WASHINGTON — A lobbyist whose clients were among those President Trump pardoned in July in diesel-emissions cases registered on Monday to seek a pardon for two more clients: Jeffrey and Brian Bartlett, Michigan surveying executives sentenced last year in a federal fraud case.
Daugherty Strategies LLC filed a lobbying registration posted Nov. 9 naming “Jeff & Brian Bartlett” of Michigan as clients and listing a single issue: “Presidential Pardon.” Jeffrey Daugherty, who lists himself in earlier filings as a “political consultant / lobbyist,” is the only lobbyist named.
The filing is the newest entry in a small but growing corner of K Street. A Washington Inquisitor review of federal lobbying disclosures found 33 engagements since January 2025 in which a firm reported lobbying for a specific person or company on a pardon or clemency, with .55 million in reported income for 2025 and 2026. Seventeen of those engagements were registered in 2026 alone, compared with 15 in all of 2025.
The president has described his clemency grants as a correction of past prosecutions. When he pardoned a group of diesel mechanics and truck tuners on July 3, he said on Truth Social that they had been “persecuted by the Biden Administration” for “fixing their car,” CNN reported. A White House official told Fox News that those pardoned had been charged for getting around emissions-control rules “no longer in effect,” and the Justice Department announced in January 2026 that it would no longer criminally charge makers, sellers and users of so-called defeat devices, though civil penalties can still apply, Fox reported.
A lobbyist’s diesel docket
Daugherty’s earlier filings show how a pardon practice can work in the open. Between February and June, his firm registered for five clients seeking pardons: Ryan and Wade LaLone, Michigan diesel mechanics; Mac Spurlock, an Alaska diesel mechanic; Matt Geouge of North Carolina; Tim Clancy and his Oregon company, Clancy Logistics; and John Rimmasch of Wasatch Railroad Contractors in Utah, a historic rail car refurbisher, according to the registrations. The filings list contacts with the White House Office and the Justice Department.
Four of those five clients appear on the Justice Department’s list of clemency grants for July 3, 2026, when Trump issued 17 pardons. The list includes Ryan Reginald LaLone and Wade James LaLone, each sentenced to a year’s probation and a fine in 2024 for violating the Clean Air Act; Mackenzie Scott Spurlock, sentenced in Alaska in December 2025 to five years’ probation and a $32,000 fine for tampering with a Clean Air Act monitoring device; Matthew Sidney Geouge, sentenced in 2022 to 12 months and a day for conspiracy to defraud the United States and violate the Clean Air Act and for tax evasion; and Timothy Curtis Clancy II and Clancy Logistics Inc., each sentenced in Oregon in 2025 to three years’ probation and a $101,510 fine.
On Sept. 16, Daugherty filed termination reports for all four engagements, reporting $20,000 in third-quarter income each from Spurlock, Geouge and Clancy and $5,000 from the LaLones (Spurlock, Geouge, Clancy, LaLone). Across all their 2026 reports, the five engagements brought in $150,000. The Rimmasch engagement remained active, with $20,000 reported for the third quarter, according to its report. Rimmasch does not appear on the Justice Department’s list, which was last updated Oct. 20.
Spurlock’s pardon drew praise from Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, who said in a statement quoted by Fox News that about 30 armed EPA agents had conducted “a military-style tactical raid” of Spurlock’s shop four years earlier.
The Bartletts’ case is different in kind. According to the Transportation Department’s inspector general, a federal judge in Michigan sentenced Jeffrey Bartlett in November 2025 to 15 months in prison and Brian Bartlett to 12 months and a day for conspiracy to defraud the United States. Prosecutors said executives of Surveying Solutions Inc. overbilled the Michigan Department of Transportation on contracts paid almost entirely with federal highway money. Five former owners and executives were ordered to pay $4.57 million in restitution and forfeit $4.07 million, the inspector general said. MLive reported that court records showed Jeffrey Bartlett had already repaid his share of the restitution and that he was given until Feb. 1 to surrender. The new registration does not report any income yet.
The largest engagements
The biggest fees in the records went to J.M. Burkman & Associates, the firm of Jack Burkman, which lists Burkman and Jacob Wohl as lobbyists. It reported $960,000 in the second quarter of 2025 from Joseph Schwartz for “seeking a federal pardon,” according to its report. Schwartz, sentenced in New Jersey in April 2025 to 36 months in prison for willful failure to pay over employment taxes, appears on the Justice Department list among three pardons dated Nov. 14, 2025. The firm terminated the engagement in April 2026.
Burkman’s firm also reported $600,000 from Torence Hatch, whom the registration describes as a “rapper and world class musician,” for “seeking a presidential pardon” (report), and $163,000 in the third quarter of 2026 from Rajendra Parikh of New Jersey for “pursuing a federal pardon” (report). Neither man appears on the department’s list of grants.
| Firm | Client (as filed) | Registered | Reported income | On DOJ grant list? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| J.M. Burkman & Associates | Joseph Schwartz | May 2025 | $960,000 | Yes, Nov. 14, 2025 |
| J.M. Burkman & Associates | Torence Hatch | Oct. 2025 | $600,000 | No |
| MO Strategies | Blessinger Legal PLLC* | May 2026 | $500,000 | Not applicable |
| Crossroads Strategies | Anne Pramaggiore | Oct. 2025 | $320,000 | No |
| J.M. Burkman & Associates | Rajendra Parikh | July 2026 | $163,000 | No |
| Daugherty Strategies | Five clients (LaLone, Spurlock, Geouge, Clancy, Rimmasch) | Feb.-June 2026 | $150,000 | Four of five, July 3, 2026 |
| The Vogel Group | Kevin Freels | July 2026 | $120,000 | No |
| Mintz Levin | Abdeslam Jaidi | May 2026 | $100,000 | No |
| The Vogel Group | William Tierney | June 2025 | $100,000 | No |
| The Vogel Group | Ronald Bauer | May 2026 | $90,000 | No |
*MO Strategies’ reports for the Blessinger Legal law firm describe “immigration and pardon related discussions” and do not name an individual; its listed lobbyists include Robert Goad, a former special assistant to the president, according to the filing.
The Vogel Group, led by Alexander Vogel, a former chief counsel to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, had the most clients of any firm in the review: seven, each listed under “issues related to clemency,” with the White House Office as the agency contacted.
Former officials and former defendants
Some of the people doing the lobbying have been on the other side of the process. Rod Blagojevich, the former Illinois governor whom Trump pardoned on Feb. 10, 2025, according to the Justice Department list, registered his firm, RRB Strategies, in December to seek clemency for Anne Pramaggiore, the former Commonwealth Edison chief executive (registration), as the Chicago Sun-Times reported. In July, RRB registered for Mary Cappas of Indiana, saying she seeks clemency for Frank Kollintzas (registration). Neither filing reports income. Pramaggiore is also represented by Crossroads Strategies, which has reported $320,000 since October 2025 for “advising on public policy and legislative matters relevant to the pardon process” (report).
Javelin Advisors registered in July 2025 to seek an “executive pardon” for Greg E. Lindberg, a former North Carolina business executive, listing Keith Schiller, Trump’s former director of Oval Office operations, among its lobbyists (registration). Mercury Public Affairs registered in May 2026 on behalf of the Dilworth Paxson law firm “related to seeking a presidential pardon for Hassan Nemazee” (registration). Sterlington PLLC registered in December 2025, noting that Selim Zherka’s “presidential pardon application” was submitted Oct. 22, 2025 (registration).
Fahmy Hudome International lobbied the Justice Department for a pardon for Richard Scrushy from mid-2025 and filed a termination report in September 2026 (report). A second firm, Victory Coalition Strategies, reported $35,000 for the same effort as a subcontractor; because subcontractor fees can be paid out of the primary firm’s fee, the two totals may overlap.
Lobbying over the pardon power itself
Separate from client work, several organizations lobbied Congress on the pardon power as policy. The Rainey Center Freedom Project paid Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck $170,000 in the second and third quarters of 2026 for “congressional advocacy related to the Presidential Pardon Power and the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995” (report). Democracy Defenders Action paid AMS Consulting $40,000 a quarter in 2026 to promote a constitutional amendment that, among other things, would limit presidential pardons (report). The Aleph Institute, which works with people in prison, reported in-house spending on “issues relating to clemency and pardons.”
| Year registered | Client-specific pardon or clemency engagements | Of which appear on DOJ grant list |
|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 15 | 1 (Schwartz) |
| 2026 (through Nov. 9) | 17 | 4 (LaLone, Spurlock, Geouge, Clancy) |
How this review was done
The Inquisitor searched Lobbying Disclosure Act filings posted since Jan. 1, 2025, whose issue descriptions mention “pardon” or “clemency,” then kept engagements in which a firm or person lobbied for a specific client seeking clemency. Income totals use the latest version of each quarterly report for 2025 and 2026 periods. Outcomes were checked against the Justice Department Office of the Pardon Attorney’s list of clemency grants since 2025. Lobbying disclosures cover only registered lobbyists; lawyers who represent clients in clemency petitions without lobbying covered officials, and engagements described in other words, would not appear in this count. One engagement registered in 2025, for Shallfdeen Amuwo through Adomi Advisory Group, began in the prior year and is counted in the totals but not in the table by year. Registered lobbying on clemency matters is lawful and is disclosed under the Lobbying Disclosure Act.
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