Six hundred thousand dollars, wired up front, for a pardon that never came. Sunday night Boosie said it to Lesley Stahl on national television, and the two men who took the money sat across from the same cameras and said they don't owe him a dime.
## What aired 60 Minutes ran a hidden-camera investigation Sunday, September 13, into what CBS calls the pardon economy: lobbyists and MAGA-adjacent operators charging fees as high as $3 million to get a clemency case in front of the president. Boosie, born Torence Hatch, is the named client at the center of it. He told the show he paid Jack Burkman and Jacob Wohl of JM Burkman & Associates $600,000 after being led to believe, in his words, "if you come with this money, you will get a pardon." He wanted the federal felon-in-possession conviction wiped, the one from the 2023 San Diego video shoot that ended in three years of supervised release, 300 hours of community service and a $50,000 fine.
CBS put the receipts on screen. Texts sent to Boosie's lawyer promised the brokers would line up Laura Loomer, House Speaker Mike Johnson, Erika Kirk and Trump aide Natalie Harp to "endorse" the pardon. Per CBS, all four camps denied any involvement, the White House said Harp has never interacted with the pair, and Burkman and Wohl now say they never sent one of the messages. Loomer told CBS she's said publicly that "Boosie was scammed."

## The other side of the table Burkman and Wohl aren't hiding. They told CBS they're "proud of the work," that the pardon push was legal lobbying, and, on the refund, that "the final agreement was never signed, so all you're left with legally speaking is oral contract." Per WAFB, the paperwork Boosie signed called for $300,000 non-refundable and $300,000 back if no pardon landed by the deadline. He filed an arbitration claim in July, which CBS says is the first known one against pardon brokers in this term. TMZ has Burkman's full line: "We tried very, very hard."
Then CBS showed the same two men, weeks later, at a Ritz-Carlton bar pitching a $300,000 package to a "client" wearing a wire. They called it putting the president "in a pincer movement." Their résumé, for the record: guilty pleas in Ohio in 2022 for a robocall scheme aimed at suppressing the Black vote.

## Boosie says they cut the real story By Monday morning Boosie was on X (@BOOSIEOFFICIAL) in all caps saying an hour-long interview got trimmed to a few clips. Per Complex, he says he'd already sat with White House pardon czar Alice Marie Johnson before any of this, that his gun case was dismissed and then refiled with an added charge, and that the piece skipped the part where he did ten years in state prison on a third marijuana offense and "never offered rehab." His line: "My story wasn't told fully." He's been calling the firm a "Ponzi scheme" since August.
## Why the culture should watch this one The pardon used to run through 25 DOJ lawyers reading for remorse. CBS's numbers say about 70 percent of this term's clemency skipped that office. What replaced it is access, and access is for sale, and the guys selling it to a Baton Rouge rapper were the same two convicted of trying to keep Black voters home. Meanwhile the White House told CBS anyone paying a lobbyist for a pardon is "foolishly wasting their money," which is either the truth or the cover, and either way Boosie is out $600K. Every rapper with a federal paper trail just watched the price sheet on 60 Minutes. The only one who got a refund guarantee didn't get the refund.
## Sources - CBS News / 60 Minutes, Sept. 13, 2026 — Pardon brokers offer to "put pressure on the president" at sky-high costs: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-pardon-lobbyists-60-minutes/ - 60 Minutes video, Sept. 13, 2026 — Brokers are offering felons a path to Trump pardons: https://www.cbsnews.com/video/pardon-brokers-60-minutes-video-2026-09-06/ - 60 Minutes on X, Sept. 14, 2026 — Boosie says he paid pardon brokers $600,000 upfront: https://x.com/60Minutes/status/2099291289875337592 - TMZ, Sept. 14, 2026 — Boosie Badazz details $600K Trump pardon deal on 60 Minutes: https://www.tmz.com/2026/09/14/boosie-badazz-talks-failed-trump-pardon-deal/ - WAFB, Sept. 14, 2026 — Boosie takes $600K pardon fight to 60 Minutes: https://www.wafb.com/2026/09/14/boosie-takes-600k-pardon-fight-60-minutes-after-failed-trump-clemency-push/ - Complex, Sept. 14, 2026 — Boosie says details were cut from pardon broker interview: https://www.complex.com/music/a/backwoodsaltar/boosie-badazz-60-minutes-interview-pardon-efforts - WAFB, July 13, 2026 — Boosie seeks $300,000 refund after pardon effort falls through: https://www.wafb.com/2026/07/13/boosie-seeks-300000-refund-after-pardon-effort-falls-through/

