Todd Chrisley addressed reporters on Friday in his first comments since President Donald Trump pardoned the formerly jailed reality TV star and his wife, Julie Chrisley, and released them from federal prison.
Speaking at a press conference at the Kimpton Aertson Hotel in Nashville, Tennessee, Todd maintained his innocence.
“Whether you believe it or not — because I was you at some point — even though this pardon has happened, I still was convicted of something that I did not do,” Todd said. “It could be you. It could be you, it could be any of you. And somewhere in this room, someone has had a family member that has been affected by the system.”
“I understand the shame that’s around it, but I refuse to feed into that because shame is like a cancer that just spreads and I have no shame,” he added.
Trump issued pardons to Todd and Julie on Wednesday. The pair, known for their roles on the reality TV show “Chrisley Knows Best,” were convicted in 2022 of tax evasion and defrauding banks to obtain personal loans worth more than $36 million and fund a lavish lifestyle.
Prosecutors said that the Chrisleys submitted false bank statements, audit reports and personal financial statements to Georgia community banks to obtain the loans.
They were found guilty by an Atlanta jury in 2022 and convicted of fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy to defraud the United States. Todd was sentenced to 12 years in federal prison and Julie was sentenced to seven years.
Julie was not at the press conference on Friday, but was seen the day before, leaving a butcher shop in Nashville, Tennessee.
Todd opened the press conference thanking God, Trump and Trump’s “pardon czar,” Alice Johnson, who was pardoned several years ago during the first Trump administration.
He also thanked one of his daughters, Savannah Chrisley, who played a pivotal role in petitioning for the pardons and was at Friday’s press conference.
Savannah — who spoke at the Republican National Convention — took meetings with members of Trump’s staff before and after the president was re-inaugurated to advocate for her parents to be released.
Savannah said she was misunderstood when critics claimed they were pardoned because of their celebrity status.
“I fought hard, and I was exhausted, and I begged for meetings. There was nothing — I was never too good to ask,” she said. “And that’s the thing — people think ‘oh, you’re a celebrity, you’re white, you have money’ that we got an upper hand and we didn’t.”
When a reporter asked him if he had any remorse and pointed to his wife’s apology for her crimes in court last year, Todd pushed back.
“You’re placed in a position as a defendant to either bow down and kiss the ass of the Department of Justice and accept responsibility for things that you did not do in order to avoid a stronger sentence,” he said.
Todd said he felt “numb” when he received word that he was being pardoned.
“I had a staff member that came to me and said ‘you’ve just been pardoned.’ And I just looked at him, and he says, ‘No, really, you’ve been pardoned. It’s in the news. And so I walked up to call her, and she said ‘It’s true. It’s true,'” he said referring to Savannah.
“All I could think about was the guys that I was leaving behind,” he added.
He said that as he was leaving federal prison on Wednesday, hundreds of his fellow inmates lined up to say goodbye.
“They were saying ‘Don’t leave. Don’t forget us. Don’t forget us.’ And my commitment is to them that I will never forget them.”
Todd and Savannah vowed to help reform the criminal justice system and “expose the corruption.”
Until then, they will be filming more reality television.
Todd confirmed that he and his wife started filming “literally the night that we got home, as soon as we got home.”
“They’ve already got all the offers rolling in, so it’s going to make life so much easier,” Savannah said. “You’ll see him on quite a few different shows, I have a feeling.”