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... Covino had already filled out and submitted a pardon application form by mail to the Biden Justice Department. But his request was rejected in July by Mr. Trump, one of thousands of pardon-seekers denied clemency as part of the administration's effort to clear its backlog of applicants. ...
Mr. Trump has employed a different approach to clemency over the last 18 months. On his first day in office, he cleared more than 1,500 people charged or convicted in relation to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot through pardons, commutations and dropped prosecutions. Dozens of clemency grants for white-collar criminals, often wealthy and well-connected, have followed.
Burkman and Wohl's pitch at the Ritz-Carlton meeting leaned into what they described as a new path to a pardon. "It's more energy and less process," Burkman said. "...And contacts."
But it would come with a price, they told Covino. For $300,000, they predicted, they could secure him a pardon by as early as October. ...
Yet there is near-unanimity among the federal prosecutors, defense attorneys and other sources who discussed the clemency process with CBS News: There has never been such a dizzying pardon economy as there is in Washington right now -- a Wild West of clemency populated by MAGA-connected brokers and influencers -- where the old norms have been largely tossed aside.
Previously, those seeking clemency typically went through the Justice Department. More than two dozen DOJ lawyers weighed factors that often included an applicant's remorse and evidence of rehabilitation, and recommended worthy recipients to the president. That process has been largely sidelined, according to sources with direct knowledge of the clemency process.
About 70% of Mr. Trump's clemency actions in his second term were not routed through the Justice Department (and that number is 92% when including the Jan. 6 cases), according to a CBS News analysis of Justice Department data.
Brokers seek out ways to influence Mr. Trump -- through contacts in the White House, by deploying MAGA influencers, or by working with others close to the president. Access is the coin of the realm, and on the promise of delivering that access, brokers now charge fees that can reach as high as $3 million, sources told CBS News. ...
