{"id":262956,"date":"2026-09-14T17:10:54","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T17:10:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/09\/14\/boosie-badazz-rapper-says-he-spent-600k-for-trump-pardon-that-never-arrived\/"},"modified":"2026-09-14T17:10:54","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T17:10:54","slug":"boosie-badazz-rapper-says-he-spent-600k-for-trump-pardon-that-never-arrived","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/09\/14\/boosie-badazz-rapper-says-he-spent-600k-for-trump-pardon-that-never-arrived\/","title":{"rendered":"Boosie Badazz: Rapper Says He Spent $600K For Trump Pardon That Never Arrived"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p><span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Reading Time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 2<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The twilight years of once-great empires are usually marked by unprecedented corruption and an \u201ceverything is for sale\u201d vibe, so we shouldn\u2019t be surprised that that\u2019s the case in America these days.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehollywoodgossip.com\/2025\/12\/julie-chrisley-to-actually-star-in-cooking-show-after-prison-release\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Presidential pardons are flying off the shelf<\/a> like hotcakes these days, so when rapper Boosie Badazz found himself in trouble with the law, he figured he could get himself off the hook just by paying the right people.<\/p>\n<p>But it seems that the embattled emcee did not get the outcome he\u2019d been hoping for.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><noscript><\/noscript><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"682\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.thehollywoodgossip.com\/uploads\/2026\/09\/GettyImages-1501945120-1024x682.jpg\" alt=\"Boosie Badazz attends the BET Awards 2023 at Microsoft Theater on June 25, 2023 in Los Angeles, California. \" class=\"wp-image-562967 lazyload\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.thehollywoodgossip.com\/uploads\/2026\/09\/GettyImages-1501945120-1024x682.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/cdn.thehollywoodgossip.com\/uploads\/2026\/09\/GettyImages-1501945120-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/cdn.thehollywoodgossip.com\/uploads\/2026\/09\/GettyImages-1501945120-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.thehollywoodgossip.com\/uploads\/2026\/09\/GettyImages-1501945120-2048x1364.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/cdn.thehollywoodgossip.com\/uploads\/2026\/09\/GettyImages-1501945120-960x639.jpg 960w, https:\/\/cdn.thehollywoodgossip.com\/uploads\/2026\/09\/GettyImages-1501945120-1080x719.jpg 1080w, https:\/\/cdn.thehollywoodgossip.com\/uploads\/2026\/09\/GettyImages-1501945120-1200x799.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 760px) calc(100vw - 20px), 720px\" data-pin-media=\"https:\/\/cdn.thehollywoodgossip.com\/uploads\/2026\/09\/GettyImages-1501945120-scaled.jpg\" loading=\"lazy\" data-trellis-processed=\"1\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Boosie Badazz attends the BET Awards 2023 at Microsoft Theater on June 25, 2023 in Los Angeles, California. <span class=\"image-caption-credit\"> (Photo by Paras Griffin\/Getty Images for BET)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Boosie was arrested on gun charges in 2023. He says he later paid $600,000 to political operatives Jack Burkman and Jacob Wohl because they claimed they could help secure a presidential pardon from Donald Trump.<\/p>\n<p>Spoiler alert: That pardon never came.<\/p>\n<p>The rapper, whose real name is Torence Hatch, discussed the failed deal as part of a new <em>60 Minutes <\/em>investigation into so-called \u201cpardon brokers\u201d \u2014 political operators who allegedly charge enormous sums while claiming they can get clemency requests in front of the president.<\/p>\n<p>Boosie says he handed over the $600,000 upfront after Burkman and Wohl presented themselves as having serious connections inside Trump\u2019s orbit.<\/p>\n<p>At one point, things apparently got even more ridiculous.<\/p>\n<p>Boosie claims his attorney was contacted on New Year\u2019s Day and told that Trump had already signed off on the pardon, with the White House simply having not announced it yet.<\/p>\n<p>That announcement never came.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-x wp-block-embed-x\"\/>\n<p>Now Boosie is attempting to recover $300,000, arguing that his agreement with the pair called for half of his payment to be returned if the pardon was not delivered.<\/p>\n<p>Burkman, however, has a very different version of events.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe tried very, very hard,\u201d he said, while denying that the alleged refund provision was ever actually agreed upon. He also argued that Boosie\u2019s pardon effort became more difficult following the rapper\u2019s arrest in Texas earlier this year.<\/p>\n<p>The <em>60 Minutes<\/em> investigation reportedly found that Boosie was far from the only person approached by alleged pardon brokers. Burkman and Wohl were secretly recorded pitching another potential pardon seeker on a $300,000 effort involving events, influencers and members of Congress.<\/p>\n<p>Apparently, getting presidential attention doesn\u2019t come cheap.<\/p>\n<p>Some pardon brokers are reportedly charging as much as $3 million, while Burkman and Wohl deny doing anything improper. <em>60 Minutes<\/em> also reported that pardon brokers themselves aren\u2019t necessarily breaking the law simply by offering lobbying services.<\/p>\n<p>The White House, meanwhile, has reportedly warned that people spending money to lobby for clemency are wasting it.<\/p>\n<p>For Boosie, that warning comes about $600,000 too late. He wanted a Trump pardon.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, he\u2019s left fighting to get half a million dollars back.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, \u201cI paid $600,000 and never got the pardon\u201d sounds like the beginning of one hell of an interesting hip hop song, so maybe this will all work out for Boosie in the end.<\/p>\n<div class=\"thg-endcard\" hidden=\"\" aria-label=\"Get the Hollywood Gossip app\"><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"thg-endcard-icon\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thehollywoodgossip.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/thg-ios-app-icon.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"60\" height=\"60\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/noscript><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"thg-endcard-icon lazyload\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thehollywoodgossip.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/thg-ios-app-icon.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"60\" height=\"60\" loading=\"lazy\" id=\"mv-trellis-img-1\" data-trellis-processed=\"1\"\/><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"thg-endcard-title\">Get the app \u2014 celeb news first<\/span><span class=\"thg-endcard-sub\">Push alerts the second a story breaks \u00b7 4.8\u2605 \u00b7 Free<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a class=\"thg-endcard-get\" href=\"https:\/\/apps.apple.com\/app\/apple-store\/id372387225?pt=367523&amp;ct=web-endcard-cta&amp;mt=8\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Get the App<\/a><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehollywoodgossip.com\/2026\/09\/boosie-badazz-rapper-says-he-spent-600k-for-trump-pardon-that-never-arrived\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Reading Time: 2 minutes The twilight years of once-great empires are usually marked by unprecedented corruption and an \u201ceverything is for sale\u201d vibe, so we shouldn\u2019t be surprised that that\u2019s the case in America these days. Presidential pardons are flying off the shelf like hotcakes these days, so when rapper Boosie Badazz found himself in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":262957,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-262956","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hollywood"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=262956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262956\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/262957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}