Chrisleys Claim Political Persecution But Records Tell Another Story

In September 2023, Savannah Chrisley went on a podcast and claimed that her parents, reality stars Todd and Julie, were in prison due to political persecution.

“The prosecutors in Fulton County, Georgia, started off the trial by stating, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, what we have here are the Trumps of the South,’” she said.

That claim, since repeated many times, entwined the Chrisleys’ narrative of victimization with Donald Trump‘s, ultimately leading to a May 28 presidential pardon.

But according to court records and two people who were there, it didn’t happen.

“Politics never came up. Trump never came up,” says juror Glenda Hinton. “It was strictly a fraud case. There was no politics.”

The Chrisleys’ former accountant, Peter Tarantino, was convicted at the trial of filing false tax returns. He confirms that Trump’s name was never mentioned.

“I sat through three weeks of trial testimony and I never heard that said,” Tarantino says, adding that it would have sparked an uproar from the Chrisleys’ defense.

Variety reviewed the 3,400-page trial transcript and found no mention of Trump or politics by anyone.

When confronted with the inconsistency, Savannah Chrisley tells Variety that the “Trumps of the South” remark was made in a “meeting” among the judge and the lawyers. She initially says the jury was not present, then that she cannot not recall.

Asked why it was not in the transcript, she says, “There were a lot of things the judge had redacted.” The transcript has no obvious redactions.

“This case is about fraud and tax evasion,” said prosecutor Annalise Peters in her opening statement. “Todd and Julie’s fraud schemes are simple. They make up documents and they lie through their teeth to get whatever they want when they want it.”

“Chrisley Knows Best” debuted on USA in 2014, introducing America to a family that was lavish and loud, but not especially political. In 2016, Todd Chrisley said he was not impressed with Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, saying the choice left the country “up shit’s creek without a paddle.” On a recent podcast, Savannah Chrisley said she was “not involved in politics really at all” until two years ago, when her parents were sent to prison.

They fully embraced Trump as they sought a pardon. Savannah Chrisley wore pink MAGA gear to greet her father upon his release. Alex Little, their attorney, thanked Trump for recognizing they had been “targeted because of their conservative values and high profile.”

Trump’s “pardon czar,” Alice Marie Johnson, told Fox News that the case had been weaponized: “They called them the Trumps of Georgia.”

Todd and Julie Chrisley were convicted in June 2022 of tax evasion and of defrauding banks out of $36 million. Though prosecutors did not discuss politics, they did underscore Todd Chrisley’s “greed” and his spending habits, noting that he would frequently fly from Atlanta to Los Angeles to have his hair cut.

“It was a slam dunk,” Hinton says. “We were unanimous, and it didn’t take us long.”

The claim of political bias did not emerge during the trial, nor in the appeal, nor in a separate proceeding in which the Chrisleys alleged they were targeted due to their celebrity status by a state tax investigator who happens to be a Republican.

Savannah Chrisley leveled the “Trumps of the South” claim on her podcast, “Unlocked,” more than a year after the trial. She repeated it on a podcast hosted by Lara Trump, the president’s daughter-in-law, and again at the Republican convention last July.

“He called us the Trumps of the South,” she said onstage. “He meant it as an insult. But let me tell you: Boy, do I wear it as a badge of honor.”

The claim was included in a pardon application submitted to the White House earlier this year, which Savannah Chrisley read aloud on “Unlocked.” She said it again on Lara Trump’s Fox News show a week before the pardon was issued, adding that the legal ordeals of the two families were “eerily similar.”

Todd Chrisley’s trial attorney, Bruce Morris, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution last year that he did not believe the “Trumps of the South” line was said. Contacted by Variety, he referred questions to Little.

Shannen Sharpe, the marketing director at Little’s law firm, said she was not able to specify when the prosecutor made the remark.

At the trial, Morris acknowledged that Todd Chrisley had falsely claimed in a 2017 radio interview that he paid $1 million a year in taxes. Morris told jurors that such statements were “all part of the show — it’s all part of the act” — and later noted that Chrisley was not under oath at the time.

Tarantino, who served 18 months in prison and who was not pardoned, does not believe the case was politically motivated.

“They were indicted during the Trump administration,” he says.