Latest news with #oftheSouth
UPI
29-05-2025
- Politics
- UPI
Trump pardons ex-reality TV stars Todd and Julie Chrisley
May 27 (UPI) -- Reality star Todd Chrisley is out of prison and his wife, Julie, was to be released Wednesday night after President Donald Trump pardoned the couple who were found guilty of conspiring to defraud banks and committing tax evasion They have been prisoners at a minimum-security prison in Pensacola since January 2023 after their conviction in federal court in Atlanta in November 2022. On Tuesday, Trump personally told two of their adult children he was planning to pardon them. Their daughter, Savannah Chrisley, posted an image on Instagram Wednesday afternoon, appearing to show Trump signing and posing with the pardon. Savannah Chrisley appeared outside the federal prison. "This process has been absolutely insane," she tearfully told reporters. "I'm just so grateful that I'm going to leave here with my dad. "I've literally been here since 2 a.m. I didn't bring clothes or a toothbrush. I'm just a daughter who wants to take my dad home." Savannah Chrisley had sought pardons of her parents, and spoke at the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wis. "I will forever be grateful for President Trump, his administration and everyone along the way, all of my lawyers, the people who put in countless hours and effort and love for my family to make sure that my parents got home," the 27-year-old said in a video to her 2.9 million followers on Instagram on Tuesday. Their son, Chase Chrisley, also thanked the president for pardoning his parents. "Our rocks are back!!" he posted to his 1.3 million followers on Instagram. "Thank you to Mr. President @realdonaldtrump @potus for making a remarkable decision and bringing our family back together! We love, support and thank you Mr. President! God Bless you and your entire family! Continue to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!" Alex Little, an attorney for the Chrisleys, said last week that he did not know why Trump chose to pardon his clients this week. Todd Chrisley was sentenced to serve 12 years in prison and Julie Chrisley sentenced to seven. Both sentences came with three years' supervised release. The couple, known as the "Trumps of the South," gained fame 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. 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 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. They were also ordered to pay $17.8 million in restitution. 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 also was 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.
NBC News
28-05-2025
- Politics
- NBC News
Todd and Julie Chrisley's pardons came after intervention by their daughter
Disgraced reality TV stars Todd and Julie Chrisley were preparing for their release from prison Wednesday, a day after President Donald Trump personally told two of their adult children he was planning to pardon them. The "Trumps of the South," who were convicted in 2022 of fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy to defraud the United States, will be released after intervention by one of his daughters. Alex Little, an attorney for the Chrisleys, said in an interview that he did not know why Trump chose to pardon his clients this week. But as part of his pitch, Little said, he supplied Trump's "pardon czar," Alice Johnson, with a binder filled with court documents and testimonials. '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.' Trump is a convicted felon who was found guilty last year by a New York City jury of 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels. He was sentenced to a penalty-free unconditional discharge. Little said the Chrisleys did not attempt to win a pardon from President Joe Biden and that one of their daughters, Savannah Chrisley, pushed for a pardon when she met with members of the Trump family before Trump's inauguration. The Chrisleys, he said, were "prosecuted because they were celebrities." "They were treated more harshly because of their status," he said. "And that's not the way our criminal justice system is supposed to work.' Musa Ghanayem, a lawyer for the Chrisleys' daughter Lindsie Chrisley, told NBC News that Trump made the right call. 'When they make a pardon sometimes presidents get it right, sometimes they get it wrong,' Ghanayem said. 'This time I think he got it right.' The team involved in pardoning the pair, known for their roles on the TV show 'Chrisley Knows Best,' appears to have included some major players in Trump's orbit, including former federal prosecutor Brett Tolman, who helped win a pardon for Charles Kushner, the father of Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner. Savannah Chrisley dropped Tolman's name in a speech in July at the Republican National Convention, where she referred to him as "a lawyer of mine" and claimed her parents were prosecuted "due to our public profile and conservative beliefs." Savannah Chrisley recounted that a prosecutor referred to her family 'as the Trumps of the South.' 'He meant it as an insult, but let me tell you, boy, do I wear that as a badge of honor,' she said. In addition, Savannah Chrisley revealed on her podcast in April 2024 that she had teamed up with Tolman to possibly work on conservative criminal justice reform. Tolman, a former U.S. attorney for Utah, got into the business of lobbying the White House for pardons on behalf of well-heeled clients in the waning days of the first Trump presidency. The Chrisleys are the latest high-profile people to win pardons from Trump after having claimed to be victims of a weaponized Biden Justice Department. Trump pardoned former Sheriff Scott Jenkins of Culpeper County, Virginia, on Monday, before Jenkins' 10-year federal prison sentence for bribery and corruption was set to start. And Tuesday, Trump pardoned a convicted tax cheat named Paul Walczak, whose mother contributed millions of dollars to his presidential campaign. 'Paul Walczak is an entrepreneur targeted by the Biden administration over his family's conservative politics," White House principal deputy press secretary Harrison Fields said in defense of the pardon. On Wednesday, Trump floated the idea of pardoning the men convicted in a scheme to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Trump officially signed the pardons for the Chrisleys on Wednesday. He also signed a commutation for former Chicago gang leader Larry Hoover, as well as a pardon for former Rep. Michael Grimm, R-N.Y., who was convicted of tax fraud and related charges last year. Trump also just pardoned James and Marlene Kernan, a couple from Oriskany, New York, who pleaded guilty in 2009 to willfully employing a three-time convicted felon at their businesses. An assistant U.S. attorney told NBC News that the high-profile pardons were demoralizing. 'The general feeling is why are we working so hard to enforce the law when everything we do can be erased with the stroke of a pen?' the person said. 'Clearly, the White House is peddling influence and will pardon anyone who fits the 'weaponization' narrative or who has something to offer." Trump was president when the Chrisleys were first indicted in 2019 and William Barr was the attorney general. They were convicted along with their accountant of bilking banks out of more than $36 million. The Chrisleys portrayed themselves as hard-working, Jesus-loving real estate moguls on the hit USA Network show that ran for 10 seasons starting in 2014. But federal prosecutors said they were swindlers who began defrauding banks before they became reality TV stars and used the ill-gotten gains to support their lavish lifestyle in suburban Atlanta. Todd Chrisley was sentenced to 12 years in prison, and Julie Chrisley was sentenced to seven years. Their accountant, Peter Tarantino, was convicted on tax charges and served a three-year sentence. He was released in January. The Chrisleys formally requested a pardon in February, when Trump was back in the White House. 'They believe that the president will seriously consider pardoning both Julie and Todd Chrisley as a result of the unfair treatment they received in the criminal justice system,' Jay Surgent, an attorney for the Chrisleys, told NBC News at the time. Trump called their children Tuesday with the news. 'It's a terrible thing, but it's a great thing because your parents are going to be free and clean,' Trump said on the call. 'We'll try getting it done tomorrow, so give them — I don't know them — but give them my regards and wish them well. Wish them a good life.' Their son Grayson Chrisley replied, 'Mr. President, I just want to say thank you for bringing my parents back." Since the start of his second term in the White House, Trump has extended pardons and commutations to thousands of people, including roughly 1,500 criminal defendants who were involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. The Chrisleys were struggling financially when, 'out of the blue,' they got an opportunity to audition for a reality show that turned them into stars, their lawyer Bruce Morris said during the couple's federal fraud trial. Little did not rule out that the Chrisleys might return to reality TV. 'Right now, their focus is reuniting as a family and spending family time together," he said. "They are both people who have always been in the public eye, and I wouldn't be surprised if they continue to do that.'
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Savannah Chrisley on parents' pardon: Trump said ‘you guys don't look like terrorists'
Savannah Chrisley, the daughter of embattled reality stars Todd and Julie Chrisley, weighed in after President Trump pardoned her parents of their fraud and tax evasion charges. The younger Chrisley, in an appearance on NewsNation's 'On Balance,' said Trump spoke with her on the phone, saying 'you guys don't look like terrorists.' 'He did say he was like, you know, you guys don't look like terrorists. To me, was his exact words, which was pretty funny,' Chrisley told host Leland Vittert. 'But he just said that their senses were outrageous and they were treated unfairly from everyone that he has spoken to.' She added, 'He wanted to bring my parents home and not just grant them a commutation, but he wanted to give them a full pardon well, and that means that it like it never happened.' Todd and Julie Chrisley starred in the 'Chrisley Knows Best' reality series that lasted from 2014 until 2023. The duo was convicted of bank fraud and tax evasion charges in 2022. The father was sentenced to 12 years in prison, and the mother was sentenced to seven years in prison. Both were also given 16 months of probation. 'Your parents are going to be free and clean, and I hope we can do it by tomorrow,' Trump said in video of the call on Tuesday, adding 'I don't know them, but give them my regards.' Savannah Chrisley said that she has 'fought' for 2 1/2 years for her parents' release and that she believes in 'law and order.' 'If I [believed] that my parents were guilty of what they did, then yes, they should have gone to prison,' she said, adding, 'I do not believe that even if they were guilty, the time they got was … mean, it was absolutely insane.' 'But I brought up in our case, the huge Fourth Amendment violations, the illegal seizures, the fact that they had my father's face on a dart board, the IRS agent lying on the stand and referring to us as the Trumps of the South, and also accusing my family of terrorism just so they could run a financial report,' she told Vittert. The Chrisley's daughter also addressed Republican National Convention (RNC) attendees last July, arguing that her parents were victims of a 'two-faced justice system.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
7NEWS
28-05-2025
- Entertainment
- 7NEWS
Donald Trump pardons controversial reality stars Todd and Julie Chrisley after being convicted of defrauding banks of $46m
President Donald Trump has pardoned controversial reality stars Todd and Julie Chrisley, who were previously found guilty of defrauding banks of $30 million ($A46.5 million). The Chrisley family rose to fame on the hit show Chrisley Knows Best, which aired between 2014 and 2023. The pair were sentenced to lengthy prison terms in 2022, on a set of charges, including several tax crimes. Their daughter, Savannah, had been calling for their release, after becoming the sole guardian of her siblings Grayson, 19, and 12-year-old Chloe. Savannah claims her parents have been unable to speak to each other since their incarceration and have been suffering harsh treatment while in confinement. The Chrisley family has been dubbed the Trumps of the South. Julie had been serving her prison term at the federal Medical Center in Lexington, Kentucky until January 2028. Meanwhile, Todd was serving time at the FPC Pensacola until April 2032. In a clip posted to X, Trump personally called Savannah to let her know about the pardon. 'It's a terrible thing but it's a great thing, because your parents are going to be free and clean,' Trump said on the call, which was posted to social media by a White House aide. An overwhelmed Savannah replied: 'Thank you so much, Mr President!' Savannah then introduced her brother, Grayson, who was equally appreciative. 'Mr President, I just want to say thank you for bringing my parents back,' he said. Trump replied: 'Yeah, well they were given pretty harsh treatment, based on what I'm hearing.' A tearful Savannah later told US People magazine she was overjoyed at their release. 'Both my parents are coming home,' Savannah said. 'I could not be more grateful.' Chrisley said she was immediately going to get fresh, clean clothes ready. 'I'm just speechless,' she said. 'I just can't thank you guys enough for sticking with my family and loving us and supporting us ... It still doesn't feel real. It doesn't. I'm freaking out, so I'm going to go and prepare to pick up my parents. My parents get to start their lives over!' 'It's time to go get mom (sic) and dad.'
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Savannah Chrisley says family was ‘unfairly targeted' because of their celebrity status
It has been 2 ½ years since Julie and Todd Chrisley were convicted of fraud and sent to federal prison, with their daughter, Savannah, being their biggest fighter to try to get them released. When her parents went to prison, Savannah ended up becoming an instant parent to her younger siblings, Chloe and Grayson. Chrisley took to Fox News over the weekend, where she talked to Lara Trump about her fight to free her parents, how she says she's come under scrutiny because of it, and the parallels she said she sees with President Donald Trump. 'All of this feels to you like it was targeted, yes, and it was targeted because your family was successful, because your family was on television, and you became a bit of a mark in some ways,' Trump asked Chrisley. 'They were unfairly targeted due to their celebrity status,' Chrisley said about the investigation into her parents. Even though Todd and Julie were brought up on federal charges and were even convicted under Trump's first presidency, she says Democrats in the Fulton County District Attorney's Office are the reason her parents are now behind bars. 'Our case was in Fulton County, Georgia, and originally, they were not going to prosecute because they said it was very weak. They didn't have the evidence that they needed to prosecute, that it just it wasn't a case. It took nine years to issue a federal indictment. Both prosecutors were Democrats. They have donated to Democratic candidates and from at trial, we knew it was game over,' Chrisley said. 'They referred to us as the Trumps of the South at trial, the prosecutors did.' The young Chrisley has said before that the judge in the case against her mother resentenced Julie Chrisley to 84 months in prison out of retaliation for her being so outspoken about what she says is the injustice against her parents. She echoed those same sentiments in this weekend's interview. 'The judge in our case used it against me in the courtroom. The judge looked at me and said, and to the person who has these minor children your custody, you need to be more concerned with these children's wellbeing than you are spreading false information to the public,' Chrisley said. Chrisley has custody of her younger siblings, Chloe and Grayson. 'I wasn't expecting to get two kids. None of us expected the trial to go the way that it did. I can't imagine how hard it was for my parents to turn their kids over to someone else,' Chrisley said. Chrisley has used this experience to fight for prison reform. Last year, Savannah spoke at the Republican National Convention as well as the Conservative Political Action Committee's annual gathering. She has also been seen at Mar-a-Lago and the White House to make her case to President Donald Trump to pardon her parents. Savannah has used her weekly podcast to advocate against the conditions that she says her parents are living. Lara Trump asked Savannah how they were doing. 'They're okay. It's extremely sad to see how these individuals are treated. I mean, my mom, she's in a facility in Lexington. In Kentucky to where there is no air conditioning, regardless of what someone does, I think you should have basic bare necessities, and it's just heartbreaking to see that my mom is in conditions like that,' Chrisley said. 'I talk to them every day. It's short because they only get an allotted amount of minutes a month. So I do talk to them. They're always calling, checking in, making sure the kids are good. I'm good, but it's hard.' RELATED STORIES: Julie Chrisley wants her sentence vacated - again - and wants a new judge Todd Chrisley says prison guard ripped MAGA sticker from jail cell, hopes Trump will pardon him Savannah Chrisley says she's 'scared' where father Todd will end up once prison shuts down Could Todd and Julie Chrisley be pardoned by President-elect Trump? Todd Chrisley stopped from working as chaplain at federal prison for 'associating with inmates' Todd Chrisley 'concerned about Julie's health and welfare' after she was resentenced to 84-months The Chrisleys were initially indicted in August 2019. Prosecutors said the couple submitted fake documents to banks when applying for loans. Julie Chrisley sent a fake credit report and bank statements showing far more money than they had in their accounts to a California property owner in July 2014 while trying to rent a home. A few months after they began using the home, in October 2014, they refused to pay rent, causing the owner to have to threaten them with eviction. The money the Chrisleys received from their reality television show, 'Chrisley Knows Best,' went to a company they controlled called 7C's Productions, but they didn't declare it as income on federal tax returns, prosecutors said. The couple failed to file or pay their federal income taxes on time for multiple years. The family had moved to Tennessee by the time the indictment was filed, but the criminal charges stem from when they lived in Atlanta's northern suburbs. Channel 2 Action News first started investigating the Chrisleys in 2017, when we learned that Todd Chrisley had likely evaded paying Georgia state income taxes for several years. Court documents obtained by Channel 2 Action News showed that by 2018, the Chrisleys owed the state nearly $800,000 in liens. The couple eventually went to trial and a federal jury found them guilty of bank fraud and tax evasion. instant
