US rapper Boosie seeks $300,000 refund after failed Trump pardon bid

Louisiana rapper Boosie Badazz is reportedly looking to claw back $300,000 from a firm of Washington DC lobbyists after they failed to secure a Donald Trump pardon that he hired them to pursue over his conviction on charges of possessing a loaded weapon at music video shooting in 2023.

Boosie – whose legal name is Torence Hatch and who hails from his home state’s capital of Baton Rouge – paid JM Burkman & Associates $600,000 in 2025 to advance his push for a pardon from the US president, according to a report on Monday from Notus, which covers the federal government.

But a pardon was not forthcoming, and Boosie is now taking up the issue through arbitration, potentially portending a genre of litigation stemming from Trump’s habit during his second presidency of doling out pardons en masse to people whom he considers to be aligned with him and were convicted of federal crimes.

In the shadowy world of the so-called “clemency economy”, millions of dollars have been paid to lobbyists, lawyers and pardon advocates bearing proffers of access to Trump.

Federal lobbying records show the firm Hatch hired with the aim of securing a pardon from Trump registered to contact the White House, the US justice department and Congress.

The lobbyists told Hatch’s attorneys that Trump had signed the pardon and that they were waiting for the White House to announce it, but the clemency was never announced, according to Notus.

Meanwhile, Notus said, the Trump White House told Hatch’s attorney that it had not received such a request.

The ensuing legal dispute between Hatch and the lobbyists – Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman – centers on whether the firm has a contractual obligation to return half of a $600,000 fee the organization was paid upfront. The firm disputes that it had agreed to return half of the money if no pardon materialized.

Jack Burkman, of JM Burkman & Associates, at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Oxon Hill, Maryland. Photograph: Newscom/Alamy

Burkman has a connection to a pardon-related case that surfaced in March, when New York lawyer and lobbyist Joshua Nass was charged with attempting to extort money from a former client and the client’s son over an alleged $500,000 debt. Nass was involved in a presidential pardon issued to Joseph Schwartz, a nursing home operator convicted of fraud who had also hired Burkman.

Hatch’s dispute over his unsuccessfully sought pardon stems from a guilty plea he made with federal prosecutors to avoid prison time for having possessed a loaded pistol despite his status as a convicted felon, including a 2011 drug-trafficking conviction.

During a video shoot in San Diego in 2023, Hatch was observed by police with the handgun in his waistband. Police at the time were monitoring an Instagram Live video for a member of the Neighborhood Crips street gang.

They determined the location of the video and conducted a traffic stop, leading them to Hatch’s weapon.

Under the subsequent plea deal, Hatch was sentenced to three years of supervised release, 300 hours of community service and a $50,000 fine.

His failed push to get Trump to remove that gun conviction from his federal rap sheet was meant to save him from serving that sentence. And it set the stage for the fee-related dispute between Hatch and Burkman and Wohl’s lobbying firm.

According to Notus, the lobbyists told Hatch’s side they were effectively bankrupt. The firm also reportedly said in a statement that “no provision to return half the fee was ever actually agreed to”.

Internet activist Jacob Wohl speaks during a news conference in 2018. Photograph: Joshua Roberts/Reuters

Boosie told Notus that when the lobbyists were first contacted, “they were real aggressive – they were talking like they had Trump on speed dial.”

Other lawyers and pardon advocates told the outlet that a refund clause is highly unusual.

Burkman told the outlet that it had lobbied hard for Hatch, including “a massive, highly tailored advocacy campaign across Congress, the executive branch and leading political influencers and media figures.

“We continue to believe that Boosie very much deserves a pardon.”

The firm’s efforts, they said, included lobbying Trump ally Laura Loomer to ask Natalie Harp, the president’s executive assistant, to bring the application to Trump. Wohl, according to Notus, was reported to have said that Loomer “is the person for the Jewish guys”.

Burkman and Wohl had compiled a colorful track record before getting locked into their dispute with the rapper responsible for US southern hip-hop classics such as Wipe Me Down and Set It Off – and contributing to Webbie’s Independent.

In 2022, the lobbyists pleaded guilty in Ohio to running an illegal robocall campaign that allegedly targeted Black voters. They later settled the case, paying $1.25m to New York authorities and $5m to the FCC.

Notus also alluded to media reports about claims that the pair unsuccessfully tried to manufacture sexual harassment and assault allegations against the former transport secretary Pete Buttigieg as well as the late former special counsel Robert Mueller, who investigated Russian interference in the 2016 election that vaulted Trump to his first presidency.

And, Notus noted, they also fooled the Washington Post in to reporting on a fake FBI raid on Burkman’s home.