Mercy for Sale: Inside Trump's Pardon Machine, with TrueAnon's Brace Belden

Summary

Pablo Torre Finds Out

Episode: “Mercy for Sale: Inside Trump’s Pardon Machine”

Host: Pablo Torre
Guest: Brace Belden (TrueAnon)
Date: January 13, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this incisive, darkly hilarious deep dive, Pablo Torre is joined by Brace Belden of the TrueAnon podcast to dissect the evolution of the presidential pardon into a wild marketplace under Donald Trump’s second term. Through biting anecdotes, revealing case studies, and candid interviews—including with former US Pardon Attorney Liz Oyer—the episode explores how the Trump administration’s approach to pardons has blurred the boundaries between justice, personal loyalty, profit, and spectacle. Torre and Belden connect disparate stories—from famous athletes to white-collar scammers, from lobbyist grifters to Mel Gibson’s guns—in exposing the unregulated, access-for-sale economy that now governs who receives mercy from the highest executive office.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Pardons as “American Afterlife”: Philosophical Cold-Open & Setting the Stage

• Pablo Torre introduces the topic: the presidential pardon as “the closest thing our country offers to divine intervention, to an American afterlife of sorts for anybody who has committed federal crimes” (05:11).
• Brace riffs on religious exploration, equating getting into heaven with getting a pardon:

  “My number one goal is to get into heaven... I want to go to heaven, and I will figure out the best and easiest way to get there.” (04:07 – Brace Belden)

• The stage is set for an episode about power, forgiveness, and how those concepts are now bought and sold at unprecedented scale.

2. Trump’s Unprecedented Pardons: Numbers & Motivation

• Since March 2025, Trump has issued ~1600 pardons, many more than previous presidents in such a short time (08:05).
• Pablo’s Source: Lawyer close to Trump world reveals “cottage industry” of access-brokers and lobbyists selling legal forgiveness, with going rates in the seven and sometimes eight figures (10:50).
• Brace Belden: “It’s probably worth your money more to hire a cheap lawyer with access to Mar-a-Lago than an expensive lawyer who just hangs out in DC.” (19:07)
• Trump’s personal motivations, described as “addicted to pardoning people,” trace back to both grudge-settling and creating an aura of kinglike power.

3. Case Study - Daryl Strawberry: Symbol of the New Pardon Economy ([11:31–18:33])

• The former MLB star’s pardon—though his crimes were decades old—is traced to personal friendship connections:

  “‘I have a dear friend, Larry Glick, who works for his company...he said, ‘Oh, no, I’m going to talk to the president and I’m going to tell him that he needs to pardon Daryl Strawberry. You don’t have to do that.’” (16:46 – reading Strawberry interview)

• “It’s a social network,” Pablo observes (18:42), where access—not application, repentance, or need—matters.
• Memorable Quote:

  “It’s crazy to have your last name be Strawberry, by the way. It’s like being named Michael Pineapple or something.” (14:48 – Brace Belden)

4. The Institutional Breakdown: How the Pardon Attorney Was Sidelined

• Liz Oyer (Former US Pardon Attorney) explains the collapse of an impartial vetting process in favor of direct White House intervention (22:25–27:06).
• Her firing over refusal to help Mel Gibson regain his gun rights becomes a “Mel Gibson’s guns” subplot:

  “To the extent I have any legacy, it’s going to be a legacy that is associated with Mel Gibson...I just really hate that.” (22:43 – Liz Oyer)

• The process once emphasized risk, rehabilitation, and fairness; under Trump, it is replaced by personal connections and lobbying.

5. The Rise of “Eagle” Ed Martin: The New Pardon Gatekeeper ([27:17–35:04])

• Ed Martin, ultra-loyal Trump ally, becomes the new pardon attorney after Oyer’s ouster.
• Known for “no MAGA left behind” philosophy, direct connections to January 6 defendants, and grandstanding:

  “He’s a lawyer...but then I’m like, no, I think he’s actually like, a stupid guy that you would, like, meet on the street...” (33:04 – Brace Belden)

• Specific cases include:
  • Pardoning a Virginia sheriff who sold badges for cash,
  • Pardoning a Nevada politician who spent police memorial funds on plastic surgery (35:05 – Liz Oyer).

6. The Pardon Lobbyist Gold Rush: Wohl & Berkman, Profiteers of Access ([43:37–47:50])

• Disgraced far-right operatives Jacob Wohl and Jack Berkman now command nearly $1 million per retainer to lobby for pardons, despite criminal histories of their own (43:37–45:04).
• Their methods: manufacturing bogus scandals, robocalls to suppress the Black vote, faking FBI raids for social media clout.

  “In a just world, it would be illegal to give [Wohl and Berkman] money.” (43:42 – Brace Belden)

7. Pardons for Money: The Trevor Milton & CZ (Binance) Stories ([48:25–54:43])

• Trevor Milton (fraudulent Nikola CEO): $1.8M in Trump campaign donations, lawyers with Trump ties, and receives a pardon. Avoids $260M restitution just weeks after prosecutors begged for it.

  “What a deal...if I did owe a lot of money in restitution, I would put forth somebody to maybe talk to somebody in Trump world and be like, maybe a percent goes to a certain something and I don’t actually have to pay the full amount due to a pardon.” (51:03 – Brace Belden)

• Changpeng Zhao (CZ), Binance founder: Receives pardon through direct lobbying, massive “consulting” payments to a Trump family crypto fund, and leveraging hunting buddy connections.

  “Binance happened to establish business ties with a certain highly-profitable Trump family crypto venture called World Liberty Financial.” (53:54 – Pablo Torre)

8. Institutional Impotence: Can Anyone Stop This?

• Liz Oyer: Only 10 of 1600 pardons in Trump’s second term went through the Pardon Attorney—most are direct pipeline via insiders like Chaz McDowell, Susie Wiles, Roger Stone (38:17–41:50).
• No legal obstacles: “Super clear,” says Pablo. “As my Trump world source put it, Joe Biden could have done this too, but was fundamentally kept in line by shame and sleep.” (55:10)
• Congress could require more disclosure but hasn’t; lobbying payments operate in an opaque, regulatory vacuum (55:45 – Liz Oyer).

9. The Dark Absurdity of It All: Loyalty, Scamming, Pardons

• Pardons become rewards for political loyalty, money, or celebrity—not justice (56:22–57:37).
• The show ends with speculation on who might get pardoned next—Diddy refused, but could Ghislaine Maxwell or posthumous cases like Pete Rose be on deck?

  “All which is to say that the question now is: Who will Trump pardon next? Because there are some good candidates on the board.” (57:44 – Pablo Torre)

10. Surreal Closer: The Ghost of Pete Rose & Mel Gibson as Spiritual Lobbyist ([58:35–end])

• Pablo explains that even deceased baseball legend Pete Rose was promised a posthumous pardon after dying without one.

  “Unless you killed multiple people or raped or something, I feel like after you die you should be pardoned, you know?” (59:54 – Brace Belden)

• Brace suggests Rose, as a ghost, should “hire Mel Gibson” as his pardon lobbyist.

  “If ghost real, obviously possession is real. And you need to accompany Mel Gibson, drive drunk to Mar-a-Lago...and then get there and be like, you know what? Pete needs a pardon.” (61:28 – Brace Belden)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the new economics of mercy:

  “Right now under Donald Trump, people are hiring lawyers and lobbyists and paying them hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars to seek pardons...That is not normal in ordinary times.” — Liz Oyer (41:50)

• On the collapse of norms:

  “The pardon process has really closed off to ordinary people who can’t afford this special access. And it’s become a free-for-all.” — Liz Oyer (42:47)

• On Trump’s personal motivations:

  “He is addicted to pardoning people.” — Pablo Torre (08:02)

• On the surreal nature of pardon politics:

  “It boggles my mind how even a Trump partisan would be okay with this.” — Brace Belden (56:22)

• On institutional impotence:

  “There is no legal question. He can totally do it...the only mechanism that prevented Joe Biden from doing it...was fundamentally shame and sleep.” — Trump World Source (55:10)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 03:36: Brace’s religious wanderings and the lens of “divine intervention” for pardons
• 05:11–08:12: Introduction to the Trump pardon machine & ballooning numbers
• 11:31–18:33: The Daryl Strawberry case and pardon via social network
• 22:25–27:06: Liz Oyer on the hollowing-out of the Pardon Attorney’s office & Mel Gibson’s guns
• 27:17–35:04: The rise of Ed Martin (“Eagle Ed”), new gatekeeper of pardons
• 43:37–47:50: Jacob Wohl & Jack Berkman: From conspiracy grifters to high-priced pardon lobbyists
• 48:25–54:43: Pardon-for-money: Trevor Milton (Nikola) and CZ (Binance) stories
• 55:04–56:48: The legal and constitutional impotence to stop this
• 57:37–end: Who’s next? Pete Rose, Mel Gibson, and the farcical future of the pardon economy

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Episode Tone

The episode is darkly comic, sardonic, and rapid-fire. Pablo and Brace trade irreverent asides (“It’s like being named Michael Pineapple”), pop culture analogies, and deadpan recaps of sordid legal drama. The absurdity of the stories is met not with outrage, but with world-weary amusement and gallows humor—a tone that deftly highlights just how far the concept of justice has drifted.

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Summary

This episode cracks open the modern “pardon industry,” exposing a landscape where presidential mercy is just another asset for sale—one fraught with cronyism, profiteering, and unchecked executive power. Through storytelling, reporting, and caustic observation, Torre and Belden explore the transformation of clemency from a beacon of mercy to a transactional tool for those with money or proximity to power. Pardon has become post-legal, post-moral—a “get out of jail free” card for the connected, and a cynical punchline for everyone else.

Whether or not you’ve followed the headline cases, this episode’s stories—and the world-weary, mischievous banter—will stick with you. It’s not just about Trump. It’s about the American system’s vulnerabilities when law, shame, and public trust are left behind.

Transcript

[Pablo Torre]

Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre. And today we're gonna find out what this sound is.

[Brace Belden]

I feel like after you die you should be pardoned. You know, like after you.

[Pablo Torre]

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[Brace Belden]

Hey, it's Raj and Noah.

[Raj]

And we're back with a new season of Am I Doing It Wrong? The show that explores the all too human anxieties we have trying to get our lives right.

[Noah]

Because we're still doing a lot of stuff wrong.

[Raj]

But who isn't? That's why each week we're talking about the topics that we could all use a little helping hit with. Whether it's making new friends as an adult, managing our emotions, or even dreaming.

[Noah]

We'Ll be talking to experts in their fields who are definitely doing things right. So the rest of us can be a bit wiser and a lot better equipped to handle whatever life throws at us.

[Raj]

Subscribe now and listen to new episodes of Am I Doing It Wrong? Dropping every Thursday starting January 1st, wherever you get your podcasts.

[Noah]

And for the first time ever, we're gonna have full video episodes on YouTub too. Because as long as there are things to get wrong, we're going to be right here to help you do them better.

[Brace Belden]

Love you.

[Pablo Torre]

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[Brace Belden]

I like to go to places.

[Pablo Torre]

Well, okay. I think you were being here, by the way. Brace, are we recording? Yeah, let's do it.

[Brace Belden]

Yeah. Yeah, why not?

[Pablo Torre]

On Instagram over the holidays, what were you doing?

[Brace Belden]

I was in Espana.

[Pablo Torre]

You were?

[Brace Belden]

I was, yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

At an ancient church.

[Brace Belden]

I went to a little midnight mass and.

[Pablo Torre]

You were doing what? You were. You were. You were drinking from the chalice of Catholicism.

[Brace Belden]

I was. Except, I'm assuming. No, I actually do have some experience with.

[Pablo Torre]

You were passionate of the Christ thing. I was.

[Brace Belden]

Well, I have some experience with. With religion in the Philippines.

[Pablo Torre]

God, that's a whole other episode.

[Brace Belden]

But I've told you this. I've said this a million times. My number one goal is to get into heaven. I don't care about being nice to people. I don't care about not stealing from people. I don't care about hurting people. I want to go to heaven, and I will figure out the best and easiest way to get there. So I'm looking into. I'm talking about Zoroastrians. I'm talking about. I'm. I'm talking about. I'm flirting with Sufism a little bit. Obviously Catholicism. I understand that one. Seems like you can maybe buy it at some point, but I'm trying to figure out what some of these are. The other ones, like Baptist is. What is that we don't know or the snake ones or even what is going on, because what if it's the Amish and we don't know that? I have to go spend time with them, smoke a little bit meth with those ones they let out, out of the farm when they're 16. I would love to sell a 16 year old Amish boy meth, get them tweaked. Not, not anything more than that. But it was because I'd sell it to him and I'd leave. I don't want to talk to him because I don't want to hear about eggs or whatever for eight hours. And I'm saying, like I. So I'm saying I'm exploring all the world's religion. It's just. And I don't mean any disrespect, Christianity is by far the easiest one. And so I'm starting there.

[Pablo Torre]

So this is going to be an episode about the closest thing our country offers to divine intervention, to an American afterlife of sorts for anybody who has committed federal crimes and or fraud of any size or shape, which, by the way, this administration does lately say they are very concerned about. Which is to say that this is going to be an episode about the presidential pardon. A real life get out of jail free card for those desperate to go from hell to heaven, which has helpfully been commodified more than ever before the themes of mercy and salvation.

[Brace Belden]

Clemency.

[Pablo Torre]

Clemency. I've been thinking about this stuff because last June I had a fascinating in person conversation with a source, an attorney I already knew through his work on various sports investigations. And this attorney told me very casually that he had also been working with Trump World on pardon applications.

[Brace Belden]

Interesting.

[Pablo Torre]

I should admit that you're not the first choice guest we had.

[Brace Belden]

That's interesting to admit.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah, I mean, I just. Again, transparency is also a virtue.

[Brace Belden]

It's okay. That Christmas Eve service changed me. You're forgiven.

[Pablo Torre]

But if you were wondering why our honored guest, Brace Belden has returned to our studio without his true anon co host, Liz Franczak, his fellow Epstein expert, who also tends to make up for Brace's profound lack of sports knowledge, Liz is herself, much like a Christian miracle with child.

[Brace Belden]

Yes, yes. The angel came down to her and said, you will have John the Baptist. And. And she's pregnant with John the Baptist.

[Pablo Torre]

Which means that Brace, who often journeys through maga's social network, their rallies, their art shows, in person himself, will be calling upon his own research and experience in this episode. Although we should pause to acknowledge here that a president using the power of the pardon for personal reasons as opposed to, you know, the public interest, did not start with Donald Trump.

[Brace Belden]

Yeah, no, that did not start with Trump. People have been doing that. Listen, it's technically a monarchical thing, right? Like. Or it comes from the monarchy. I don't know if monarchical is the right word to use there, where you would sort of excuse your friends and family from getting in trouble. Specifically your family.

[Pablo Torre]

I wanted Hunter here. That's who the first choice was.

[Noah]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

Hunter Biden was unfortunately not available.

[Brace Belden]

Well, I'll say this. I have smoke cracked and enjoyed it. I wouldn't call myself a crackhead. I would never. I would never. And that's valor. I won't steal. I don't. I clearly didn't enjoy it as much as some people, you know, not with that attitude. No. But I don't have any regrets. And he seems like he's a regretful guy, which I think is a. Is fake. Because if you've ever smoked crack, you'd realize you can look back on those times. You say you might do things differently now, but at the time, it was the right thing to do.

[Pablo Torre]

But Donald Trump, the thing that makes him unique, I think.

[Brace Belden]

Yes.

[Pablo Torre]

Is that he is addicted to pardoning people.

[Brace Belden]

Yes.

[Pablo Torre]

I mean, the numbers since March 2025 alone, approximately, he's granted roughly 1600 presidential pardons.

[Brace Belden]

Interesting. The same address as the White House.

[Pablo Torre]

Right. Yeah, that's right.

[Brace Belden]

Sounds right to me.

[Pablo Torre]

I see. I went like, immediately. It's like, oh, the perfect SAT score.

[Brace Belden]

But it's interesting.

[Pablo Torre]

That's.

[Brace Belden]

Yeah, that's because. And I'm not. I don't mean it like this.

[Pablo Torre]

Say it.

[Brace Belden]

It is due to you being Asian.

[Pablo Torre]

That's right. Yeah.

[Brace Belden]

We were all thinking, but are Filipinos like that?

[Pablo Torre]

This question is somehow more offensive than the previous question.

[Brace Belden]

I don't know.

[Pablo Torre]

Right, right, right, right. So I want to say that the difference that my source, my Trump world lawyer source impressed upon me is that, look, the economy, what do you call the cottage industry around this, in which a social network of people are selling access and successfully buying freedom.

[Brace Belden]

Yes.

[Pablo Torre]

It's wild.

[Brace Belden]

It is. I will say this, and I'm not going to pretend that like there hasn't been at times more blata. Times, but corruption throughout the presidential system since the beginning of it. Right. Of course, the second Trump term has been crazy to see because I think unlike any other point in human history. First of all, the president has a crypto firm.

[Pablo Torre]

Yes. Which figures into this story. Too.

[Brace Belden]

Yeah, yeah, it does. And they just don't care. And it's like, also, the President has gone through years of sort of shockingly ineffective legal problems during the Biden years, and I guess the tail end of his own administration or is on first administration and he's out for revenge. And he has not made any bones about it. He's like, I am getting revenge. And there's a through line with almost all of the pardons, which he's like, this person was targeted by government. Which is interesting because that's generally what happens when the Department of Justice comes after you because it is a part of the government.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah. When the thing that you're resentful of is the entire apparatus of justice.

[Brace Belden]

Yes.

[Pablo Torre]

Plausibly, all of these things can speak to your personal plight.

[Brace Belden]

Yeah. I will say, though, like, something that was sort of shocking to me during the Biden Interregnum between 1 and 2 is how bad the cases against Trump were. Like the 32, 34 counts. He got here like nobody cared. Too many counts. And it was like the events of Stormy Daniels stuff.

[Pablo Torre]

It's the bed of nails theory for counts.

[Brace Belden]

Yes.

[Pablo Torre]

We can't pay attention. And I think part of, like the poetry of this is that this guy who seems to be possessing antibodies to legal consequence is now spreading them handpicked to people that get the ultimate thing you can hope for in anything resembling a constitutional republic. Yeah. Which is, hey, you did federal crime, now you didn't.

[Brace Belden]

You're good. And even better, some of them don't have to pay back money.

[Pablo Torre]

So the restitution part I want to get to as well.

[Brace Belden]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

But my first question to my Trump world lawyer, Fred Source, what does it cost to legally undo a conviction and criminal record in the federal government? And he was like, oh, yeah, you know, seven figures lawyer, like sometimes eight, you know, and of course, there's a range. Yeah, there are some six figure ones. But he's like, yeah, if you average it all out, we're talking about, you know, a million bucks, let's say, depending on.

[Brace Belden]

Seems about right to me.

[Pablo Torre]

But I should also say, as we now try to illustrate this with case studies, which is why we have a folder here, we got some stuff that I want to show you as a non ball knower myself. Yes, I should also acknowledge that we did try to book someone else, not just Hunter Biden, but a man by the name of Daryl Strawberry.

[Brace Belden]

Really?

[Pablo Torre]

Do you know who Daryl Strawberry is?

[Brace Belden]

No, but he's got a delicious name.

[Pablo Torre]

So, darl Strawberry, is he a Basketball player Daryl Strawberry. You're so close.

[Brace Belden]

It's another ball.

[Pablo Torre]

So Daryl Strawberry's son D.J. is a basketball player, but Daryl, the original, he is one of the great young sluggers in Major league baseball history.

[Brace Belden]

Oh, wow.

[Pablo Torre]

He won a World Series with the Mets in 1986. His hall of fame would be trajectory was infamously derailed by, you guessed it, cocaine. Oh, and alcohol addiction.

[Brace Belden]

Wait, he. How is it derailed coke with Daryl.

[Pablo Torre]

Strawberry and not realize.

[Brace Belden]

First of all, I want. I've got a lot to say about cocaine because being addicted to coke, no disrespect, and drinking alcohol and being a great baseball player in New York in the 1980s after winning World Series.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah.

[Brace Belden]

So what? They just didn't give him the hall of Fame stuff because he's having too much fun.

[Pablo Torre]

Well, over time, unfortunately the, the combination you described seemed to undermine his performance in the end.

[Brace Belden]

Yeah, I can see that.

[Pablo Torre]

So Darryl, in 1995, the same year he was incidentally contestant on Celebrity Apprentice, was indicted on three towns of tax evasion.

[Brace Belden]

Okay.

[Pablo Torre]

He pled guilty to one count of tax evasion. It was a failure to report income from autographs and memorabilia sales. The next year. This is 96. He pleads guilty to no contest to charges of possession of cocaine and soliciting a prostitute in Tampa.

[Brace Belden]

I think that those charges have probably often accompanied one another.

[Pablo Torre]

Well, do you have a guess? This is 1996. Who the assistant state attorney in Tampa was at the time.

[Brace Belden]

That is not. Is that going to be. I feel like Pam Bondi is too young and beautiful for that.

[Pablo Torre]

She is just young and beautiful enough. Pamela Bondi, the one and only.

[Brace Belden]

Wow. Also great name for a prosecutor. Right. So she busted Mr. Strawberry.

[Pablo Torre]

So she actually advocated for prison time for Daryl Strawberry for coke. Well, for his repeated violations as described in various reports. But the judge ultimately sentenced him in 2000 to a treatment program. And so God speed to Daryl Strawberry. He's now a minister. He is remaking his life anyhow. November 7, 2025, President Donald Trump is.

[Liz Oyer]

Pardoning baseball legend Daryl Strawberry. Strawberry is a three time World Series champ and eight time MLB all star who also pleaded guilty to felony tax evasion in the 90s for failing to report $350,000 in incomes that he got from autographs, personal appearances and sales of memorabilia. He served 11 months for that crime. Strawberry thanked the president in a post on social media.

[Brace Belden]

Thank you President real Donald Trump for my full pardon and for finalizing this part of my life, allowing me to be truly free and clean from all My past.

[Pablo Torre]

He was on the post that. This has nothing to do with politics. It's about a man, President Trump, caring deeply for a friend. God used him as a vessel to set me free forever.

[Brace Belden]

Pause.

[Pablo Torre]

So what I did was I went on Instagram, the platform where I was watching you and also watching this. This is in November. And I DMed Daryl Strawberry inviting him onto the show.

[Brace Belden]

And he said maybe at some point. And he hits you with a Strawberry.

[Pablo Torre]

The strawberry emoji is his move.

[Brace Belden]

Wow.

[Pablo Torre]

If only we could all have an equivalent move.

[Brace Belden]

I mean, my God, it's crazy to have your last name be Strawberry, by the way. It's like being named Michael Pineapple or something. It's crazy. Strawberry. But did you. There was no follow up.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah. No. As I contemplated what it's like to be Jim Eggplant. No, I was. I was. I was waiting and waiting, and then I called you. So that's why you're here. But there is a part of Daryl Strawberry's IG post that has been largely overlooked. This was big news in sports, of course, and this part actually comes after his signature strawberry emoji.

[Brace Belden]

I'm free. I'm free. I'm so humble and thankful. Strawberry hands clasp in prayer. Thanks in quotes. Larry Glick one. Love you, brother. And then I love. That's my favorite emoji. The point one. Yeah, of course, the point. And then of course, we have Johnny Damon with the double handed high five.

[Pablo Torre]

Just a resplendent Johnny Damon with hands in here.

[Brace Belden]

Who's Larry Glick?

[Pablo Torre]

So this is the question at Larry underscore. Glick1 is a guy I hadn't heard about, which is why I'm so excited to bring him up to you, because we went and looked up who Larry Glick is, and the account belongs to the Executive Vice President of Strategic Development at the Trump Organization. Wow. Larry Glick, also the head of Trump Golf. Okay, so he's responsible for acquiring land, developing golf courses and hotels, managing the marketing for all of Trump's golf properties, his Instagram account. The most recent thing we saw was him, like, wishing Happy Birthday to Eric Trump, like, hanging out. And so Daryl Strawberry didn't provide any other detail on the dynamic between him and Larry outside of that. Thanks. In quotes, in all caps. And so we had to dig through the Internet and we found exactly one interview where he happened to touch on any of this. And so, Brace, I would like you to do me the honor of now reading. As you continue to play the role of Daryl Strawberry, I would love to.

[Brace Belden]

It'S the role of a lifetime.

[Pablo Torre]

As asked by mlbbro.com obviously, I've known.

[Brace Belden]

President Trump for a long time, dating back to my days playing in New York. He's always been gracious and kind to me since that time. I have a dear friend, Larry Glick, who works for his company, and I was telling him about my story at a friend's house about being locked up. Pam Bondi was the prosecutor who had me locked up. I never said anything bad about her, and I never will. Glick said, no kidding? Why didn't you say anything? I said, I don't need to say anything. My life is good. He said, oh, no. I'm going to talk to the president and I'm going to tell him that he needs to pardon Daryl Strawberry. You don't have to do that. And he said, yeah, I'm going to tell him that because he loves you. I never thought anything else about it. I guess it came about, he told me, and here I am. President Trump did it. If you had a friend who could pardon somebody, wouldn't you, like, want to, like, kind of impress one of your famous criminal friends by getting them pardoned? My question is, though, if he's been free for 20 years and it doesn't sound like he did much time in the first place, seems like he got basically diversion. It seems like, what the f is the point of the pardon?

[Pablo Torre]

That's kind of the point, I think, is that Daryl Strawberry wasn't really petitioning for one.

[Brace Belden]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

He didn't seem to insist on getting it.

[Brace Belden]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

And he had this guy, Larry Glick, who was like, you know what? This is a cool thing that I, as guy close to Trump, can flex about. And it happened.

[Brace Belden]

I don't blame Mr. Strawberry for thinking that it was. I mean, because perhaps it was for God's will for this to happen. Because if you're just going through your life and all of a sudden this guy Larry Glick you've been hanging out with is like, hey, why don't I get you pardoned for any past crimes you've done, even if it doesn't really affect you anymore. You're just like, okay, thank you. And thank you, God, for putting Larry Glick in my life.

[Pablo Torre]

I'm just thinking of, like, Johnny Damon putting his hands up, like, yeah, this is testimony.

[Brace Belden]

I'm picturing Jiminy Glick this entire time as I'm saying this.

[Pablo Torre]

But the whole thing is. It's a social network.

[Brace Belden]

Yes.

[Pablo Torre]

And that's sort of the recurring theme both in our show it turns out this year and in this story, which is that, yes, there are people who have jobs who are supposed to oversee the process of how you dispense the most valuable pieces of constitutional forgiveness. And in the meantime, there's a bunch of guys who are like, you know what? I know a guy. I can get you that.

[Brace Belden]

It's interesting. It does feel like it's probably worth your money more to hire a cheap lawyer that has access to Mar a Lago than an expensive lawyer who just.

[Pablo Torre]

Hangs out in D.C. there is a person, by the way, whose job is, of course, U.S. pardon attorney.

[Brace Belden]

Oh yes, and I want to get.

[Pablo Torre]

To who has that job now, but I first need to establish the person who had that job until last March when all of these pardons kind of started happening. And for your sake, she's also named Liz.

[Brace Belden]

Oh, easy then. Thank God.

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[Brace Belden]

Hey, it's Raj and Noah.

[Raj]

And we're back with a new season of Am I Doing It Wrong? The show that explores the all too human anxieties we have about trying to get our lives right.

[Noah]

Because we're still doing a lot of stuff wrong.

[Raj]

But who isn't? That's why each week we're talking about the topics that we could all use a little helping hit with. Whether it's making new friends as an adult, managing our emotions, or even dreaming.

[Noah]

We'll be talking to experts in their fields who are definitely doing things right. So the rest of us can be a bit wiser and a lot better equipped to handle whatever life throws at us.

[Raj]

Subscribe now and listen to new episodes of Am I Doing It Wrong? Dropping every Thursday starting January 1st, wherever you get your podcasts.

[Noah]

And for the first time ever, we're going to have full video episodes on YouTube. Because as long as there are things to get wrong, we're going to be right here to help you do them better.

[Brace Belden]

Love you all, too.

[Pablo Torre]

So in the absence of your co host, Liz, we found another Liz. And this Liz has a particular perspective that'll help us understand the story.

[Liz Oyer]

I'm Liz Oyer. I spent much of my career as a public defender and I spent the last three years until March serving as the pardon attorney for the Department of Justice.

[Pablo Torre]

Unfortunately, though, Brace, despite that very long, distinguished career with the doj, Liz Oyer is probably most known for something else.

[Liz Oyer]

Actually, one of the worst parts of this whole ordeal is that I now feel like to the extent anyone knows who I am, it's in connection with Mel Gibson. Like, my name is somehow tied to his for all of time. To the extent that I have any legacy, it's going to be a legacy that is associated with Mel Gibson. Like, oh, you're the woman who got fired over Mel Gibson's guns. And I just really hate that.

[Brace Belden]

But I also remember Mel Gibson's domestic violence thing was way crazier.

[Pablo Torre]

Yes.

[Brace Belden]

Than regular, even domestic violence. It was like the phone calls.

[Pablo Torre]

The phone calls. And so, okay, 2011, Mel Gibson gets convicted of battery and sentenced to probation community service after this infamous domestic violence investigation involving his ex girlfriend and a website, RadarOnline.com yes.

[Brace Belden]

Which Jeffrey Epstein once tried to purchase.

[Raj]

Huh?

[Brace Belden]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

Well, on RadarOnline.com there is a series like this endless series seemingly of leaked recordings in which a man alleged to be Mel Gibson said, I I think, you know, just some pretty standard stuff.

[Brace Belden]

Embarrassment to me, you look like a on Heat. And if you get raped by a.

[Verizon Advertiser]

Pack, your fault, all right? Because you provoked it.

[Brace Belden]

You are provocatively dressed all the time.

[Pablo Torre]

With your fake boobs.

[Brace Belden]

You feel you have to show off in tight outfits and tight Pants and stuff. You see your. From behind. And that green thing today was enough. That's provocative. Okay. My people, of course, have significant influence upon the industry that. I don't know what Mel is short for. Meliam Gibson works in. And, of course, he broke free of our grasp with the Passion of the Christ with the amazing Jin Cavisiel. As. As Jesus Christ. Not sure if you're familiar with his work, but he is really, truly something that got.

[Pablo Torre]

Oh, Jim Caviezel. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Brace Belden]

But Mel. Mel has. At least he didn't mention us in that one. You need medication.

[Pablo Torre]

I need a woman.

[Brace Belden]

Not a little girl with a dysfunctional. I need a woman. I don't need medication. You need a pat on the side of the head. I. That's like a guy. You'd imitate doing that. Like, if you were pretending to be an insane guy, calling a lady to threaten her, you would be doing that. And it would be seen as over the top if it was performed on, like, a television show.

[Pablo Torre]

And so Liz Oyer, a US Pardon attorney, is getting this request from Pam Bondi, being like, hey, can this guy have his guns back?

[Liz Oyer]

And he wrote a letter to the Attorney General through his lawyers, asking that she reinstate his gun rights. And I was told, you know, well, Mel Gibson's a personal friend of the President. The president made him an ambassador to Hollywood, which is not a real ambassadorship, by the way, but there is a lot of data out there that shows that it is very dangerous for people with domestic violence history to own guns. It makes it much more likely that domestic violence incidents will turn fatal. So I was not able to make that recommendation.

[Brace Belden]

It's interesting because he does actually threaten her, not just to hit her. He says that you need to be hit with a bat.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah.

[Brace Belden]

Which I would say that line alone would probably make me be hesitant to return gun rights to him.

[Liz Oyer]

I was invited several times to reconsider my refusal to make that recommendation. I was actually in a meeting on a Friday afternoon, and my deputy came into the room and sort of frantically pulled me out of this meeting with about 25 people and told me that there were security officers back in my office waiting to fire me and walk me out of the building. And that was the end of my career at the Department of Justice.

[Pablo Torre]

So, spoiler alert. The kicker in all of this, as Liz Oiler gets fired and her career ends over her refusal to give the Christ, like, Werewolf, we were just listening to his guns back, is that Pam Bondi just went ahead and did it anyway.

[Liz Oyer]

Yes, the reason that I was asked, I believe, is because as a career official, it would give some sort of legitimacy or the appearance of legitimacy to what was really a political favor for a friend of the President. So that's why they wanted me to do it, but at the end of the day, they didn't need me to do it. And in fact, Pam, Bonnie went ahead and did it on her own, and.

[Pablo Torre]

They just said it, and they went and found a person who would do such things in replacement of Liz Oyer. And this brings us to a man that I need you to help explain.

[Brace Belden]

To America, Eagle Ed Martin.

[Pablo Torre]

Eagle Ed Martin.

[Brace Belden]

Now, Ed Martin is a relative newcomer on the scene. You know, Trump won, I think, had some pretty prominent guys around him that dressed in strange ways, obviously Steve Bannon with his many collars. Roger Stone, who is, once you find out he's a swinger who lives in Florida, everything sort of gets into place. But he's sort of the steampunk swinger.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah. Like a dark winged duck style, polyamorous kind of gentleman.

[Brace Belden]

Yes. Like he would, he would be involved in a foursome style thing, but in like a hot air balloon that is like also maybe a jet attached to it. He's strange, certainly. He's a strange individual. With Ed Martin. Ed Martin kind of came up in the interregnum. He was a just like a gop, a state level sort of GOP lackey. He ran for office a couple times and failed. And then after January 6th, which we just passed the anniversary of, how did you celebrate? Well, you know, I. I made a January 6th board game several years ago with some friends.

[Pablo Torre]

How, how do you win?

[Brace Belden]

You win by getting away. You win by getting off the hell on a helicopter.

[Pablo Torre]

What are the pieces? You could be.

[Brace Belden]

You can be the shaman. You can be just like a proud boy. You can be the little old lady with the flag, even though she wasn't actually there. That was from a different incident. Or you can be the Capitol Police.

[Pablo Torre]

AKA you could be anyone in the constituency of one Eagle Ed Martin.

[Brace Belden]

Exactly. And so Ed Martin kind of came to prominence by, by coming out. You know, Trump was abandoned. Right. Everybody left him. Everybody left him. Kind of like Jesus Christ. Actually, that didn't really happen to Jesus Christ, did it?

[Pablo Torre]

Well, he was betrayed.

[Brace Belden]

Yeah, but like one guy. Everyone else was like, that's our guy still, you know what I mean? But imagine if Jesus Christ, instead of having one Judas, had basically a million Judases.

[Pablo Torre]

Yes, The Judas department, Judas department.

[Brace Belden]

Every guy was like, Sean Hannity. Sean Hannity. So I'm thinking of like all these people after January 6th were like, we don't even know Trump. He's not our guy. Him.

[Pablo Torre]

Yes. Everyone decided, surely this is the moment to finally cut loose.

[Brace Belden]

Exactly. But Ed Martin said, no, thank you for standing with all of the Patriots next to you and thank you for standing for our president. But remember, what they're stealing is not just an election. He said, I'm going to start acting crazy in defense of Donald Trump. And he actually came. He's a lawyer and, and, and he was sort of the heir to Phyllis Schlafly.

[Pablo Torre]

What a character in her own right.

[Brace Belden]

Yes, yes. And which is how he gets the name from, from her group, I think it's like the eagle form. Right. And so he's eagle Ed Martin, even though he was only the president for one year before a terrible split in the Schlafly family led him to seek the Schlafly. It's a tough name to say. It's a tough name to say, but.

[Pablo Torre]

It is, it is a prominent conservative, like Coaching Tree.

[Brace Belden]

Yes.

[Pablo Torre]

Activists.

[Brace Belden]

Yes. So he, he starts getting on cnn. He's fired for being racist, unfortunately, because of woke, but I think it was pretty directly fairly racist. And he started representing a couple of January, six political prisoners.

[Pablo Torre]

Right.

[Brace Belden]

In their trials. I think one guy was a proud boy and then another guy named Joseph Padilla, who was a somewhat porcine prison guard who was also present on that day and who himself did not want to be to the same mercies that I'm sure he's objected others to.

[Pablo Torre]

So I should point out that because of his fidelity to Donald Trump, everyone else abandoned him. He was very importantly nominated for the job of U.S. attorney, like, so Trump nominates him to be the chief Prosecutor in Washington D.C. yes. But he is the kind of character that is so important to understand in this story because he is so extreme that Trump actually couldn't ram him through.

[Brace Belden]

I think he's acting U.S. attorney for D.C. for a little bit. And he spends, spends most of his time writing open letters to Elon Musk, supporting Elon and being like, if your doge guys need, you know, backup, I'll send my guys over. It's unclear if he had guys to send over. And then writing letters to Wikipedia threatening to sue them. Wikipedia every couple months becomes like a big thing on the right that they want to sue them or it's unfair or whatever. He would wake up every day, look at what trending topics were going on on like right wing podcast Twitter, and then write an official Looking, but poorly written letter in support of sort of the topic of the day.

[Pablo Torre]

Right.

[Brace Belden]

He was unfortunately unable to be rammed through and through.

[Pablo Torre]

Well, one of the guys that came up in the vetting of Eagle Ed was this guy, Timothy Hale Cusinelli, who was a convicted January 6 rioter, who, according to court records, quote, held long standing white supremacist and Nazi beliefs. And by that they mean he wore a Hitler mustache, apparently, allegedly told his co workers that, quote, Hitler should have finished the job and then hugged by Ed Martin at some sort of ceremony. And Ed Martin, Eagle Ed, told the audience that one of his goals was, quote, to make sure that the world, and especially America, hears more from Tim Hale, because he's extraordinary.

[Brace Belden]

I hope you'll join me in welcoming Tim Hale. Tim, welcome to the program. How are you, sir?

[Pablo Torre]

I'm doing very well, Ed. Thank you for having me on. It's an honor.

[Brace Belden]

Yeah. Thanks, Tim. But first, let me ask the question. I'm down here in the swamp, your home in New Jersey, but there's a lot of talk of the D.C. gulag, the prison, a prisoner.

[Pablo Torre]

And I think you get something resembling the gist.

[Brace Belden]

It's interesting. I think Ed Martin is stupid. I read his. I'm a subscriber to his substack.

[Pablo Torre]

I just subscribed.

[Brace Belden]

It's. It's something else.

[Pablo Torre]

They're very short posts.

[Brace Belden]

He's stupid. It's why I think he's stupid.

[Pablo Torre]

I.

[Brace Belden]

You know, it's. Sometimes I think maybe I'm stupid because I. I think guys like this are stupid. But he's a lawyer. He's an office. But then I'm like, no, I think he's actually like, a stupid guy that you would, like, meet on the street who's too stupid. Like, move out of the way. Like, can't do something. You know, I can't open a door. Like, I would say I would pay money for someone to follow Ed Martin around with a video camera. And every time he opens a door to turn it on and see how he struggles with it. And I'm saying this to somebody who struggled to get into the studio, you.

[Pablo Torre]

Did struggle to open the door.

[Brace Belden]

Well, it was a difficult door.

[Pablo Torre]

Now, the door that Ed Martin ended up walking through.

[Brace Belden]

Yes.

[Pablo Torre]

Because he couldn't be U.S. attorney was Liz Oyer's office door.

[Brace Belden]

Yes. So he has replaced that woman, Liz Sawyer.

[Pablo Torre]

Yes.

[Brace Belden]

And he is now the U.S. pardon attorney.

[Pablo Torre]

And so he's the guy, by the way, who, relatedly in all of this, tweeted when Daryl Strawberry was pardoned In November, quote, Good Morning America, how are you? With a photo of Daryl Strawberry playing for the Yankees on a baseball card.

[Brace Belden]

Amazing. He is. He is also. And maybe we can get into this a little later, but he, he came to Brooklyn not too long ago.

[Pablo Torre]

What was he here to do?

[Brace Belden]

He was dressed like Colombo for some reason, even though he doesn't always dress like that. But he was wearing, I believe, a little bit of a tan trench coat maybe. I filled this into my mind. And he was taking selfies outside of Letitia James's house. And Ed Martin was. Was sort of sent after. Even though he's the pardon attorney, he apparently was in some sort of maybe legal group chat with one of our favorite guys sponsor this show, Bill Pulte, looking into mortgage fraud because that's how they were going after Letitia James. I think James Comey, everybody. I think a. Of failures on that front, I don't think they've gotten very far.

[Pablo Torre]

Well, his whole, like, Slogan is no MAGA left behind. Yes. He referred to January 6th as, I believe, Marty Gr. Oh, American Marty Gr. And he does love sifting through documents, it seems. But he's not sifting through Liz or called the stacks of thousands of pieces of mail that she used to go through, like pardon application.

[Brace Belden]

Yeah.

[Liz Oyer]

Martin appears to have been involved in the pardon of this sheriff in Virginia named Scott Jenkins, who was selling bad for cash. He appears to have been involved in the pardon of an elected official in Nevada named Michelle Fiore. She was raising money to build a memorial to a fallen police officer killed in the line of duty. And she spent the money on plastic surgery. She got a full pardon from Donald Trump without spending a day in prison. She's off the hook because she's a big vocal MAGA booster. So that has been Martin's contribution to the pardon power. He literally sits in my old chair, which blows my mind every time I think about it.

[Pablo Torre]

Ed Martin, I hadn't heard before of a fallen police officer memorial turning into your personal plastic surgery slush fund.

[Brace Belden]

Yeah. Well, you know, obviously what I'm looking up right now is Michelle Fiore before and after. And she is a. She is. It's.

[Pablo Torre]

How did that go? Was it worth it?

[Brace Belden]

Well, you know, I assumed it was going to be a sort of Mar a Lago face transformation. I'm going to be honest here. It does appear that it was maybe targeted on other parts of her body.

[Pablo Torre]

Like Barry Bonds. She had various performance enhancements.

[Brace Belden]

Exactly. But, you know, I actually hadn't heard of this either, but there is a An incredible trend of MAGA people just ripping other MAGA people off.

[Pablo Torre]

I don't know.

[Brace Belden]

It's heartwarming. They just don't give a. And they're. They're really forgiving. Like, Steve Bannon was accused of ripping a ton of people off for this build the wall thing. Remember this? Like, the ball never got built. They just, like, give each other money for things that don't happen, and then they get in legal trouble and then they get forg forgiven.

[Pablo Torre]

Right. And so in this case, the forgiveness, the stuff that he is sort of the big vector for, is under the label of, let's say, politically motivated persecutions.

[Brace Belden]

Yes.

[Pablo Torre]

That's like his deal. What my Trump board lawyer source guy also pointed out is that, of course there's also Alice Johnson, who's the pardon czar. That's her job that Trump invented. She herself was granted clemency by Trump. And in that category, I mean, I guess NBA YoungBoy is one of them.

[Liz Oyer]

Baton Rouge rapper NBA YoungBoy was also pardoned by President Trump. He took to social media about his pardon, saying, quote, this moment means a lot. It opens the door to a future I've worked hard for, and I am fully prepared to step into this. The rapper's legal troubles multiplied when he was implicated in unrelated charges in Utah, including a prescription drug fraud ring as.

[Brace Belden]

Part of the plea. Yeah, I saw that boozy badass is trying to get a pardon as well.

[Pablo Torre]

So that's another vector. But I think the point that I want to establish is that's not even how you really do this if you really want a pardon.

[Liz Oyer]

Unfortunately, there are now about 19,000 people whose applications are piled up at the office of the pardon attorney where I used to work. And seems like they're just being ignored while people with political connections or wealth are going straight to the White House, straight to the president to seek pardons. And they are getting pardons generally not based on merit, but based on political donations or connections that they're able to leverage with people in the president's inner circle.

[Brace Belden]

I had read that if the most part, pardons come through the pardon attorney, however, in the second Trump administration, yes, I think only, like, 10 applications have gone through. Ten of the pardons have gone through the pardon attorney.

[Pablo Torre]

So ProPublica reported this. Only 10 of roughly 1600 people granted pardons had even filed petitions to Ed Martin's office, which is crazy.

[Brace Belden]

Well, he might not be able to read. You know what I mean?

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[Brace Belden]

Hey, it's Raj and Noah.

[Raj]

And we're back with a new season of Am I Doing It Wrong? The show that explores the all too human anxieties we have about trying to get our lives right.

[Noah]

Because we're still doing a lot of stuff wrong.

[Raj]

But who isn't? That's why each week we're talking about the topics that we could all use a little helping hit with. Whether it's making new friends as an adult, managing our emotions, or even dreaming.

[Noah]

We'Ll be talking to experts in their fields who are definitely doing things right, so the rest of us can be a bit wiser and a lot better equipped to handle whatever life throws at us.

[Raj]

Subscribe now and listen to new episodes of Am I Doing It Wrong? Dropping every Thursday starting January 1st, wherever you get your podcasts.

[Noah]

And for the first time ever, we're gonna have full video episodes on YouTube. Because as long as there are things to get wrong, we're gonna be right here to help you do.

[Raj]

Foreign.

[Pablo Torre]

So by Trump World Source, as well as various other people now in these articles are pointing out like, yeah, if we Want pardons. We're not filing these applications. What we're doing is we're trying to go directly as closely as we can to the office of the White House Counsel, to Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. We're climbing inside of Roger stone's, you know, 16 buttoned, double breasted suit, trying to like, get, get really close personally to the President. And so, yeah, as Liz Oyer points out, the whole profile of who's in the pipeline takes on a very different flavor.

[Liz Oyer]

Unfortunately, the clemency process as it has worked for over a hundred years has really been turned upside down. It's been turned on its head. All of the traditional standards for getting a pardon have fallen by the wayside. And the traditional vetting process is no longer being used. Right now under Donald Trump, people are hiring lawyers and lobbyists and paying them hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars to seek pardons on their behalf. That is not normal in ordinary times. The overwhelming majority of people seeking clemency do not even have lawyers representing them. That has totally changed under Donald Trump. There has cropped up this sort of pardon economy where lawyers and lobbyists with connections to his circle are profiting immensely. And as a result, the pardon process has really closed off to ordinary people who can't afford this special access. And it's become a free.

[Pablo Torre]

The class of person who is a lobbyist. To your point, about, like the scammers. Yes, it's pretty amazing. Like, we just gotta. So the document that's next in your folder, if you can open that please. It takes us to April 2025. This is the month after Lizzo gets fired and a guy by the name of Joseph Schwartz gets sentenced to three years in prison for defrauding the government of $38 million. And Joseph Schwartz is alleged to have overseen, quote, a collapsed nursing home empire and has allegedly willfully failed to pay employment taxes. And so at around this time, there arrives a lobbying filing, which is the thing in front of you. And so our focus here isn't even on Joseph Schwartz, despite all of that stuff. It's on his lobbyists.

[Brace Belden]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

And so the tag team that he hires to lobby on his behalf brace are who?

[Brace Belden]

Jacob Wohl and Jack Berkman.

[Pablo Torre]

And it is like the price, by.

[Brace Belden]

The way, the price is $960,000. And I will say this, in a just world, it will be illegal to give them money.

[Pablo Torre]

So there is in this filing also, if you flip through it to the section called Convictions Disclosure, it is worth pointing out that, like, they do have to cop to the fact that they are seeking a federal pardon and have themselves, on November 30, 2022, been found.

[Brace Belden]

Notably guilty of illegal campaign robocalls, telecommunications fraud in Cuyahoga County, Ohio.

[Pablo Torre]

Could you catch us up on who these guys are?

[Brace Belden]

Jacob Wohl is a character that was very prominent front and center during the first Trump administration. And I think of him, he was. God, we had so many amazing rookies, and few of them have stayed in the leagues. And I remember most prominently Jacob Wohl from a number of things. One, he did a sort of rapid fire series of fake me toos against Pete Buttigieg, against Elizabeth Warren, which I notably remember because he called her a cougar and said she was engaged in BDSM cheating on her husband.

[Pablo Torre]

A hall of fame trajectory for Jacob Wall so far.

[Brace Belden]

And then also on. On Mueller. And then also me, too. Robert Mueller did me to Robert Mueller. I don't remember if that was a gay one or not. I know one. He gave me to someone, too. He. Me too. Like, five different people. And what he would do is he would actually trick real people into thinking they were doing some. Like, he would, like, pay them to be like, oh, yeah, you're gonna be in a commercial, or it's like you're acting for us or something. But he wouldn't actually tell them what was going on.

[Pablo Torre]

This is the whole, like, if you go through the timeline of when and how he executed other robocall frauds, it's all along the lines of just like, outright scamming. Trying to convince normal would be citizens trying to do good, to engage in. In 2023, something that resulted in a $5.1 million fine against these two guys. This was in Ohio. They said if you vote by mail, your personal information would be made available to debt collectors. That was 2023. Next year, Letitia James, she announced fines against Wallen Berkman, whom she called, quote, two conspiracy theorists who launched a robocall campaign designed to prevent black New Yorkers from voting by mail ahead of the 2020 election year. After that, Michigan, there's a plea deal. They plead no contest to charges of suppressing black voters in Detroit in 2020. And in that matter, the Michigan attorney general, in a press release, said, these two guys claim to be founders of a civil rights organization.

[Brace Belden]

Interesting.

[Pablo Torre]

And urge predominantly black voters to not be, quote, finessed into giving your private information to the man. Stay safe and beware of vote by mail. This was called, of course, an egregious example of voter suppression. And they were sentenced to probation. Apparently in December, Last month, in 2020.

[Brace Belden]

At one point they staged, I guess because they weren't getting enough negative attention, they staged a fake FBI raid with actors they hired on their house that they actually portrayed as real without telling the actors they were going to portray.

[Pablo Torre]

It as they stolen valor. A swatting.

[Brace Belden]

It wasn't a swat, it was like a raid. It was like, it was like the FBI was, was doing lawfare on them. Actually, surprisingly, there's been way less legal repercussions for these guys than you think they would be.

[Pablo Torre]

Right.

[Brace Belden]

Because they are real. Like, they are. And I guarantee they are. Like, like, like, I know that a lot of people, even people who like Trump are, are. And of course, like, obviously people know I'm a lifelong conservative, right. I came up in the conservative movement, I was groomed in the conservative movement. I've groomed others in the conservative movement. And, and so I, and obviously, like, I'm, I'm in Trump world. And the fact that, you know, I, I, you know, I'm, I'm dating one of his sons. And, and, and, but like, Laura Loomer is kind of the one of these people that's really stuck around and gained prominence, but Jacob Wohl is like a less successful Laura Loomer. And although now that I see this $960,000, I'm like, I think he might be a more successful Laura Loomer.

[Pablo Torre]

And that's the thing with this story, is that these guys, you'd forgotten, like, dustbin level characters, have emerged as incredibly successful pardon lobbyists. And so on November 14, 2025, seven months after the judge celebrated Schwartz's conviction, this being the guy, you know, with the nursing home stuff, Donald Trump grants Schwartz a full and unconditional pardon. Yes, we could spend the rest of this episode just like, talking about stories like this, like the Trevor Milton guy.

[Brace Belden]

Nicola. Yeah. Which is his fake, his fake semi truck.

[Pablo Torre]

Yes, the fake hydrogen powered truck company.

[Brace Belden]

Amazing idea, though, to like, take a video of your. I mean, this is the most famous thing about it, having the truck, like taking a video, like, look, our product is working and it's a truck truck, but you just rolled the truck downhill without any actually working parts in it.

[Pablo Torre]

He was found guilty in 2022 of securities and wire fraud. Federal prosecutors charged him in 2021 with defrauding investors. Some had lost their retirement savings. Others had never invested in the stock market before. Again, just like classic predatory, like, caricature of a scammer scammer stuff. And I mean, we're Talking about this giant deception, this fake video. And on March 27, 2025, Donald Trump pardons Trevor Milton.

[Brace Belden]

Yes.

[Pablo Torre]

And how he got pardoned. In this case, a $1.8 million donation to a Trump re election campaign fund less than a month before the 2024 election. Him and his wife donate and Also he hires two lawyers with Trump connections. One is Mark McCasey, who's represented Trump organization before. The other, to bring us back to a certain woman once in Tampa, her brother, Brad Bondi.

[Brace Belden]

Brad Bondi.

[Pablo Torre]

BB much like Barry Bonds. Another, much like Brace Belden, who also.

[Brace Belden]

Juices to be clear and is corrupt.

[Pablo Torre]

But Brad Bondi and Mark McCasey, combined with the millions result in a victory lap on Twitter as. Yeah, this dude post this.

[Brace Belden]

What's up, guys? Oh, my gosh. Oh, you won't believe just what happened. Sorry, it's. It's pretty hard for me to talk about, but probably the best day I've had in five years. I am now officially pardoned by the President of the United States. 45, 547. An amazing man that cared enough to call me personally to tell me how much of an injustice this all was done by the same offices that harassed and prosecuted him. And I'm now officially 100% pardoned.

[Pablo Torre]

The fact that he's driving and doing that is also just perfect.

[Brace Belden]

Let's see the car are you driving in, Nicola.

[Pablo Torre]

So the pardon notably comes two weeks after federal prosecutors urged a district court judge to order Trevor Milton to pay a total of 600, 260 million dollars in restitution.

[Brace Belden]

Okay, well, that's. You can't do that.

[Pablo Torre]

What a deal, though.

[Brace Belden]

I know. Well, it's, it's interesting because if I'm not saying this happened, but if I did owe a lot of money in restitution, I would put forth somebody to maybe talk to somebody in Trump world and be like, maybe a percent goes to a certain something and I don't actually have to pay the full amount due to a part.

[Pablo Torre]

It is fundamentally changing the concept of what crime even means anymore. Like what the law even is anymore.

[Brace Belden]

Yes. I mean, that's something that's so shocking about all of this. Right. Is Trump's second term Trump's first term too? But like Trump's second term has been like this law and order. I'm restoring order to America. And since then, he has openly encouraged corruption, not only in his own orbit, but in these, like, various industries that he has occurred a lot of support from, like the crypto industry, the cz Thing. Amazing.

[Pablo Torre]

So, so my Trump board lawyer source, like, listen, this was last week. He was like, listen, we've been talking about this pardon stuff for a while. You should know that the block's hotter than it's been before because of the CZ thing. The founder of the crypto exchange Binance.

[Brace Belden]

A man named Changpeng Zhao, also known.

[Pablo Torre]

Simply as cz, is one of the latest recipients of a controversial presidential pardon. President Trump told CNN's Caitlin Collins last month that the pardon, quote, was recommended by a of lot. And in an interview with 60 Minutes that aired last night, he reiterated a striking admission about the pardon.

[Liz Oyer]

Why did you pardon him?

[Brace Belden]

Okay, are you ready? I don't know who he is. I know he got a four month sentence or something like that. And I heard it was a Biden witch hunt. I can only tell you this. My sons are into it. I'm glad they are because it's probably a great industry. Crypto. The president, the CZ thing I think was tough if you're trying to get a pardon during, because the CZ thing I think was the most obvious.

[Pablo Torre]

So Changpeng Zhao, founder of Binance, he hires a hunting buddy of Donald Trump Jr. Yep, this guy, Chaz McDowell. His lobbying firm is called Checkmate Government Relations, one of the highest earning shops in Washington during this second administration. By the way, they made $7.1 million in revenue in the last three months alone. @ least at the time of the publishing of this article. They didn't have a Washington office until this year. Now there's like boom time. Millions and millions of dollars for one month's work. Binance & CZ paycheck mate, $450,000 for one month. And then three weeks after the inauguration, Binance & CZ, in its individual capacity, they both hire Theresa Goody Guillen. Yes, this is a crypto lawyer. Trump had considered her to lead the sec. Instead, she is again, pardon lobbying, basically. And in the process, in addition to this, Binance happened to establish business ties with a certain highly profitable Trump family crypto venture called.

[Brace Belden]

World Liberty Financial. But don't say that like it's. It's such a bad thing because, okay, yes, there's some shady characters involved in this, but there's.

[Verizon Advertiser]

Also the uae. Changping Zhao applied for a presidential pardon, and shortly after the application, he was at the center of a blockbuster deal that put World Liberty on the map. Zhao is a citizen of the United Arab Emirates in the Persian Gulf. And in May, an emirati Fund put $2 billion in Zhao's Binance of all the currencies in the world. The deal was done in.

[Brace Belden]

World Liberty crypto. They basically did something they didn't need to do that gave World Liberty Financial a bunch of money and it was like, clearly a way to put Trump.

[Pablo Torre]

On the take. At this point in the episode, you might be listening and being like, surely, surely there is some mechanism in which someone in government has raised their hand and said, this seems like it shouldn't happen anymore. And the reality is that constitutionally, this broad unlimited power to grant pardons.

[Brace Belden]

Is.

[Pablo Torre]

Super clear. Yeah. As Donald Trump's right.

[Brace Belden]

Yes, he can absolutely do.

[Pablo Torre]

All of this. There's no legal question. He can totally do it. And as my Trump World source put it, the only mechanism that prevented Joe Biden from doing it throughout his second term as well, like this was fundamentally shame in sleep. And.

[Brace Belden]

Sleep he had. He was too sleepy to do.

[Pablo Torre]

Much of it.

[Brace Belden]

He was sundowning. Well, they're trying to, they're, you see, they're trying to overturn the Biden pardon. The guy claiming that they were going.

[Pablo Torre]

To auto pen. Right, right, right. But, but this whole thing, I mean, as Liz lawyer put it, like, I suppose Congress.

[Liz Oyer]

Could do something. Another thing that we're not seeing is rigorous requirements around reporting of lobbying and legal services in connection with these pardons. So it's sort of a very opaque, murky area. We know there this booming pardon economy that has cropped up, but we don't know all the payments that have changed hands and all of the players. And Congress could certainly do a great deal more to require disclosures in that area so that we can at least trace where the.

[Pablo Torre]

Money is going. And unfortunately, they're not even bothering to announce when the pardons are being made. They're just, like, happening. And you find out about them later and you're like, oh, yeah, that.

[Brace Belden]

That just happened. It boggles my mind how even, like, a Trump partisan would be okay with this.

[Pablo Torre]

A little bit. And that's the thing. It's like we're testing Outer Limits on what even matters anymore. And the answer truly is nothing. The answer is that nothing matters. From Daryl Strawberry to the highest levels of geopolitics, these things are being granted with a logic that is not even being defended. No, not even pretending.

[Brace Belden]

To defend it. They don't try to defend these in, like, really legal or moral, ethical terms or political terms even. They're like, we're doing this because we can. Obviously, the US Government has done a lot of things because the US Government can. A lot of them have been very bad. But to even this is it feels like a leap in terms of even the way that it thinks of itself or at least openly thinks of itself. And to have somebody so self consciously governed in the way of like a barbarian warlord like this, but somebody who's in charge of the most powerful country in the world, I think it should give people pause. Because if the government says explicitly in many of these cases that there is one law, law that you have to follow, and if you don't follow it, we can do anything to you that we want, we can drum you up on terror charges, we can do this. But our friends, anybody that that is either willing to pay us or in league with us, they don't have to.

[Pablo Torre]

Follow the law. All which is to say that the question now is who will Trump pardon next? Because there are some good candidates.

[Brace Belden]

On the board. Well, we got to get the Kalshi.

[Pablo Torre]

Sponsorship up, right?

[Brace Belden]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

That'S right. Yeah. Polymarket. But this is where I do need to note that we have, as of just last week, finally found something resembling a bridge too far. Because Donald Trump told the New York Times in a big interview Wednesday that Diddy Sean Combs wrote a letter to him seeking a pardon, but Trump is not considering granting their request. The betting line on Ghislaine Maxwell, meanwhile, did not come up. But speaking of gambling on everything, there is one more candidate, one more potential pardon client for this administration that I needed to talk to Brace about in order to bring us back to where we started. This might be insulting. Do you know who.

[Brace Belden]

Pete Rose is? It sounds as if that's the name of a famous lover.

[Pablo Torre]

Like Don Juan on He is like Daryl Strawberry, a guy who, if he was alive, could text an emoji as.

[Brace Belden]

His signature of the ro and that would be what, a what an.

[Pablo Torre]

Emoji to text. At the time of his death in September 2024 at age 83, Pete Rose was not only Major League Baseball's all time hit king. Pete Rose, of course, was the guy who got banned by the sport for betting on baseball while managing the Cincinnati Red Threats, although he's always maintained that he never bet against his team. But he's also notably here, the guy who spent five months in prison after pleading guilty to tax.

[Brace Belden]

Evasion in 1990. Well, how much, how much.

[Pablo Torre]

Was the evasion? He admitted he failed to report $354,968. Dude, that's not that much in income from autograph appearances in memorabilia, much like.

[Brace Belden]

Mr. Strawberry Emotion. Fellas, you gotta start paying Taxes on these autographs. I'm telling you.

[Pablo Torre]

I'm telling you. But last March, with Cooperstown in mind, Donald Trump had vowed to give Pete Rose a very special and even more spiritual distinction. The.

[Brace Belden]

Posthumous presidential pardon. Interesting. For me, I'm like. Unless you like, like killed multiple people or like raped or something, I feel like after you die you should be pardoned. You know, like after you. It's like, you know, it's, it's like. Not.

[Pablo Torre]

Like.

[Brace Belden]

Cuz it's. It's. What do you. You can't. Like. There's.

[Pablo Torre]

No recidivism there. Bryce, that is the least Catholic thing.

[Brace Belden]

You'Ve ever said. What are you talking about? Catholics have this thing. I found out about this at a party a couple years ago. Go. Catholics have like a waiting room for heaven that you have to go to. It's purgatory. Or it's a little.

[Pablo Torre]

Bit hell too. Yeah. A bit of a narthex. A narthex in the metaphysical stuff. Oh, God, you don't know.

[Brace Belden]

About narthexes. No. Is that.

[Pablo Torre]

Like Pete Rose? It's.

[Brace Belden]

Like an antechamber. So there's a. There's.

[Pablo Torre]

A heavenly antechamber. The question is, how do you get moved on up from the. The antechamber of baseball heaven and beyond the pearly gates of Cooperstown, N.Y. where of course, the Baseball.

[Brace Belden]

Hall of Famer. Which is better.

[Pablo Torre]

Than heaven. Yeah. What this is now, though, because it was said in March, is a question. Why hasn't it happened yet? Which means that Pete Rose posthumously also needs, I think, a pardon lobbyist. He needs someone to agitate on his behalf here on.

[Brace Belden]

Our mortal coil. I'll say this. Obviously, ghosts are real. Pete, if you're watching this from your little. For your little iPad.

[Pablo Torre]

In heaven, if you're watching this.

[Brace Belden]

Hire Mel Gibson. Hire Mel Gibson. Oh my God, that's.

[Pablo Torre]

The perfect guy. Well, actually, you know what? Now that I think about Mel.

[Brace Belden]

Gibson's.

[Pablo Torre]

Cinematic oeuvre. Yeah. He has once famously said that you may take our lives, but you will never.

[Verizon Advertiser]

Take.

[Brace Belden]

Our freedom. Yes. In Braveheart. Is there a ghost in that movie? I'm.

[Pablo Torre]

Failing to follow. I think I was. No, I was thinking of Passion.

[Brace Belden]

Of the Christ. Passion of the Christ. Got you. But there is. But he's making a second one that does feature Christ coming back. And so this is what I'm saying, this is what I'm saying. When that happens, Pete Rose, you need to possess Jim Cavisio when you do this, because if ghost real. Obviously possession is real. And you need to accompany Mel Gibson, drive drunk to Mar A Lago. Every single minority you see just like, don't say anything. Don't say anything. And then get there and be like, you know what? Pete.

[Pablo Torre]

Needs a pardon. The hit king.

[Brace Belden]

Must reign again. He must reign again because if he does get pardoned, he might come back. Back. We.

[Pablo Torre]

Don'T know that. This has been Pablo Torre finds Out. A Meadowlark Media production and I'll talk to.

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[Brace Belden]

[e-mail] for details. Hey, it's.

[Raj]

Raj and Noah. And we're back with a new season of Am I Doing It Wrong? The show that explores the all too human anxieties we have about trying to get.

[Noah]

Our lives right. Because we're still doing a lot.

[Raj]

Of stuff wrong. But who isn't? That's why each week we're talking about the topics that we could all use a little helping hit with. Whether it's making new friends as an adult, managing our emotions.

[Noah]

Or even dreaming, we'll be talking to experts in their fields who are definitely doing things right so the rest of us can be a bit wiser and a lot better equipped to handle whatever life.

[Raj]

Throws at us. Subscribe now and listen to new episodes of Am I Doing It Wrong? Dropping every Thursday starting January 1st, wherever you.

[Noah]

Get your podcasts. And for the first time ever, we're gonna have full video episodes on YouTube. Because as long as there are things to get wrong, we're going to be right here to help you.

[Brace Belden]

Do them better. ACAST powers the.

[Raj]

World'S best podcasts. Here's a show.

[Brace Belden]

That we recommend. Hey, it's.

[Raj]

Raj and Noah. And we're back with a new season of Am I Doing It Wrong? The show that explores the all too human anxieties we have about trying to get.

[Noah]

Our lives right. Because we're still doing a lot.

[Raj]

Of stuff wrong. But who isn't? That's why each week we're talking about the topics that we could all use a little helping hit with. Whether it's making new friends as an adult, managing our emotions.

[Noah]

Or even dreaming, we'll be talking to experts in their fields who are definitely doing things right, so the rest of us can be a bit wiser and a lot better equipped to handle whatever life.

[Raj]

Throws at us. Subscribe now and listen to new episodes of Am I Doing It Wrong? Dropping every Thursday starting January 1st, wherever you.

[Noah]

Get your podcasts. And for the first time ever, we're gonna have full video episodes on YouTube. Because as long as there are things to get wrong, we're going to be right here to help you.

[Brace Belden]

Do them.

[Raj]

Better.

[Brace Belden]

Love y'. All. Acast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize.

[Pablo Torre]

Their.