessed it—a life of luxury.

Trump is on a tear to undo jury convictions for those he claims, without basis, have been unfairly targeted for their political viewpoints. Yes, it’s true, as the Chrisleys’ daughter Savannah often said, including on Lara Trump’s show on Fox, that her parents considered themselves the “Trumps of the South.” They portrayed themselves on TV as God-fearing folks with “conservative” family values who, through their own dint, owned a 30,000 foot mansion outside of Atlanta.

But according to prosecutors, that lavish lifestyle was “based on the lie that their wealth came from dedication and hard work.” In fact, the Chrisleys were “career swindlers who made a living by jumping from one fraud scheme to another, lying to banks, stiffing vendors and evading taxes at every corner.” Specifically, the couple was accused and found guilty of conspiring to submit false financial documents to banks to secure over $30 million in personal loans.

That sure sounds familiar. No wonder Trump found their crimes compelling.

They also claim to be victims of a politicized Department of Justice under Biden. Savannah Chrisley has been active within the GOP and even spoke misleadingly at the Republican National Convention last July about her parents’ case.

“72600019, and 72601019. These may be just numbers to you, but to me, they’re my whole heart. These numbers are my parents’ identification numbers in our federal prison system,” she told the crowd. “My family was persecuted by rogue prosecutors in Fulton County due to our public profile. I know Fulton County. They know how to do it, don't they?” Chrisley said, alluding to Trump’s own legal troubles there.

So, big reality check. The Chrisleys’ case was handled by the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of Georgia, not by Fulton County. And as Anna Bower of Lawfare notes, a federal grand jury indicted the Chrisleys in 2019 during Trump’s first term. Moreover, the initial prosecutor on the matter was BJay Pak, a Trump-nominated U.S. attorney. In January 2021, Pak was ousted “after Trump became convinced he wasn’t doing enough to investigate purported election fraud” in Georgia,” adds Bower.

Trump called Savannah Chrisley to tell her the news of her parents’ pardons. On the call Trump admitted, “I don’t know them,” but added, “but give them my regards and wish them a good life.”

Millions of MAGA voters and fans of the Chrisleys now falsely believe that Trump pardoned good people who were charged and prosecuted by Biden’s Fulton County prosecutors, which makes zero sense and is totally wrong, but here we are.

Only the best sheriffs

The third pardon concerns a cartoonishly corrupt sheriff from Culpeper County in Northern Virginia named Scott Jenkins.

Eeva Hambach / AFP via Getty Images file

Jenkins is something of a Second Amendment zealot, having once announced plans in 2019 to “deputize thousands of our law-abiding citizens to protect their constitutional right to own firearms” should the new Democratic majority in the Virginia state legislature pass gun control measures.

That didn’t happen, but Jenkins did manage to “deputize” six men (including two undercover FBI agents, womp womp) as “auxiliary deputy sheriffs” for the county, complete with badges and credentials. These men reportedly wanted to avoid traffic tickets and carry concealed firearms without permits.

Jenkins illegally agreed to make them law enforcement officers, despite their lack of training and experience, in exchange for around $75,000 in bribes. He would collect the money in the form of envelopes stuffed with cash.

Like I said, cartoonish.

A jury deliberated for just three hours before convicting Jenkins of all 12 counts he faced—one count of conspiracy, four counts of honest services fraud, and seven counts of bribery. The evidence was quite overwhelming and included video of Jenkins accepting bags of cash, the testimony of some of the men involved in the scheme who were cooperating with authorities, and reports from the two undercover FBI agents.

He was sentenced to a decade in prison and was about to begin serving that time when the pardon came down.

“Sheriff Scott Jenkins, his wife Patricia, and their family have been dragged through HELL,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post in connection with the pardon. He claimed Jenkins was the “victim of an overzealous Biden Department of Justice” despite the quick and unanimous jury verdict. Trump called Jenkins a “wonderful person” who was persecuted by “Radical Left monsters” and “left for dead.”

Why did this man, who plainly was guilty of accepting cash bribes in exchange for official favors, receive a Trump pardon? As The Bulwark notes, Jenkins is a “rabidly anti-immigrant, pro-Trump sheriff who’d become a minor celebrity in MAGA world.” And the man who vetted the decision, new presidential “pardon attorney” Ed Martin, made it clear how he felt about the pardon and his own involvement in it. Martin tweeted on the news, “Thank you, President Trump! I am thrilled that Sheriff Jenkins is the first pardon since I became your Pardon Attorney.” He then continued, “Congratulations, Sheriff Jenkins: Do great things and make us proud.”

Let’s take a closer look now at Ed Martin.

Howdy, pardoner

Ed Martin is the new “pardon attorney” at the Department of Justice. When we last encountered Martin in Episode Three, reluctant GOP senators, including Thom Tillis (R-NC), had actually moved to block his confirmation as U.S. Attorney for D.C.

I probably don’t need to tell you how bad Martin must be for Sen. Tillis to conclude he’s too extreme for the job and actually stand by that conclusion. After all, Tillis is the same senator who convinced Pete Hegseth’s sister-in-law to come forward with evidence of spousal abuse, but then left her out to dry by voting for Hegseth anyway.

Martin is truly a piece of work. He failed to report to the Senate that he had personally appeared on Russian state media more than 150 times. That basically makes him the Tucker Carlson of the Justice Department. He was also an attorney for the “Stop the Steal” movement and used his brief time as acting U.S. Attorney in D.C. to suck up to Elon Musk and threaten sitting Congress members with prosecution.

After it became clear that Martin wasn’t going to get the permanent job of U.S. Attorney, as a consolation prize Trump put Martin in charge of presidential pardons and named him head of the new “weaponization” working group within the Department. That group is tasked with advancing Trump’s campaign of a political retribution.

And after news of the pardons broke, Martin posted, “No MAGA left behind.”

We now need to watch Martin’s moves as carefully as those of other dangerous extremists, from Stephen Miller to Tom Homan.

Meanwhile, the White House’s message to MAGA world is crystal clear: If you’re facing federal charges or hard time, the way to win favor and a pardon is to be as Trumpy as possible, to play the victim of the Biden administration even if it was Trump’s Justice Department that prosecuted you, and of course to continue to support the White House with those big dollars.

But these pardoned criminals should take care. Trump may have immunity for official acts performed while president, thanks to SCOTUS, even for pardons sold for a price. But for the people offering these bribes, there is no such immunity protection and the statute of limitations won’t run out till past the 2028 election.