Former lawmaker says Trump pardoned him 2 weeks into campaign finance scheme sentence
President Trump pardoned a former Tennessee Republican lawmaker who was two weeks into his 21-month prison sentence for a campaign finance scheme.
Former state Sen. Brian Kelsey announced his pardon in a post online.
“God used @realDonaldTrump to save me from the weaponized Biden DOJ. Yesterday, I received a full and unconditional pardon from an act that even my chief accuser admitted I didn’t commit,” Kelsey said on the social platform X.
“Thank you for all your prayers! May God bless America, despite the prosecutorial sins it committed against me, President Trump, and others over the past four years,” he said. “And God bless @POTUS Donald J. Trump for Making America Great Again!”
Kelsey had been ordered to report to a federal minimum security satellite camp in Ashland, Ky., on Feb. 24. After receiving Trump’s pardon, authorities were ordered to release him immediately, The Associated Press reported.
Kelsey pleaded guilty in November 2022 to charges related to trying to use campaign funds from his Tennessee state Senate campaign committee in a bid for the U.S. Congress.
He was indicted in 2021, accused of transferring $91,000 of contributions made to a political party or PAC to a national organization that financed his 2016 House campaign advertisements.
Kelsey said he welcomed the investigation and blamed the Biden administration for the prosecution.
When his co-defendant pleaded guilty, Kelsey did too. He was later unsuccessful in rescinding his guilty plea in March 2023, citing an “unsure heart and a confused mind.”
U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw denied Kelsey’s previous attempts to change the charges as late as last month.
The Associated Press contributed.
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