‘I Hear They’re Terrific People’: Donald Trump Pardons White Reality Stars Who Allegedly Took $30M in Fraudulent Loans—Tells Them, ‘You Guys Don’t Look Like Terrorists’
President Donald Trump has pardoned reality TV stars Todd and Julie Chrisley nearly three years after they were convicted of state and federal tax evasion and bank fraud charges and sentenced to a combined 18 years in prison.
The Chrisleys’ daughter, Savannah, spoke about the news during an appearance on NewsNation’s “On Balance with Leland Vittert,” after Trump called her to notify her about the pardon.
“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 Vittert. “But he just said that their sentences were outrageous and they were treated unfairly from everyone that he has spoken to.”
Todd and Julie Chrisley’s rise to stardom started in 2014 with the airing of their reality TV series “Chrisley Knows Best,” in which they branded themselves as self-made real estate moguls. Much of the series was filmed from their 30,000-square-foot mansion outside Atlanta.
However, federal prosecutors dubbed them “career swindlers who have made a living by jumping from one fraud scheme to another,” and added that their lavish lifestyle was “based on the lie that their wealth came from dedication and hard work.”
According to the Justice Department, the television personalities conspired to defraud community banks in the Atlanta area by submitting false bank statements, audit reports, and personal financial statements to secure more than $36 million in personal loans.
The couple then used the money to pay for luxury cars, designer clothes, real estate, and travel – and used new fraudulent loans to pay back old ones. After spending all the money, Todd Chrisley filed for bankruptcy and walked away from more than $20 million of these fraudulently obtained loans.
The Chrisleys were initially indicted in 2019 and were subsequently convicted in 2022. Todd Chrisley was sentenced to 12 years in federal prison, and Julie Chrisley was sentenced to seven years.
They’ve been appealing their convictions ever since, and their daughter Savannah has also advocated for their release. She spoke at the RNC in 2024, where she said her parents were “persecuted by rogue prosecutors” because of their conservative beliefs and faced a “two-faced justice system.”
“If I [believed] that my parents were guilty of what they did, then yes, they should have gone to prison,” Chrisley told Vittert about her parents’ pardons. “I do not believe that even if they were guilty, the time they got was … mean, it was absolutely insane.”
She continued: “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 Chrisleys formally requested pardons from Trump in February, which he granted just after Memorial Day weekend. His special assistant, Margo Martin, posted a video clip on X showing Trump on the phone with Savannah and her brother, Chase, to inform them of the news.
“Your parents are going to be free and clean, and I hope we can do it by tomorrow. I don’t know them, but give them my regards,” Trump said in the phone call. “They were given a pretty harsh treatment based on what I’m hearing … I hear they’re terrific people. This should not have happened.”
This is just one of the latest controversial presidential clemencies in the last year. Soon after Trump took office for a second term, he pardoned roughly 1,500 criminal defendants who faced charges for the violent Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
Trump also recently announced he would be pardoning Scott Jenkins, a former sheriff of Culpeper County, Virginia, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison last year for accepting over $75,000 in exchange for appointing local businessmen as auxiliary deputy sheriffs.
Last year, former President Joe Biden also raised eyebrows for pardoning his son, Hunter Biden, on federal gun and tax charges before he left office, something he previously pledged he would not do. He also issued preemptive pardons to other members of his family.