60 Minutes Investigates: Pardon Brokers Cash In on Access to Trump

WASHINGTON (VINnews) — A CBS News investigation for “60 Minutes” has uncovered a growing business of pardon brokers who claim they can help clients gain access to President Donald Trump’s clemency process — with fees reaching as high as $3 million.

The investigation took CBS News inside a world where political connections, influential intermediaries and access to people close to the president can come with a staggering price.

In one undercover operation, CBS News worked with Ammon Covino, a convicted felon whose request for a presidential pardon had already been rejected.

Covino agreed to approach two self-described pardon brokers, Jack Burkman and Jacob Wohl, while wearing hidden cameras.

At a meeting at the Ritz-Carlton in Tysons Corner, Virginia, Burkman told Covino that dealing with the Trump White House required pressure from multiple directions.

The brokers offered to pursue a pardon for $300,000, saying they believed they could secure it as early as October.

They did not know their potential client was working with CBS News.

But the investigation also uncovered a case in which the brokers’ claims were followed by an actual presidential pardon.

Joseph Schwartz, a nursing home operator, pleaded guilty to failing to pay more than $38 million in employment taxes withheld from his workers and to failing to file a required retirement-plan report. He also pleaded guilty in Arkansas to attempting to evade taxes and Medicaid fraud.

Schwartz received a pardon from Trump in November 2025, only three months into a three-year prison sentence.

Just months before the pardon, JM Burkman and Associates disclosed $960,000 in lobbying income from Schwartz, according to federal lobbying records.

Burkman and Wohl told CBS News the payment was justified because they believed Schwartz had been wrongly prosecuted and was suffering from poor health.

“We saved his life,” Burkman said.

A White House official defended the pardon, calling Schwartz’s case an example of overprosecution and saying his sentence was particularly harmful to a 65-year-old man in deteriorating health.

The Schwartz case is central to the larger question examined by the “60 Minutes” investigation: Does money and access give wealthy defendants a better chance of reaching the president’s clemency power?

For decades, people seeking presidential clemency generally went through the Justice Department, where applications were reviewed by career officials who considered factors including remorse and rehabilitation.

That system has increasingly been bypassed under Trump.

A CBS News analysis of Justice Department data found that about 70% of Trump’s clemency actions during his second term did not go through the department. Including Jan. 6 cases, the figure rises to 92%.

Sources told CBS News that pardon brokers now use political contacts, White House relationships and influential supporters to bring clients’ cases to the president’s attention.

The brokers can charge hundreds of thousands — and in some cases millions — of dollars for their services.

Burkman described his strategy to Covino as putting Trump in a “pincer movement,” using multiple people and channels to repeatedly bring a client’s case before him.

The White House has rejected the suggestion that presidential pardons are being sold and has said people who pay brokers are foolish to do so.

Burkman and Wohl also deny operating a pay-to-play scheme. They say they are lobbyists who help clients navigate Washington and advocate for clemency.

But the undercover footage, lobbying records and cases uncovered by CBS News raise a fundamental question about the modern pardon system:

If access to the president can be bought for hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars, what happens to people who cannot afford it?

That question — and the growing business built around answering it — is at the center of the “60 Minutes” investigation.