President Donald Trump has pardoned Brian Kelsey, a former Tennessee lawmaker who pleaded guilty to a campaign finance scheme in 2022, after the Republican served just two weeks of his 21-month prison sentence.
Kelsey said on social media after his release Tuesday that he believed “God used Donald Trump to save me from the weaponized Biden DOJ.”
“May God bless America, despite the prosecutorial sins it committed against me, President Trump, and others the past four years,” he added. “And God bless Donald J. Trump for Making America Great Again!”
Kelsey pleaded guilty in November 2022 to illegally transferring money from his state Senate campaign committee to a national organization that supported his failed 2016 bid for U.S. Congress, including filing false campaign finance reports to conceal the transfer.
In March 2023, the Georgetown University-educated attorney attempted to reverse his plea, telling the judge he “was in a confused state mentally” when he pleaded guilty “and unable to fully consider the ramifications.”
Kelsey initially dismissed the indictment as a “political witch hunt” and indicated he’d take the case to trial. But after a co-defendant pleaded guilty and began cooperating with federal authorities, he changed his tune.
In a related development, earlier this week the Trump administration gutted the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section, according to NBC News. The unit prosecutes politicians accused of corruption.
A Justice Department spokesperson told The Associated Press it’s “taking a broad look” at the unit but wouldn’t confirm any final decisions have been made.
The president is no stranger to controversial pardons. Trump kicked off his second term with a mass pardon of thousands of Jan. 6 defendants, many of whom were convicted of violent offenses.
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One such man, Andrew Taake, was sentenced to six years in prison for assaulting police on Jan. 6, then released even though he also faces charges for allegedly soliciting a minor online.
Another, a 42-year-old Indiana man named Matthew Huttle, was shot and killed days after the pardon during what police say was an altercation during a traffic stop.
A third man pardoned by Trump, Daniel Ball, was immediately rearrested on an outstanding warrant for a federal gun charge.
