In a significant turn of events, former Republican Tennessee lawmaker Brian Kelsey has been granted a pardon by President Donald Trump. Kelsey, who was just two weeks into serving a 21-month prison sentence, faced charges related to an unlawful campaign finance scheme to which he had pled guilty in 2022. He attempted to withdraw his plea, although unsuccessfully.
Kelsey revealed the presidential pardon on social media on Tuesday evening. Authorities were directed to release him from the Federal Correctional Institution Ashland’s minimum-security satellite camp in Kentucky. A document provided by Kelsey’s attorney confirmed that he received a “full and unconditional pardon.”
“May God bless America, despite the prosecutorial sins it committed against me, President Trump, and others the past four years,” Kelsey stated in his post. Now 47, Kelsey had admitted to funneling campaign funds from his state legislative seat to support his unsuccessful 2016 congressional campaign.
After being indicted in October 2021, Kelsey initially described the prosecution as a witch hunt, criticizing then-President Joe Biden’s administration. He decided to plead guilty following a co-defendant’s admission to the charges in October. However, Kelsey continued to denounce the Biden administration on Tuesday, stating, “God used Donald Trump to save me from the weaponized Biden DOJ,” in reference to the Department of Justice.
The origins of Kelsey’s legal troubles trace back to a 2017 complaint by the Campaign Legal Center, during Trump’s first term, with both the Federal Election Commission and the Department of Justice scrutinizing his campaign finance dealings. Kelsey’s March 2023 appeal to retract his guilty plea failed, as he argued that he accepted the plea with “an unsure heart and a confused mind” due to personal circumstances, including his father’s terminal illness and the birth of his twin sons.
Kelsey followed his then-attorneys’ recommendation, which expected probation as the likely outcome. However, U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw in Nashville denied his attempt to change the plea in May 2023, expressing disbelief that Kelsey, a Georgetown University-educated lawyer and former state senator, did not grasp the seriousness of pleading guilty.
Kelsey also disputed the notion that prosecutors had violated his plea agreement, but his challenge was rejected. In September, he was permitted to remain out of prison until his appeal was concluded, which ultimately did not succeed. Last month, Kelsey requested the court to allow him to stay free, arguing he had poor legal representation and claiming his innocence was supported by recordings from two key witnesses, his co-defendant Joshua Smith and former GOP Representative Jeremy Durham. The judge replied that Kelsey had given an “unconditional admission of guilt” under threat of perjury.
As Kelsey awaited the outcome of another appeal, the pardon was issued. Joshua Smith, the co-defendant, pleaded guilty and received a probation sentence of five years. The indictment alleged that Kelsey, Smith, and others clandestinely transferred $91,000, involving $66,000 from Kelsey’s state Senate campaign committee. This was further compounded by $25,000 from a nonprofit aimed at legal justice advocacy, directing these funds to a national political organization for ads supporting Kelsey’s 2016 congressional bid. The scheme resulted in the national political group filing incorrect campaign finance reports and making excessive illegal contributions to Kelsey.
While the national organization was not named in the indictment, the Campaign Legal Center’s 2017 complaint identified the American Conservative Union as having made coordinated independent expenditures with Kelsey’s campaign. The American Conservative Union declared its cooperation with the investigation. Saurav Ghosh, the Campaign Legal Center’s director, condemned Trump’s pardon of Kelsey, remarking that it “demonstrates an open hostility and contempt for accountability and the rule of law.”
Kelsey, an attorney from Germantown, commenced his political career in 2004 as a state representative. He advanced to the Senate in 2009, serving crucial roles including chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is responsible for civil and criminal law oversight. He chose not to run for reelection in 2022, after his law license was suspended following the guilty plea.