Federal lobbyists disclosed receiving more than $2.1 million last year from criminals and other legally imperiled people looking to secure a pardon or clemency from President Donald Trump — and that’s likely an undercount.
At least $815,000 of that total was spent during the fourth quarter of 2025, according to new disclosures filed under the Lobbying Disclosure Act. And some of that money went to lobbyists whom Trump previously pardoned of their own crimes.
At least one lobbyist-assisted person was successful in securing a Trump pardon: Joseph Schwartz, a former nursing home executive who was sentenced in April 2025 to three years in prison for his role in a $38 million tax-fraud scheme.
Trump pardoned Schwartz, who paid lobbyists nearly $1.1 million in 2025 to lobby for clemency, in November.
The day before Trump signed Schwartz’s pardon on Nov. 14, Merkava Strategies Corporation’s Josh Nass registered to lobby for Schwartz. Nass reported receiving $100,000 during the fourth quarter for work on “advocacy concerning executive clemency and post-conviction relief, including federal presidential pardon advocacy and subsequent efforts to obtain expedited parole and state-level relief in Arkansas.”
After NOTUS contacted Nass for comment, Juda Engelmayer, president and CEO of public relations firm HeraldPR and a spokesperson for the Schwartz family, sent an email, copying Nass.
“We’re not in a position to discuss the details of any client work, processes, or timing related to clemency or post-conviction matters, or any privileged legal matter between our client and counsel team,” Engelmayer wrote.
“As a general matter, we don’t comment on the specifics of advocacy efforts, and in this instance the circumstances don’t meet the threshold for public discussion,” Engelmayer added. “Any disclosures related to lobbying or advocacy were made in accordance with applicable requirements at the time and speak for themselves.”
Schwartz had previously hired JM Burkman & Associates and paid the firm $960,000 to pursue a federal pardon during the second quarter. (The firm disclosed receiving less than $5,000 from Schwartz during the third and fourth quarters.)
The lobbyists on the account, Jack Burkman and Jacob Wohl, themselves pleaded guilty in 2022 to telecommunications fraud for a robocall scheme designed to deter minority voters from voting. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel called the scheme “an egregious example of voter suppression.”
Wohl and Burkman, who once tricked a Washington Post reporter into writing a false story about an FBI raid on Burkman’s home, have attracted several clients looking to secure a presidential pardon.
The rapper Boosie Badazz, whose real name is Torence Hatch, hired the duo in October to lobby for a presidential pardon for a federal gun charge. The firm this week reported receiving $600,000 from Hatch during the fourth quarter.
Hatch has not received a presidential pardon. Earlier this month, he was sentenced to 10 days in prison followed by three years of supervised release and ordered to pay a $50,000 fine.
Hatch’s lawyer, Meghan Blanco, did not respond to requests for comment from NOTUS.
JM Burkman & Associates, the firm Burkman and Wohl lead, also reported receiving $10,000 during the fourth quarter from Tim McPhee, who pleaded guilty in August 2025 to charges related to an investment scheme. McPhee has paid the firm a total of $170,000 since the end of 2024 to lobby on “DOJ issues.”
Joby Weeks, who pleaded guilty in 2020 for charges related to a $722 million cryptocurrency mining scheme, paid the firm $10,000 during the fourth quarter to lobby on “DOJ issues.” He’s paid the firm $140,000 since hiring them in March 2025.
Burkman did not respond to requests for comment.
The presidential pardon lobby phenomenon has grown lucrative during Trump’s second term.
Some also argue it is about fighting injustice, like in the case of Anne Pramaggiore, the former CEO of the utility company Commonwealth Edison who was convicted for her role in a bribery scheme involving then-Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan.
While a federal judge vacated her bribery convictions, Pramaggiore was sentenced in 2025 to two years in prison and fined $750,000 for convictions under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Pramaggiore reported to prison on Jan. 12 and has appealed the decision.
Days before her conviction in July 2025, Pramaggiore hired lobbying firm Crossroads Strategies to lobby for a pardon. She has since paid the firm $170,000, including $90,000 during the fourth quarter.
In November, Pramaggiore hired former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich — Trump in February pardoned Blagojevich’s political corruption convictions — to join her pardon lobbying effort. As of Friday afternoon, Blagojevich has not filed a fourth-quarter lobbying disclosure, which was due Tuesday, and did not respond to emails from NOTUS.
“This is intended, as all the efforts are, to ensure that this injustice is reversed. She is an innocent woman who has no business being in jail, and she is in jail as a result of prosecutorial overreach,” Mark Herr, Pramaggiore’s spokesperson, told NOTUS.
When U.S. District Judge Manish Shah sentenced Pramaggiore this summer, he said she “had the power to stop this.”
“You could have said, ‘No, this is not how legislation should be done.’ You had the power to change the culture at ComEd,” Shah said, according to a report from Chicago’s PBS station WWTW. “When it came to Mr. Madigan and Mr. McClain, you didn’t think to change the culture of corruption. Instead, you were all in.”
Other pardon seekers who hired lobbyists last year include a convicted armed robber known as the “Hoodie Bandit,” the son of a Watergate co-conspirator convicted of possessing child sexual abuse material and “Bitcoin Jesus” Roger Ver, who secured a deferred prosecution agreement in October to pay $50 million in back taxes to resolve federal tax charges.
Ver admitted in October to improperly reporting his Bitcoin holdings when he gave up his U.S. citizenship in 2014. Ver hired Trump insider Roger Stone — who himself received a presidential pardon in 2020 after he was convicted of obstructing justice, witness tampering and lying to Congress in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation during Trump’s first term — and paid him $600,000 to lobby to end the exit tax provision he was accused of violating.
An individual who works on pardons told ProPublica that Ver’s willingness to give up his citizenship may have been an issue for the White House. Elon Musk, who was enmeshed in the White House and days away from launching DOGE’s fatal assault on the U.S. Agency for International Aid, raised the concern himself on X: “Roger Ver gave up his US citizenship. No pardon for Ver. Membership has its privileges.”
The $600,000 Ver paid Stone is not included in the $2.1 million figure, which only includes disclosures that specifically mention lobbying for a “pardon” or “clemency.”
Some lobbyists use vague language such as"DOJ issues” when reporting their activity on behalf of clients — like working on “EPA/DOJ Enforcement Policy” on behalf of a father and son duo who allegedly smuggled devices that bypass emission controls, a violation of the Clean Air Act that the Justice Department this week reportedly told federal prosecutors to stop pursuing and drop all pending cases.
A White House official told NOTUS earlier this week that Trump is “the final decision maker on any pardons.”
“Anyone spending money to lobby for pardons is wasting their money,” the White House official added.
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