May 27 (UPI) — President Donald Trump is set to pardon Todd and Julie Chrisley, former television stars serving lengthy prison terms after being found guilty of conspiring to defraud banks and committing tax evasion.
The couple gained fame in the United States through their Chrisley Knows Best reality show in which they flaunted their wealth. They were found guilty in 2022 of manipulating financial records to make it appear as if they were wealthier than they really were, when applying for more than $30 million in loans from 2007 to 2012.
They received a combined 19-year prison sentence, with Todd Chrisley to serve 12 years in prison and Julie Chrisley sentenced to serve seven. Both sentences came with three years’ supervised release.
Trump, a former reality star, is expected to grant the couple the latest presidential pardons of his second administration.
In a video excerpt published on X by a White House aide of a phone call Tuesday between Trump and the jailed couple’s adult children, the president is heard stating, “your parents are going to be free and clean, and I hope we can do that by tomorrow.”
“I don’t know them, but give them my regards and wish them a good life.”
“Mr. President, I just want to say thank you for bringing my parents back,” Grayson Chrisley is heard responding.
“Yeah, well, they were given a pretty harsh treatment from what I’m hearing,” Trump replied.
Margo Martin, the White House aide who published the clip online, said in the caption that Trump will be granting them “full pardons.”
“Trump Knows Best!” she added.
The Conservative Political Action Conference said in a statement that it “appreciates” Trump’s pardoning of Todd and Julie Chrisley, the parents of its Nolan Center for Justice senior fellow, Savannah Chrisley, who was on the phone call Tuesday with Trump.
“The Chrisleys were targeted by weaponized prosecutors who abused the power granted to them by our criminal justice system,” CPAC said in a statement.
“Thank you to President Trump for restoring order and integrity to the justice system.”
According to prosecutors, the Chrisleys, who were found guilty in June 2022, spent money they defrauded from banks to purchase luxury cars, real estate and travel and then used new fraudulent loans to pay off the old loans.
Todd Chrisley filed for bankruptcy and walked away from $20 million in debt. On top of the conspiracy to defraud banks, they were found guilty of conspiring to defraud the Internal Revenue Service. Julie Chrisley was also found guilty of wire fraud and obstruction of justice.
Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has used his executive powers to punish political adversaries with executive orders and to seemingly reward convicted friends, supporters and donors with presidential pardons.
On Monday, Trump pardoned disgraced former Virginia sheriff Scott Jenkins who was sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment after a federal court found he accepted tens of thousands of dollars in bribes to appoint local businessmen as auxiliary deputy sheriffs. The president described Jenkins as being a victim of a “corrupt and weaponized Biden” Department of Justice.
Last month, Trump pardoned Paul Walczak, a former nursing home executive who was sentenced to 18 months in jail for tax crimes and whose mother had raised millions for the New York real estate mogul’s campaigns.
In March, he also pardoned Devon Archer, a former business associate of Hunter Biden who was sentenced to a year and a day in prison in 2022 for a scheme to defraud a Native American community. However, he testified against the Biden family during the Republicans’ failed investigation to try and impeach former President Joe Biden.