A lobbying firm staffed by Donald Trump's former campaign operatives just disclosed $500,000 in income for a single filing period, earned by helping clients figure out how to get presidential pardons. The White House says Trump finds this "detestable." The White House also keeps pardoning people who hired firms like this one.
The Business of Getting Off the Hook
Here's what Mo Strategies actually does. According to CBS News, the Indianapolis-based lobbying firm, founded by Trump campaign veterans, signed on to represent Blessinger Legal, a Northern Virginia immigration law firm, for what federal lobbying disclosures describe as "immigration and pardon-related discussions." For that service, Mo Strategies collected $500,000 in a single filing period. More money is expected.
Marty Obst, the firm's president and a senior strategist on Trump's 2016 and 2020 campaigns, told CBS News he reviews his clients' cases to determine "what types of cases would appeal to this White House." He also helpfully clarified that there is both "a legal process and a political process for pardons and clemency." Which, sure. Great. Fantastic. Thank you for explaining how the sausage gets made while you're actively making the sausage.
The other registered lobbyist on the Blessinger account is Robert Goad, who served as a special assistant to President Trump on domestic policy during the first term. So we have two former Trump insiders, charging half a million dollars, to go talk to their old colleagues about who deserves clemency. If this sounds like the kind of arrangement that would make a good villain's origin story, that's because it is.
A Cottage Industry with a Very Specific Product
Mo Strategies is not alone in this market. CBS News found over two dozen lobbying registrations related to pardons and clemency during Trump's second term alone. A whole ecosystem of well-connected lawyers, lobbyists, and political operatives has emerged to sell access to the presidential clemency process. Business, as Obst told CBS News directly, is booming.
The $500,000 Mo Strategies pulled in for Blessinger Legal is one of the largest pardon-related disclosures in the Senate's lobbying database, according to CBS News analysis. The all-time leader? A cool $960,000, disclosed by political operatives Jack Burkman and Jacob Wohl on behalf of Joseph Schwartz, a nursing home operator who pleaded guilty to charges in a nearly $39 million payroll tax fraud scheme. Schwartz had served three months of a three-year sentence before Trump pardoned him.
Three months. Of a three-year sentence. For a $39 million fraud. After someone spent $960,000 lobbying for his release. Totally normal. Nothing to see here.
The White House Response, Which Is Something Else
Asked about all this, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told CBS News that Trump "finds it detestable that anyone would even attempt to profit off pardons" and that the administration maintains a "rigorous review process" before any application reaches his desk.
This is the same administration that pardoned a man whose lobbyists spent nearly a million dollars on his behalf after he completed one quarter of his fraud sentence. The rigorous process, presumably, involves reviewing how much was spent on lobbying and working backward from there. In fairness, nobody has proven that. But the pattern is hard to stare at without blinking.
The Justice Department, for its part, told CBS News its pardon office has received a "record number of applications" and will review them to make recommendations that are "consistent, unbiased, and uphold the rule of law." The spokesperson added, "There has been no departure from this longstanding process." That statement was released into a world where Trump insiders are publicly charging $500,000 a pop to guide clients through that same process, so make of it what you will.
The Political Math Is Not Subtle
CBS News is reporting that Senate and House Democrats are already investigating the Schwartz pardon and several others as part of a broader look at alleged pay-to-play clemency dynamics. If Democrats flip either chamber in the 2026 midterms, expect this to become a full-blown oversight priority.
Obst seems aware of the exposure. He told CBS News, "I'm preparing for potential oversight from Congress, and so any decisions we make to engage, we are going to make sure it passes muster." That's a very lawyerly way of saying he knows this looks bad and is trying to stay on the right side of whatever line currently exists between legal corruption and illegal corruption.
The distinction between those two things, in Washington in 2026, is sometimes just a matter of paperwork.
Who Is Actually Getting Helped Here
Blessinger Legal, the firm Mo Strategies is working for, was founded by immigration attorney Eileen Blessinger, who handles removal proceedings, employment-based visas, and similar cases. CBS News reports that some of her clients are green-card holders convicted of crimes, which puts them directly in the crosshairs of the Trump administration's immigration enforcement push.
Obst told CBS News he has reviewed dozens of Blessinger's cases to identify which ones might be viable for a pardon. He also took a swipe at the Biden administration while doing it, telling CBS News, without citing any specifics, that "the Biden administration really expanded government reach, sometimes unfairly" and that some prosecutions "seemed highly political."
No details. No names. No evidence. Just a vague indictment of the previous administration offered to justify why Trump's former campaign manager is now in the pardon-access business. It's a tight little rhetorical package.
The Dingo Take
What we are watching, in broad daylight, with full federal disclosure paperwork attached, is the monetization of mercy. The presidential pardon power exists in the Constitution as an act of executive grace. It is now, functionally, a product with a price tag, and the salespeople are the president's former campaign staffers. The administration calling this "detestable" while continuing to issue pardons to people whose lobbyists spent six figures to secure them is not a contradiction they appear to find uncomfortable.
Obst's most revealing quote to CBS News might be the most casual one: "There's a legal process and a political process for pardons and clemency." He said it like it was obvious. And it is obvious. That's the problem. The political process, as described, is: hire someone who used to work for Trump, pay them a lot of money, and hope your case "appeals to this White House." The legal process is apparently decorative.
Congress may eventually investigate. Democrats may eventually win a majority somewhere and subpoena someone. But by then, the market will have matured, the money will have moved, and the pardons will have been granted. Obst told CBS News he is the president of one of the fastest-growing firms in D.C. Of course he is. When the government starts selling things it was never supposed to sell, someone always figures out the retail operation first.
