'Pardon Brokers' Pitch $300K Route to Trump Clemency as Hidden Camera Captures White House Access Push

Two self-styled pardon brokers were filmed offering a convicted felon a £221,000 ($300,000) campaign to press his clemency case with Donald Trump, telling him the aim was to put the pen in the president's hand.

The footage was obtained by CBS News for a 60 Minutes investigation broadcast on Sunday, 13 September 2026, in which Ammon Covino and his wife Crystal wore hidden cameras to a meeting with Jack Burkman and Jacob Wohl.

Correspondent Lesley Stahl reported on what CBS called a cottage industry in which brokers charge fees reaching £2.2 million ($3 million) to help clients reach a president who alone decides who is pardoned. The brokers maintain that their work is lawful, while the White House rejects any suggestion that presidential clemency can be bought.

The Meeting at the Ritz-Carlton

Covino agreed to participate in the programme's investigation after his own pardon request was rejected. The Justice Department's published list confirms that his application was denied by Trump on 10 July 2026.

He and his wife met Burkman and Wohl in mid-August at the bar inside the Ritz-Carlton in Tysons Corner, Virginia, wearing hidden cameras supplied by CBS, and were quoted a fee of £221,000 ($300,000). Burkman and Wohl told Covino they could secure him a pardon by as early as October.

The brokers described what the money would cover. It would go towards expenses including tickets to fundraisers costing £7,375 ($10,000) apiece, hiring contractors and reaching MAGA influencers who could open doors to people capable of making a difference.

Burkman put the strategy in his own words on camera. 'With this particular White House, you have to put pressure on the president from all directions in a consistent way, to force his hand,' he told the couple, adding that the goal was to get Trump to sign because he was tired of hearing about it.

CBS News said several pardon brokers it approached either declined or did not respond to requests for interviews. Burkman and Wohl later agreed to an interview after learning that their meeting with Covino had been captured on camera.

The Rapper Who Says He Paid $600,000

One client went on camera to describe what he spent. The rapper Torence Hatch, who performs as Boosie Badazz and was convicted federally of being a felon in possession of a firearm, said he paid Burkman and Wohl £442,000 ($600,000) and believed the money would help secure a pardon.

He showed the programme a text message he said came from the pair. It named figures they claimed to be recruiting inside Trump's orbit, including Erika Kirk, whose name was misspelled, activist Laura Loomer, House Speaker Mike Johnson and White House aide Natalie Harp.

The people named in connection with the effort denied involvement. Wohl denied sending the message, and Burkman and Wohl said they had not heard of Harp at the relevant time.

Hatch has not received a pardon and is now pursuing the money. He has filed what appears to be the first known arbitration claim of its kind against pardon lobbyists during Trump's second term, seeking £221,000 ($300,000), half of what he paid.

Hatch says a refund was required if no pardon followed, and NOTUS reported reviewing a signed contract containing that provision. Burkman disputes that a final enforceable agreement was ever signed.

The Case That Documents Both a Fee and a Pardon

The clearest documented example involving both a large lobbying fee and a subsequent pardon concerns a nursing home operator.

Joseph Schwartz, who pleaded guilty to failing to pay more than £28 million ($38 million) in employment taxes, received a pardon in November 2025, months after JM Burkman and Associates disclosed £708,000 ($960,000) in lobbying income from his case in federal filings. The reporting does not establish that the fee produced the pardon.

The brokers defended the arrangement. Burkman and Wohl told CBS News the payment was justified because they believed Schwartz had been wrongly prosecuted and was in poor health, while a White House official described the case as an example of overprosecution and said the sentence was particularly harmful to a man of 65 in declining health.

Families affected by his businesses saw it differently. Melissa Coulson, whose mother died after alleged neglect at a facility Schwartz ran, told the programme the system had become a question of how much a person can pay.

What the White House and Its Former Pardon Attorney Say

The administration denies that access is for sale. White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis said clemency goes through a robust review process involving White House counsel, the Justice Department and pardon czar Alice Marie Johnson, with Trump as the final decider.

The department's recently departed pardon attorney was equally firm. Ed Martin, who left the administration earlier in September, described the presidential pardon power as a broad constitutional prerogative and said he had never seen or heard evidence of brokers or quid pro quo arrangements.

Stahl put it to him that the brokers appear to be going around his office and boasting about it. Martin rejected the suggestion of a transactional pardon economy.

Critics of the segment argue it proves less than it claims. Conservative commentators have noted that Wohl and Burkman are long-established political operatives whose claimed connections in the Hatch case were denied by people they said they had recruited, which they argue shows the pair cannot deliver what they sell rather than that pardons are purchasable.

Brett Tolman, who works in the same field, told the programme he expects to handle 40 to 50 clemency cases during this term with a success rate above two-thirds.

Paying a lobbyist to argue for clemency is not the same as proving that money buys a pardon, and in the cases CBS examined, the brokers' ability to deliver the access they sold remains disputed.