Lesley Stahl Attacked Trump Over Pardons and Missed the Thing Sitting Across the Aisle

60 Minutes built its entire brand on hard-hitting investigations that expose real corruption in Washington.

Lesley Stahl aired a season premiere accusing Trump insiders of selling pardons for millions of dollars.

The report buried one fact about its lead witness that changes the entire story.

What 60 Minutes Actually Alleged

The September 14, 2026 season premiere, built around what Stahl called a "marketplace of money and mercy," sent a hidden camera into a meeting where a self-described broker pitched a clemency seeker on buying access to Trump for as much as three million dollars.

Stahl told viewers roughly 70 percent of Trump's second-term clemency actions bypassed Justice Department review, a figure that climbs to 92 percent once January 6 defendants are counted.

Two of the men CBS built the segment around, Jack Burkman and Jacob Wohl, are convicted felons themselves.

Rapper Boosie Badazz told Stahl he paid the pair six hundred thousand dollars for a pardon that never materialized, and that when he demanded a refund, Burkman and Wohl refused and denied the arrangement he described.

When Stahl pressed Wohl on camera about charging a prospective client three hundred thousand dollars, he did not flinch.

"There's nothing corrupt about it," Wohl told her. "There's nothing improper about it."

That is a real allegation about real grifters, and Republicans should want it run down as much as anyone.

The White House was not shy about pushing back.

Spokeswoman Lauren Bis said anyone paying brokers like these would be "foolishly wasting their money," and insisted Trump has no relationship with the men CBS featured.

Bis pointed to what she called a robust review process running through White House counsel, the Justice Department, and pardon czar Alice Johnson before any clemency reaches the president's desk.

The Segment Never Mentioned Its Own Star Witness Got a Pardon

Democrat Congressman Jamie Raskin is the man most likely to lead a House investigation if Trump's pardons ever become a formal probe.

60 Minutes never told viewers that Raskin himself was pardoned by Joe Biden.

A fair report leads with that fact before handing Raskin credibility as the aggrieved party demanding answers.

CBS also never told viewers that most of what aired had already run in The New York Times six months earlier about Burkman and Wohl specifically.

A season-premiere "investigation" built substantially on someone else's reporting from half a year prior is not the bombshell CBS sold it as.

Biden Pardoned the Committee Before Anyone Asked

Raskin's pardon was not a one-off.

On January 20, 2025, hours before leaving office, Biden preemptively pardoned Dr. Anthony Fauci, General Mark Milley, Jan. 6 committee chairman Bennie Thompson, vice chair Liz Cheney, Raskin, the committee's staff, and several members of his family, none of them charged with anything.

Biden said the public servants among them did not deserve to be "the targets of unjustified and politically motivated prosecutions," and insisted the pardons were "not an acknowledgment that any individual engaged in any wrongdoing."

Raskin himself called receiving a pardon he never asked for "a sign of our strange times."

That is the same Raskin a CBS producer would need to book first if a House investigation into Trump's pardons ever gets off the ground – a congressman who accepted a blanket pardon from the outgoing president rather than let voters or courts settle whether he needed one.

The Clinton Comparison CBS Skipped Entirely

Hillary Clinton's brothers, Hugh and Tony Rodham, collected roughly four hundred thousand dollars combined lobbying for pardons during Bill Clinton's final days in office.

That story ran everywhere at the time.

60 Minutes had every opportunity to note that pardon-for-pay schemes are not a Trump invention, and chose not to.

Here is the part CBS still has not answered: for all the undercover footage and dramatic framing, the report offers no actual proof tying Trump himself to a single dollar these alleged brokers collected.

Burkman and Wohl being con men chasing gullible clients is a real story.

Turning that story into an indictment of the president, while leaving out that the committee chairman waiting in the wings received a pardon too, reads less like journalism and more like a script with one side missing.

Sources:

• CBS News, "Pardon brokers offer to 'put pressure on the president,' at sky-high prices," 60 Minutes transcript, September 14, 2026.
• Fox News, "White House denies Trump influenced by pardon brokers after 60 Minutes investigation," September 2026.
• RealClearInvestigations, "60 Minutes Airs Misleading Report on Trump Pardons," September 23, 2026.
• CBS News, "Biden preemptively pardons Anthony Fauci, Mark Milley and Jan. 6 committee," January 20, 2025.
• NPR, "Jan. 6 committee member Jamie Raskin calls Biden pardon 'a sign of our strange times,'" January 20, 2025.
• The New York Times, prior reporting on Jack Burkman and Jacob Wohl pardon-brokering claims, cited via RealClearInvestigations, March 2026.