For Sale to Highest Bidder: Trump Pardons

Jul 18, 2026 10:54 AM EDT, Sat

Trump likes slapping his name on everything, Trump Accounts, Trump Rx. I wouldn’t be surprised if he started Trump Pardons.

Rapper Boosie Badazz exposes Trump’s broken pardon system

Boosie’s case is another illustration of the rottenness of the pardon system during Trump’s administration.

Jul. 15, 2026, 4:38 PM EDT By Charles F. Coleman Jr.

Rapper Boosie Badazz had a problem. In 2025 the Louisiana-based artist, who had already been convicted of a felony, was facing up to 10 years in prison and $250,000 in fines for being found in possession of a weapon. As NOTUS reported Monday, Boosie (whose legal name is Torence Hatch) gave $600,000 to right-wing lobbying firm JM Burkman and Associates to help him get a pardon from President Donald Trump and says he was told on New Year’s Day that it had been secured. But it wasn’t. On Jan. 13, 2026, in exchange for his guilty plea, a federal judge sentenced him to three years’ probation, 300 hours of community service and a $50,000 fine, a fraction of the amount he paid in an attempt to get a pardon.

Here it is July, and Boosie hasn’t been pardoned. And not only is he trying to get at least half his money back, he’s making a social media spectacle by calling out the right-wing influencers he says were supposed to help sell his case to Trump, according to the firm’s associates.

He’s calling out the right-wing influencers he says were supposed to help sell his case to Trump, according to the firm’s associates.

Boosie’s case is another illustration of the rottenness of the pardon system in Trump’s presidency. MS NOW’s Ken Dilanian) brought to light pay-to-play allegations related to Trump pardons in the series “Justice Interrupted”; in May, Rep. Dave Min (D-CA47), and Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT), sent letters to 17 people they say received pardons or commutations from Trump “under circumstances that warrant further congressional scrutiny.”

In those letters, the lawmakers sought information including: “The process by which clemency requests were initiated and considered; Whether intermediaries, lobbyists, or advocates were involved; Any contacts with Trump administration officials or associates; Whether financial contributions or payments were made in connection with clemency efforts; and the extent of third-party advocacy supporting the requests.”

NOTUS, in its Monday report, published a copy of the written agreement JM Burkman reached with Boosie “to provide exclusive strategic advisory and advocacy services for the sole purpose of seeking and securing a full presidential pardon for the charges to which Client has pleaded guilty in the matter of United States v. Torence Hatch, Case No. 3:23-cr-01201-CAB, in the United States District Court for the Southern District of California.”

NOTUS reports that lobbyists Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman cited a cost overrun to the entertainer’s lawyer, and it describes text messages from the pair to the rapper’s legal team claiming that the firm was all but bankrupt. In a statement to NOTUS, JM Burkman said it “cannot think of a single client for whom our firm has done more work than Boosie.” That statement also said its work “included a massive, highly tailored advocacy campaign across Congress, the executive branch and leading political influencers and media figures. We continue to believe that Boosie very much deserves a pardon.” But, regarding his attempts to get some of his money back, the firm said that “no provision to return half the fee was ever actually agreed to.”

The contract, however, includes the following language: “If a full presidential pardon for the Matter is not secured for the Client by Close of Business (5:00 PM EST) on January 31, 2025, Consultant shall refund Three Hundred Thousand United States Dollars ($300,000.00) to the Client.” The contract wasn’t executed until Sept. 30, 2025, and while NOTUS points to the January 2025 deadline as an example of the contract’s sloppiness, it quotes the entertainer’s lawyer saying that all parties understood the deadline to be Jan. 31 of this year.

NOTUS also reviewed text messages in which Wohl name-dropped people in the MAGA world who would help Boosie, including a fellow Louisianan, House Speaker Mike Johnson.

“Speaker Johnson’s office categorically denied that there was any merit to the claims made by these individuals or any connection between the speaker and these individuals or the parties involved,” a spokesperson for Johnson told NOTUS.

Boosie has spent some of this week on social media questioning a host of alt-right figures with ties to Trump, including Laura Loomer, Mike Cernovich and Erika Kirk. Using all caps and internet shorthand, he has pointed out that their names were mentioned in email messages from “Burkman n Whol about my pardon process,” asking them to “please make a truthful statement about having contact r no contact” with the firm.

Like the House speaker, none of the figures Boosie names has claimed to have any knowledge of what he’s talking about. Yet tagging them to say he paid for help with a pardon let those right-wing activists say that that’s not how things work, and claim that the pardon process has been aboveboard during Trump’s administration.

“Hey Lil Boosie,” Cernovich wrote, “I don’t privately advocate for pardons nor accept money to do so. I do promote pardons publicly, with full transparency. Nothing against you but never recommended a pardon for you nor even knew you wanted one.” After telling Boosie she has no idea who he is, Loomer responded, “You can’t pay for a pardon … not sure who told you that’s how it works.”

As foolish as it may be to announce to the world that he shelled out $600,000 in the hopes of obtaining a pardon, Boosie can hardly be blamed for his attempts. Not only is there evidence, as the above-mentioned lawmakers point out, of impropriety in Trump’s pardon system, but Trump has made a great show of pardoning rappers in particular, among them Lil Wayne and Kodak Black. Boosie is also not the only Black music figure asking now. Sean “Diddy” Combs, who was convicted of two counts of transporting people for prostitution under the Mann Act, and R. Kelly, who was convicted of nine counts in a sex trafficking case, are among some of the names who have recently made public pleas to the president for mercy.

The administration’s haphazard wielding of the power of the pardon and the president’s blatant admission of his penchant for loyalists has given the public the perception that freedom and justice in America can be auctioned off to the highest bidder. It reinforces the notion of a two-tiered justice system in America at the highest levels. We can find Boosie’s approach abhorrent, and we can — and should — repudiate the premise of his thinking, but in no way is his belief that he can buy a pardon absurd.

His story is much bigger than that of a rapper who believes he may have been cheated while trying to cheat the system. Americans’ trust in presidential pardons is rightly shattered. Not just because Trump pardoned the Jan. 6 defendants en masse and has done the same for donors to his campaign, but also because President Joe Biden pardoned his son, Hunter Biden. That Boosie sought to access what he saw as an opportunity to participate in a power structure that seems to reward loyalty and cash over morals and justice shouldn’t be a surprise, even though it is wrong.

Charles F. Coleman Jr. is a civil rights attorney and a former Brooklyn, New York, prosecutor. He is an MSNBC legal analyst. Follow him on Twitter @CFColemanJr.

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