Rapper Boosie Badazz had a problem. In 2025 the Louisiana-based artist, who had already been convicted of a felony, was facing up to 10 years in prison and $250,000 in fines for being found in possession of a weapon.
As NOTUS reported Monday, Boosie (whose legal name is Torence Hatch) gave $600,000 to right-wing lobbying firm JM Burkman and Associates to help him get a pardon from President Donald Trump and says he was told on New Year’s Day that it had been secured.
But it wasn’t. On Jan. 13, 2026, in exchange for his guilty plea, a federal judge sentenced him to three years’ probation, 300 hours of community service and a $50,000 fine, a fraction of the amount he paid in an attempt to get a pardon.
Here it is July, and Boosie hasn’t been pardoned. And not only is he trying to get at least half his money back, he’s making a social media spectacle by calling out the right-wing influencers he says were supposed to help sell his case to Trump, according to the firm’s associates.
Boosie’s case is another illustration of the rottenness of the pardon system in Trump’s presidency.
Read the full column here.
