Who are Todd and Julie Chrisley? What to know about the reality TV couple Trump just pardoned.
President Trump on Wednesday issued pardons for reality TV stars Julie and Todd Chrisley, three years after the couple was convicted of bank fraud and tax evasion.
Hours later, Todd, 56, was released from a minimum-security prison camp in Florida, while Julie, 52, was able to leave the facility where she was being held in Kentucky.
The couple's eldest daughter, Savannah Chrisley, 27, who has been advocating for her parents to be pardoned for the last two-and-a-half years, told reporters Wednesday: 'We just want to get home. We want to be reunited.'
Trump had announced his intention to pardon the couple on Tuesday, telling media outlets that they had been 'given a pretty harsh treatment based on what I'm hearing.' That same day, the Chrisleys' attorney, Alex Little, told Anderson Cooper that the pardon 'corrects a deep injustice,' arguing that the couple had been 'targeted because of their conservative values and high profile.'
Here's what we know about the Chrisleys and the crimes for which they were just pardoned.
The couple is best known for starring on the reality TV series Chrisley Knows Best, which ran on the USA Network from 2014 to 2023.
According to the synopsis on IMDb, the show 'follows Atlanta-based self-made multimillionaire Todd Chrisley, his devoted wife Julie and their five children, who live a seemingly picture-perfect Southern life with everything money can buy.' The show was initially filmed in Atlanta and later in Nashville.
In 2019, the show inspired the spinoff Growing Up Chrisley, which ran on E! and starred the couple's eldest children, Chase and Savannah, living in Los Angeles. Todd also hosted a short-lived E! dating series called Love Limo, which premiered around the time of the couple's trial in May 2022.
The couple was first indicted by a federal grand jury in Atlanta in 2019 for tax evasion, conspiracy and 12 counts of bank and wire fraud. The evasion charge was later dropped, but prosecutors accused the Chrisleys and their former accountant, Peter Tarantino, of submitting fake bank and financial statements to get loans from as early as 2007 until at least 2012.
Prosecutors in the case said the couple had been committing offenses for years before they became famous, and that their show boosted evidence of their fraud and hiding of earnings from tax authorities, the Associated Press reported in 2022. Prosecutors claimed Tarantino helped the Chrisleys hide their income and told the IRS that the couple could not afford to pay a tax debt from 2009 despite the show's success.
The Chrisleys and Tarantino were found guilty on all counts in June 2022 and began their sentences in January 2023. The couple was sentenced to a combined 19 years; Todd served at the Federal Prison Camp in Pensacola, Fla., and was expected to be released in September 2032, while Julie was sent to the Federal Medical Center in Lexington, Ky., until January 2028.
Both Todd and Julie filed requests to appeal their cases in April 2024; Todd's request was denied in July 2024, and while Julie's appeal was granted due to insufficient evidence, the judge overseeing the case still upheld the original sentencing in December 2024.
Tarantino, 62, was sentenced to three years in prison and spent 18 months in custody before being released in November 2024.
He did not receive a pardon from Trump and, in response, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: 'I think that the prosecution was overly aggressive in charging me. When there are high-profile people involved, there's a certain motivation by the prosecution to make as big a splash as possible.'
The couple's attorney, Alex Little, said in an interview with NBC News that he did not know why the president chose to pardon his clients, but that he had supplied Trump's pardon czar, Alice Johnson, with a binder of court documents and testimonials.
In an interview with Fox News on Thursday, Johnson said she found the couple had been 'overly sentenced.'
'They both received a combined sentence of 19 years for a first-time nonviolent offense,' Johnson said. 'They don't pose a risk to society.'
NBC also reported that Little said the Chrisleys did not attempt to seek pardons from former President Joe Biden. Instead, their daughter, Savannah, who endorsed Trump's candidacy in a speech at the Republican National Convention last July, started advocating for a presidential pardon when she met with some members of the Trump family before his inauguration.
'President Trump feels very focused on the issue of criminal justice because he has been a focus of investigations that were directed at him," Little said. "And he's treated it differently because of that.'
White House communications adviser Margo Martin posted a video on X Monday showing Trump on the phone with Savannah. In it, he's heard saying, 'I don't know them, but send them my regards.'
'They were given a pretty harsh treatment based on what I'm hearing,' Trump continued. 'I hear they're terrific people. This should not have happened.'
The Chrisleys were indicted under the authority of the then U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia Byung J. Pak, who was appointed by Trump in 2017.
Following her father's release on Wednesday, Savannah told reporters outside of the federal prison in Pensacola, Fla., that the family has a new show that will be premiering later this year on Lifetime.
'It will document all of these things,' Savannah said. 'We're excited. We literally could not have done it. It's all God and President Trump at this point.'
Deadline reported last week that Lifetime had ordered the still-untitled series after Todd and Julie were sentenced in 2022. The show is set to premiere sometime later this year and will follow the Chrisley children in the aftermath of their parents' prison sentences.
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