GM, Welcome Back to the Dead Drop.

On March 16, 2026, President Trump signed an executive order establishing the Task Force to Eliminate Fraud. Vice President Vance chairs it. The stated mission is to hunt down every dollar of waste, fraud, and abuse in federal benefit programs. The order names Minnesota by name. It names Somali immigrant communities. It targets welfare, Medicaid, food stamps, and childcare programs. It demands 30-day reports and 90-day implementation plans. It directs the Attorney General to encourage private citizens to file fraud lawsuits against benefit recipients.

The same president who signed that order has, since returning to office in January 2025, pardoned or commuted the sentences of more than 30 individuals convicted of financial crimes including wire fraud, bank fraud, securities fraud, tax evasion, Medicare and Medicaid fraud, money laundering, bribery, and conspiracy to defraud the United States.

NBC News analyzed the first 88 individual pardons of this term and found that more than half were for white-collar financial offenses. Half the recipients were business executives or politicians. The combined restitution, fines, and forfeitures erased by these clemency actions now exceeds ~$1.3 billion.

For context, President Biden's 80 individual pardons over four years carried roughly $688,000 in combined financial penalties. That is more than 2000x smaller.

The war on fraud is real. It just has a velvet rope.

This morning, ProPublica published an investigation into Joseph Schwartz, and his story captures everything this newsletter has been arguing for months in a single, suffocating case study.

Schwartz ran a nursing home empire called Skyline Healthcare out of a second-floor office above a pizza parlor in Wood-Ridge, New Jersey. He sold a Florida insurance business for $22 million in 2015 and used the money to start buying nursing homes at a pace that should have alarmed everyone watching. By 2017, Skyline and its related companies controlled roughly 100 facilities across 11 states, caring for approximately 15,000 residents. The growth was breathtaking. The business model underneath it was rotten from the foundation up.

Schwartz withheld $39 million in payroll taxes from his employees' paychecks and never sent the money to the IRS. He paid himself $5 million as what federal prosecutors later described as a "ghost employee" at several of his own facilities. He overbilled Medicaid by submitting false information that inflated the rates his facilities received. And while he was extracting every dollar he could reach from the operation, his nursing homes were running out of food, out of medical supplies, out of the staff required to keep human beings alive.

In South Dakota, a vice president overseeing 18 Schwartz-owned facilities began sending increasingly desperate emails to state health officials. Debbie Menzenberg wrote that Schwartz's son, an executive officer for Skyline, had called to say the state "has to do something," that there was no money, that he told her to discharge residents. Then the emails escalated: "I need water paid at Bella Vista and Prairie Hills today or it will be SHUT OFF." Then: "Disconnect notice came today for Pierre May 8 electric." Then, in all caps, the kind of message that should follow a man for the rest of his life: "I NEED HELP!!!!!"

Health officials in six states eventually seized or transferred control of Schwartz's facilities, or simply relocated the residents to places where someone might feed them and keep the lights on.

The residents who couldn't get out paid with their bodies. Doris Coulson was a retired cardiac nurse, 71, admitted to Hillview Post Acute and Rehabilitation Center in Little Rock after Parkinson's disease left her at risk of choking when she swallowed. Her medical chart was marked "NPO," nothing by mouth. Then a nursing assistant found her unresponsive, hanging off the side of her bed, skin ashy, breathing shallow. She was taken to a hospital in a coma. Doctors found scrambled eggs in her lungs. She died of aspiration pneumonia several days later. Her daughter Melissa filed a wrongful death lawsuit. A judge awarded the family nearly $19 million.

They have never collected a cent.

Zelma Grissom was a mother of six who entered the same facility after brain surgery left her unable to move on her own. She depended entirely on staff to turn her in bed. Under Schwartz's cost-cutting, nobody turned her often enough. A wound-care nurse called the family into her room and showed them a severe pressure sore. Surgeons cut away infected tissue, leaving a large open wound. She developed infection after infection. During one late-night ambulance transfer, an emergency medical worker pulled her son aside and told him how his mother had arrived, how dirty and wet she was. She died of sepsis from the bedsores that nobody on Schwartz's skeleton crew had prevented. A judge awarded the family $15.7 million.

They have never collected a cent either.

Prosecutors believe Schwartz still controls more than $50 million in assets, routed through over 200 bank accounts. The sentencing judge, Susan Wigenton, looked at him in federal court and delivered the line that captures the architecture of American white-collar crime in nine words: "Not a single asset is in your name. Not one."

She sentenced him to three years. He served three months. He paid more than $1 million to lobbyists to press the White House, the Justice Department, and Congress on his behalf. Laura Loomer advocated for him on X, falsely claiming he had paid back "every dime." The White House called it "an example of over prosecution," a characterization directly contradicted by Schwartz's own guilty plea. He received a full presidential pardon in November 2025. Weeks later, he attended the White House Hanukkah party.

When Schwartz briefly entered Arkansas state custody on a separate Medicaid fraud conviction, the lawyers representing the dead women's families scrambled to depose him, to compel him under oath to reveal where the money is. The parole board released him after three weeks. Before they could ask a single question, the chance to follow the money disappeared.

"Apparently he's got money somewhere," Melissa Coulson told ProPublica.

Her lawyer hopes to find it.

Schwartz is not an outlier. He is the pattern.

Trevor Milton, founder of electric vehicle startup Nikola, was convicted by a jury of securities fraud and wire fraud for lying to investors about his company's technology. Prosecutors sought $676 million in restitution for defrauded shareholders, some of whom lost their life savings. Before the judge could even rule on the restitution amount, Trump pardoned him. Milton and his wife had donated $1.8 million to Trump's reelection campaign. After the pardon, Milton publicly stated he would not repay any of the investors. He called investing in his company "a legal way to gamble in America."

That $1.8 million donation erased $660 million in financial obligations. A 366:1 return. No venture fund on earth performs like that.

Side note: Milton's lead trial attorney was Brad Bondi, a partner at Paul Hastings and the brother of Attorney General Pam Bondi. Milton says Bondi did not work on the pardon application. Congressional investigators are less convinced. In March, lawmakers formally asked the DOJ inspector general to examine a "troubling pattern" of cases involving Brad Bondi's clients that have been dismissed, dropped, or resolved with extraordinary leniency since his sister took office. After the pardon, the SEC under the Trump administration also quietly dropped its civil enforcement cases against Milton, erasing any remaining consequences entirely. The man who defrauded investors of hundreds of millions walked away owing nothing to anyone.

Jason Galanis defrauded the Oglala Sioux Nation of $60 million in a tribal bond scheme, stealing from one of the poorest communities in America. Trump commuted his sentence in March 2025. Galanis walked out and immediately ran another Ponzi scheme. He is now serving 37 years for the new one. If you needed a single case to prove that presidential clemency for financial criminals does not produce rehabilitation, the man who committed a second fraud with the ink still wet on his commutation papers is that case.

Philip Esformes ran what the Justice Department itself called the largest healthcare fraud ever charged, a $1.3 billion Medicare and Medicaid scheme. Trump commuted his 20-year sentence in December 2020 after Esformes had served just 14 months. Changpeng Zhao, CEO of Binance, pleaded guilty to enabling money laundering on his cryptocurrency platform, a platform the DOJ said allowed funds to flow to terrorists, cybercriminals, and child abusers. Trump pardoned him. Days later, Binance began promoting a stablecoin connected to the Trump family's own crypto venture, World Liberty Financial.

The White House insists that paid lobbyists have no influence on pardons. The White House insists the president is focused on cases of overprosecution and political weaponization. The court records tell a different story, one where the common thread connecting the pardoned is not innocence or injustice but money, access, and political utility.

The Department of Justice maintains an official record of clemency grants. It is public. It is searchable. It contains the names, the crimes, and the financial penalties that were attached to each conviction. And almost nobody reads it, because the document is dry and bureaucratic and designed to disappear into the procedural machinery of government without attracting attention.

The Pardon Ledger is this newsletter's answer to that silence.

Starting today and continuing in every future edition, the Dead Drop will maintain a running record of financial crime pardons issued by this administration, sourced directly from DOJ clemency records and federal court filings. The full roster appears below. It will grow. The running total will be updated. The names will become familiar. Because the only thing that protects this kind of structural corruption from public accountability is the assumption that nobody is paying attention.

The Fraudfather is paying attention.

There are two frauds in America. The fraud they prosecute and the fraud they pardon. The street-level grift that makes headlines and earns prison time, and the structural grift that earns a presidential signature, a wiped record, and an invitation to the next White House holiday party.

The administration's fraud task force is hunting for food stamp errors in Minnesota, suspending Medicaid payments to states, and encouraging citizens to file lawsuits against benefit recipients. The same administration has pardoned a nursing home owner whose patients died because he stripped their facilities to pay himself, a startup founder who lied to investors and then refused to pay them back, a man who stole $60 million from a Native American tribe and immediately ran another scam, and the CEO of a crypto exchange that the DOJ said enabled child abusers and terrorists.

The combined restitution erased by these pardons is more than $1.3 billion. The combined restitution targeted by the fraud task force will never approach that number, not if it runs for a decade, because the scale of the fraud they pardon dwarfs the scale of the fraud they prosecute by orders of magnitude.

This is not hypocrisy. Hypocrisy implies a contradiction the speaker doesn't notice. This is architecture. This is the system working exactly as designed, with a velvet rope separating the fraud that gets punished from the fraud that gets a pardon, a lobbyist, and a seat at the Christmas party.

The Pardon Ledger starts today. It will not stop until the list stops growing.

Stay sharp. Trust slowly. Verify everything.

Trevor Milton | Securities fraud, wire fraud | $660,880,000 erased Founder of electric vehicle startup Nikola. Convicted by jury of lying to investors about company technology. Prosecutors sought $676M in restitution for shareholders who lost their life savings. Donated $1.8M to Trump campaign. Publicly stated he will not repay investors. Full pardon, March 2025.

HDR Global Trading Ltd. | Bank Secrecy Act violations | $100,000,000 erased The corporation that owned the BitMEX crypto exchange was itself pardoned. DOJ said the platform allowed funds to flow to terrorists, cybercriminals, and child abusers. Full pardon, March 2025.

Lawrence Duran | Healthcare fraud | $87,533,863 erased Medicare/Medicaid fraud scheme. Full pardon, January 2026.

Jason Galanis | Securities fraud, investment adviser fraud | $80,817,513 erased Defrauded the Oglala Sioux Nation of $60M, stealing from one of the poorest communities in America. Sentence commuted, March 2025. Subsequently convicted of a new Ponzi scheme. Currently serving 37 years for the second fraud.

Carlos Watson / Ozy Media, Inc. | Securities fraud, wire fraud | $73,538,307 erased CEO fabricated business metrics and relationships to defraud investors. Both the executive and the corporate entity were pardoned. Full pardon, January 2026.

Devon Archer | Wire fraud conspiracy | $43,427,436 erased Convicted in $60M tribal bond fraud against the Oglala Sioux Nation. Former Hunter Biden business partner. Full pardon, May 2025.

Joseph Schwartz | Payroll tax fraud ($39M scheme), Medicaid fraud | ~$34,000,000 remaining Nursing home operator. Withheld $39M in employee payroll taxes. Paid himself $5M as ghost employee. Overbilled Medicaid. Patients died from neglect at understaffed facilities. Families hold $34M+ in uncollected wrongful death judgments. Prosecutors believe he controls $50M+ in assets across 200+ bank accounts. Paid $1M to lobbyists. Served 3 months of 3-year sentence. Full pardon, November 2025.

Marian Morgan | Financial crimes | $19,958,995 erased

Todd Chrisley | Bank fraud, tax evasion, wire fraud, conspiracy to defraud the U.S. | $17,270,741 erased Reality TV star. Fabricated bank statements to obtain $30M+ in personal loans spent on luxury cars, designer clothes, real estate, and travel. Sentenced to 12 years. Ordered to pay $17.8M in restitution. Full pardon, May 2025.

Imaad Shah Zuberi | Unregistered foreign agent, tax evasion, obstruction, conduit campaign contributions | $15,705,080 erased Routed foreign funds into U.S. political campaigns. Court ordered $15.7M in restitution plus $1.75M criminal fine. Sentence commuted, May 2025.

Arthur Hayes | Bank Secrecy Act violations | $10,000,000 erased BitMEX crypto exchange co-founder. Full pardon, March 2025.

Benjamin Delo | Bank Secrecy Act violations | $10,000,000 erased BitMEX crypto exchange co-founder. Full pardon, March 2025.

Samuel Reed | Bank Secrecy Act violations | $10,000,000 erased BitMEX crypto exchange co-founder. Full pardon, March 2025.

Julie Chrisley | Bank fraud, tax evasion, conspiracy to defraud the U.S. | $4,740,645 erased Sentenced to 7 years. Full pardon, May 2025.

Paul Walczak | Financial crimes | $4,381,265 erased

Charles Overton Scott | Financial crimes | $500,000 erased

James T. Callahan | Financial crimes | $315,000 erased

Jeremy Hutchinson | Bribery, multiple schemes | $224,497 erased Former Arkansas state senator. Accepted $350K+ in bribes across multiple schemes spanning seven years. Served 2 years of 8-year sentence. Full pardon, May 2025.

Gregory Dwyer | Bank Secrecy Act violations | $150,000 erased BitMEX crypto exchange co-founder. Full pardon, March 2025.

John Rowland | Public corruption | $117,000 erased Former Connecticut governor. Convicted of corruption twice, in 2004 and 2014. Both convictions pardoned, May 2025.

Michele Fiore | Wire fraud, 7 counts | $70,000 erased Former Las Vegas city councilmember. Raised $70K for a fallen police officer memorial. Spent it on cosmetic surgery and rent. Full pardon, March 2025.

Alexander Sittenfeld | Bribery | $40,000 erased Former Cincinnati city councilmember. Accepted campaign contributions in exchange for guaranteed votes on a development project. Full pardon, May 2025.

Changpeng Zhao | Bank Secrecy Act violations | Amount not publicly specified Binance CEO. Pleaded guilty to failing to maintain anti-money laundering program. DOJ said platform enabled money laundering for terrorists, cybercriminals, and child abusers. Binance helped develop code for Trump family crypto venture World Liberty Financial. Days after pardon, Binance began promoting Trump-linked stablecoin to U.S. investors. Full pardon, December 2025.

George Santos | Wire fraud, identity theft, unemployment fraud, false FEC filings | Amount not publicly specified Former congressman. Stole donor identities, embezzled campaign funds, fraudulently obtained unemployment benefits, lied about his mother dying on 9/11. Sentenced to 87 months. Served less than 3 months. Sentence commuted, October 2025.

Glen Casada | Public corruption, honest services fraud, conspiracy to defraud the U.S., 14 counts | Amount not publicly specified Former Tennessee House Speaker. Created scheme using taxpayer-funded constituent mailer program. Full pardon, November 2025.

Cade Cothren | Public corruption | Amount not publicly specified Chief of staff to Glen Casada. Created fake company "Phoenix Solutions" that received $52K in taxpayer funds. Full pardon, November 2025.

Brian Kelsey | Conspiracy to defraud the United States, campaign finance fraud | Amount not publicly specified Former Tennessee state senator. Pardoned 15 days into his 21-month sentence. Full pardon, March 2025.

Adriana Camberos | Mail fraud, wire fraud | Amount not publicly specified Convicted in counterfeit 5-Hour Energy drink scheme. Had sentence commuted by Trump in first term for a different fraud. Pardoned again in January 2026 for a new fraud conviction. Two frauds, two clemency actions, same president.

Scott Jenkins | Fraud, bribery | Amount not publicly specified Former Virginia sheriff. Gave law enforcement badges to eight unvetted individuals in exchange for $75K in bribes and campaign contributions. Full pardon, May 2025.

Michael Grimm | Tax fraud | Amount not publicly specified Former congressman. Underreported $900K in restaurant gross receipts. Convicted on felony tax evasion. Full pardon, May 2025.

Running total of erased restitution, fines, and forfeitures where amounts are publicly confirmed: ~$1,340,617,413

This total does not include several pardons where financial penalty amounts have not been publicly disclosed, meaning the true figure is higher.

For comparison: President Biden granted 80 individual pardons over four years. The combined financial penalties attached to those pardons totaled approximately $688,000. That is more than 2,000x smaller than the current total under this administration.

Sources: U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Pardon Attorney, federal court filings, NBC News clemency analysis (January 2026), ProPublica investigative reporting.

The Pardon Ledger is a recurring feature of the Dead Drop. It will be updated as new clemency actions are issued. If you have information about pardoned individuals, unreported restitution amounts, or victim impact, contact The Fraudfather.