Mar 6, 2026
Trump's Hustles - Big & Small
The grift isn't everything - it's the only thing.
Whatever has intrinsic value to the soul of an honorable man is nothing but money in the pocket of a man with no principles or scruples.
Trump is so fucked up in the head that he can think of nothing but the dollar-value of everything. And because the money is all he has - all he's ever had - he believes money is the only thing anybody else has or wants.
Pardon Industry Offers Rich Offenders a Path to Trump
One inmate paid lobbyists and lawyers with ties to the president’s team and walked free. Others are following his blueprint, but it is not always clear who can deliver.
The efforts by Mr. Burkman, Mr. Wohl and Ms. Loomer did not keep Mr. Schwartz out of Otisville. He reported there in August.
He began leading Torah study classes for inmates.
And he spoke to other inmates about his clemency strategy, complaining that Mr. Burkman and Mr. Wohl were not up to the job, according to two people familiar with conversations in Otisville, who requested anonymity to share jailhouse discussions.
Frustrated, Mr. Schwartz stopped paying Mr. Burkman and Mr. Wohl’s firm.
He turned instead to Josh Nass, a lawyer and lobbyist with connections in pro-Israel Jewish and evangelical circles. Congressional lobbying filings show that Mr. Schwartz paid Mr. Nass at least $100,000.
In an interview, Mr. Nass said that “clemency reflects the belief that people are capable of redemption.” He added “President Trump has shown a willingness to give deserving individuals a second chance and he should be commended for such.”
Mr. Schwartz expressed confidence to other inmates that Mr. Nass would facilitate the pardon, according to the people familiar with those conversations.
Mr. Nass had been paid nearly $300,000 at the end of Mr. Trump’s first term to help a handful of clients seek clemency, according to lobbying filings. None received it.
This time around, Mr. Nass implemented a more comprehensive strategy. He enlisted evangelical figures with connections in Mr. Trump’s circle to highlight Mr. Schwartz’s cause to administration allies. They emphasized Mr. Schwartz’s faith and argued this was a matter of religious liberty.
One person who made the case after being approached by Mr. Nass was Mark Walker, a former North Carolina representative who had been tapped by Mr. Trump to serve as a State Department envoy for religious freedom, according to two people familiar with his involvement. During the first Trump administration, the White House had credited Mr. Walker and others with supporting the commutation of another observant Jewish inmate who had been convicted of fraud.
At Mr. Nass’s urging, Mr. Schwartz’s family also retained lawyers with ties to the White House to file clemency petitions.
The Schwartzes hired Brittany K. Barnett, who had helped secure clemency during the first Trump administration for Ms. Johnson, who was serving a life sentence for a nonviolent drug conviction. Last year, Mr. Trump appointed Ms. Johnson as a White House adviser on clemency and criminal justice.
Ms. Barnett’s website includes photos of her with Ms. Johnson and advertises her “deep understanding of the legal, political and human dimensions of clemency.”
Another petition was filed by Laurin H. Mills, a lawyer who is close to Mr. Warrington, according to three people familiar with his efforts. Mr. Mills and Mr. Warrington worked together at a now-defunct firm on politically charged cases.
Mr. Mills’s petition cast Mr. Schwartz’s sentence as too harsh for the fact pattern, noting that he had paid his restitution and arguing that he was in poor health. (Mr. Schwartz, who was 65 years old when he reported to prison, had told authorities that he suffered from a heart arrhythmia and was borderline diabetic.)
Mr. Warrington did not discuss the Schwartz case with Mr. Mills and did not play any role in facilitating the pardon, according to the White House official.
But Mr. Mills checked in periodically with Sean Hayes, a deputy counsel who works on clemency matters in Mr. Warrington’s office.
Mr. Hayes was among the White House officials who presented the paperwork to the president.
‘Free and safe’
The day after Mr. Trump signed the pardon, Ms. Johnson praised the pardon on social media, writing that Mr. Schwartz “finally spent Shabbat free and safe with his family.”
In a statement to The Times, Ms. Johnson reiterated her support for the pardon of Mr. Schwartz, arguing that a three-year sentence “serves no purpose,” and assailed what she called “the media’s efforts to smear our work.”
After the pardon, Mr. Schwartz still had his Arkansas sentence looming, including the prospect of a state prison term of as long as nine months and an additional $1.4 million in restitution.
But he would be freed on parole in January after only two and a half weeks in state prison by a board appointed by the governor. While Mr. Nass had reached out to Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders of Arkansas and her father, Mike Huckabee, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, the offices for both issued statements to The Times saying that they had not intervened. The board said that it had acted independently.
Shortly after leaving Otisville, Mr. Schwartz and one of his sons took Mr. Nass to Le Marais, a kosher French steakhouse in Manhattan’s Times Square to thank him, according to a person familiar with the episode. A photograph from the dinner shows Mr. Nass and the elder Mr. Schwartz embracing while holding a manila envelope that purportedly contained a copy of the signed pardon.
The trio discussed a handful of the inmates with whom Mr. Schwartz had served time and who, since his pardon, had reached out indirectly to Mr. Nass seeking assistance. Several had discussed offering to pay $500,000 each, with additional $1 million success fees if they secured pardons, according to the two people familiar with the conversations at Otisville.
Mr. Nass declined to represent any of them, according to a person familiar with the offers.
The next month, the elder Mr. Schwartz and his wife attended the White House Hanukkah party, where they met Ms. Loomer.
Ms. Loomer said that Mr. Schwartz thanked her for her posts about his case and said he was grateful to not be in prison.
Trump is so fucked up in the head that he can think of nothing but the dollar-value of everything. And because the money is all he has - all he's ever had - he believes money is the only thing anybody else has or wants.
Pardon Industry Offers Rich Offenders a Path to Trump
One inmate paid lobbyists and lawyers with ties to the president’s team and walked free. Others are following his blueprint, but it is not always clear who can deliver.
One evening last November, word spread around the federal prison camp in Otisville, N.Y., that an inmate who had spent heavily to pursue clemency had hit pay dirt, winning a pardon from President Trump and walking free.
His release intensified an ongoing debate for those who were left behind. Whom could they pay to achieve the same result?
There was a lot to parse in the clemency campaign of Joseph Schwartz. He had served only three months of a three-year sentence for tax crimes related to a nursing-home empire that had collapsed amid allegations of endangering the residents and defrauding his employees.
Mr. Schwartz had not been shy about sharing the strategy behind his clemency campaign with other inmates, so they knew he had paid multiple people to try to get the job done, according to two people familiar with conversations at Otisville.
Nearly a million dollars went to right-wing operatives who claimed to have worked with Laura Loomer, a social media provocateur who has the ear of Mr. Trump, to advocate for Mr. Schwartz’s release. Another $100,000 or more was paid to a lobbyist who had a different set of connections to Mr. Trump — pro-Israel evangelicals.
Thousands more went to lawyers who had personal relationships with Alice Marie Johnson, Mr. Trump’s “pardon czar,” and David Warrington, the White House counsel, according to four people familiar with the effort.
Mr. Schwartz’s supporters employed various techniques and arguments for his relief. Those included stating publicly and in private petitions and conversations that his sentence was too severe, noting that he had paid his full $5 million in federal restitution and emphasizing his religious faith and health problems.
It was not entirely clear which effort did the trick.
But the costly campaign offers rare visibility into the lucrative pardon industry that has emerged around Mr. Trump.
It is based in part on the proposition that paying the right person to deliver a message tailored to Mr. Trump’s politics or grievances is more important than demonstrating remorse or a low likelihood of recidivism.
A growing number of practitioners promise access in this murky enterprise, but some also may exaggerate their effectiveness to elicit payments from clients desperate to avoid incarceration. Pardon seekers routinely offer to pay as much as $1 million or more, often with bonus payments triggered by a successful outcome, according to lobbying filings and people familiar with the fees.
This transactional approach to clemency has been welcomed by white-collar offenders like those serving time at the Otisville camp, a minimum-security facility about 75 miles northwest of Manhattan.
Many of its inmates cheered Mr. Trump’s election, seeing him as a kindred spirit who shares their grievances about the unfairness of financial crime prosecutions like the one that led to his own conviction, according to four people familiar with conversations at Otisville.
Over the course of his first term and the first year of his second, Mr. Trump has granted pardons or commutations to at least nine inmates who served at Otisville’s camp or the adjacent medium-security prison. That includes two inmates who were freed after Mr. Schwartz from the minimum-security camp, which typically houses about 100 inmates.
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, dismissed the notion that lobbyists had shaped Mr. Trump’s clemency decisions.
“Anyone spending money to lobby for pardons is foolishly wasting their money and the president doesn’t even know who these so-called ‘lobbyists’ are,” she said in a statement. “The Trump administration has a robust pardon review process,” she added, calling Mr. Trump “the final decider.”
But the perception that freedom is for sale to affluent offenders like Mr. Schwartz outrages some of his victims, including former employees of his nursing homes who were deprived of health insurance or left scrounging for supplies to care for residents.
“This man hurt a lot of people,” Theresa Dante, 61, said, recounting a flurry of text messages from her former colleagues expressing disbelief and concern about the precedent that could be set by the pardon. “If it’s OK for Mr. Schwartz to do this to everybody, then in the future is this going be OK?”
Mr. Schwartz did not respond to requests for comment.
This article, key details of which have not been previously reported, is based on lobbying and court filings, private correspondence and recordings, as well as interviews with more than a dozen people familiar with clemency advocacy.
A Guilty Plea
His release intensified an ongoing debate for those who were left behind. Whom could they pay to achieve the same result?
There was a lot to parse in the clemency campaign of Joseph Schwartz. He had served only three months of a three-year sentence for tax crimes related to a nursing-home empire that had collapsed amid allegations of endangering the residents and defrauding his employees.
Mr. Schwartz had not been shy about sharing the strategy behind his clemency campaign with other inmates, so they knew he had paid multiple people to try to get the job done, according to two people familiar with conversations at Otisville.
Nearly a million dollars went to right-wing operatives who claimed to have worked with Laura Loomer, a social media provocateur who has the ear of Mr. Trump, to advocate for Mr. Schwartz’s release. Another $100,000 or more was paid to a lobbyist who had a different set of connections to Mr. Trump — pro-Israel evangelicals.
Thousands more went to lawyers who had personal relationships with Alice Marie Johnson, Mr. Trump’s “pardon czar,” and David Warrington, the White House counsel, according to four people familiar with the effort.
Mr. Schwartz’s supporters employed various techniques and arguments for his relief. Those included stating publicly and in private petitions and conversations that his sentence was too severe, noting that he had paid his full $5 million in federal restitution and emphasizing his religious faith and health problems.
It was not entirely clear which effort did the trick.
But the costly campaign offers rare visibility into the lucrative pardon industry that has emerged around Mr. Trump.
It is based in part on the proposition that paying the right person to deliver a message tailored to Mr. Trump’s politics or grievances is more important than demonstrating remorse or a low likelihood of recidivism.
A growing number of practitioners promise access in this murky enterprise, but some also may exaggerate their effectiveness to elicit payments from clients desperate to avoid incarceration. Pardon seekers routinely offer to pay as much as $1 million or more, often with bonus payments triggered by a successful outcome, according to lobbying filings and people familiar with the fees.
This transactional approach to clemency has been welcomed by white-collar offenders like those serving time at the Otisville camp, a minimum-security facility about 75 miles northwest of Manhattan.
Many of its inmates cheered Mr. Trump’s election, seeing him as a kindred spirit who shares their grievances about the unfairness of financial crime prosecutions like the one that led to his own conviction, according to four people familiar with conversations at Otisville.
Over the course of his first term and the first year of his second, Mr. Trump has granted pardons or commutations to at least nine inmates who served at Otisville’s camp or the adjacent medium-security prison. That includes two inmates who were freed after Mr. Schwartz from the minimum-security camp, which typically houses about 100 inmates.
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, dismissed the notion that lobbyists had shaped Mr. Trump’s clemency decisions.
“Anyone spending money to lobby for pardons is foolishly wasting their money and the president doesn’t even know who these so-called ‘lobbyists’ are,” she said in a statement. “The Trump administration has a robust pardon review process,” she added, calling Mr. Trump “the final decider.”
But the perception that freedom is for sale to affluent offenders like Mr. Schwartz outrages some of his victims, including former employees of his nursing homes who were deprived of health insurance or left scrounging for supplies to care for residents.
“This man hurt a lot of people,” Theresa Dante, 61, said, recounting a flurry of text messages from her former colleagues expressing disbelief and concern about the precedent that could be set by the pardon. “If it’s OK for Mr. Schwartz to do this to everybody, then in the future is this going be OK?”
Mr. Schwartz did not respond to requests for comment.
This article, key details of which have not been previously reported, is based on lobbying and court filings, private correspondence and recordings, as well as interviews with more than a dozen people familiar with clemency advocacy.
A Guilty Plea
Even in the nursing-home industry — which is plagued by tax and insurance fraud, chronic understaffing and neglect — Mr. Schwartz’s rise and fall stood out.
He started with a handful of nursing homes that he and his family operated out of an office above a pizza parlor in New Jersey.
In 2015, flush with $22 million in proceeds from the sale of an insurance business, the family began an aggressive expansion. Soon their company, Skyline Healthcare, owned about 100 nursing homes and rehabilitation facilities in at least 11 states that employed as many as 15,000 people.
As the business grew, it attracted scrutiny.
Medicare decertified a Skyline facility in Tennessee from collecting reimbursements after a resident was discovered lying in feces with maggot-infested open wounds. The resident died days later.
The attorneys general in Arkansas, Massachusetts and Nebraska brought lawsuits or levied fines against Skyline, including for Medicaid fraud, wage theft and tax violations.
Company facilities in several states fell behind on bills for critical supplies and utilities.
In South Dakota, where Skyline operated 19 facilities, a regional administrator for the company emailed state authorities in 2018, raising alarm about dwindling caches of food along with medical and cleaning supplies.
“All residents’ safety is at risk and will increase every day,” the administrator wrote in an email reported by the Aberdeen News.
Regulators in several states — including South Dakota — seized Skyline-owned nursing homes and placed them into receivership.
It was not a moment too soon for the Redfield facility where Ms. Dante worked as a cook, she said, recalling that the power company was threatening to turn off the electricity for nonpayment of bills.
That would have been “an atrocity to say the least,” she said, given that there were “so many residents tethered to machines for their survival.”
Additionally, Ms. Dante, who was fighting leukemia, said her health insurance benefits and those of other employees were not being funded, forcing them to pay out of pocket or to forgo medical care entirely.
She joined former staff from Skyline facilities in other states in a class-action lawsuit filed in 2020 against Mr. Schwartz and his companies for having “willfully pocketed” insurance premiums that had been deducted from employees’ paychecks.
The suit is still pending.
Last year, Mr. Schwartz pleaded guilty to tax crimes in federal and Arkansas courts related to his failure to pay nearly $40 million in employment and payroll taxes, as well as to a state Medicaid fraud charge in Arkansas.
Prosecutors praised the sentences.
Attorney General Tim Griffin of Arkansas, a Republican who was endorsed by Mr. Trump, said in a statement last May that Mr. Schwartz “didn’t just take advantage of our vulnerable population, he also preyed on Arkansans who worked in his facilities.”
‘Direct to the president’
He started with a handful of nursing homes that he and his family operated out of an office above a pizza parlor in New Jersey.
In 2015, flush with $22 million in proceeds from the sale of an insurance business, the family began an aggressive expansion. Soon their company, Skyline Healthcare, owned about 100 nursing homes and rehabilitation facilities in at least 11 states that employed as many as 15,000 people.
As the business grew, it attracted scrutiny.
Medicare decertified a Skyline facility in Tennessee from collecting reimbursements after a resident was discovered lying in feces with maggot-infested open wounds. The resident died days later.
The attorneys general in Arkansas, Massachusetts and Nebraska brought lawsuits or levied fines against Skyline, including for Medicaid fraud, wage theft and tax violations.
Company facilities in several states fell behind on bills for critical supplies and utilities.
In South Dakota, where Skyline operated 19 facilities, a regional administrator for the company emailed state authorities in 2018, raising alarm about dwindling caches of food along with medical and cleaning supplies.
“All residents’ safety is at risk and will increase every day,” the administrator wrote in an email reported by the Aberdeen News.
Regulators in several states — including South Dakota — seized Skyline-owned nursing homes and placed them into receivership.
It was not a moment too soon for the Redfield facility where Ms. Dante worked as a cook, she said, recalling that the power company was threatening to turn off the electricity for nonpayment of bills.
That would have been “an atrocity to say the least,” she said, given that there were “so many residents tethered to machines for their survival.”
Additionally, Ms. Dante, who was fighting leukemia, said her health insurance benefits and those of other employees were not being funded, forcing them to pay out of pocket or to forgo medical care entirely.
She joined former staff from Skyline facilities in other states in a class-action lawsuit filed in 2020 against Mr. Schwartz and his companies for having “willfully pocketed” insurance premiums that had been deducted from employees’ paychecks.
The suit is still pending.
Last year, Mr. Schwartz pleaded guilty to tax crimes in federal and Arkansas courts related to his failure to pay nearly $40 million in employment and payroll taxes, as well as to a state Medicaid fraud charge in Arkansas.
Prosecutors praised the sentences.
Attorney General Tim Griffin of Arkansas, a Republican who was endorsed by Mr. Trump, said in a statement last May that Mr. Schwartz “didn’t just take advantage of our vulnerable population, he also preyed on Arkansans who worked in his facilities.”
‘Direct to the president’
Less than two weeks after his guilty plea was accepted, with his surrender date approaching and Otisville looming, Mr. Schwartz hired the right-wing conspiracists Jack Burkman and Jacob Wohl to lobby for a presidential pardon, according to congressional filings.
Mr. Burkman and Mr. Wohl are known less for effective lobbying campaigns and more for spurious political stunts, including a robocall scheme to suppress the Black vote in the 2020 presidential election that led to felony convictions and fines for both men.
Mr. Burkman and Mr. Wohl have boasted that they maintain close ties to Mr. Trump and people in his orbit that they can use to win clemency, according to communications reviewed by The New York Times and interviews with two people who have dealt with the lobbyists.
In an audio recording heard by The Times, Mr. Burkman discussed his strategy, saying that he and Mr. Wohl “use a combination of influencers and members of Congress,” as well as going “direct to the president, and I think that’s a very good approach.”
A White House official, who requested anonymity to discuss a clemency case, said that no one in the White House had talked to either Mr. Burkman or Mr. Wohl about Mr. Schwartz.
Mr. Burkman and Mr. Wohl also have privately indicated that they enlisted Ms. Loomer to assist with the Schwartz clemency push.
In an interview with The Times, Ms. Loomer said Mr. Burkman and Mr. Wohl had nothing to do with her decision to champion Mr. Schwartz’s cause and that she was not paid by the lobbyists or Mr. Schwartz to do so.
“A lot of people claim to know me and claim to work with me because of my effectiveness and how well-known I am amongst administration officials,” Ms. Loomer said.
While she acknowledged that she is close to Mr. Wohl, Ms. Loomer said Mr. Schwartz’s case was brought to her attention in a group chat related to Jewish causes. Mr. Schwartz, like many inmates at the Otisville camp, is Jewish.
A week after Mr. Burkman and Mr. Wohl went to work for Mr. Schwartz in April, Ms. Loomer published posts on social media calling for his sentence to be “overturned” and citing it as an example of “judicial tyranny” and “obvious antisemitism” by the judge.
She praised Mr. Schwartz as a “well known member of the Jewish community in New Jersey.”
Mr. Burkman repeatedly hung up on a reporter asking about his work on the Schwartz pardon. He and Mr. Wohl did not respond to a list of emailed questions about their clemency claims.
Mr. Schwartz paid their firm, J.M. Burkman & Associates, $960,000 in the 10 weeks after their hiring last spring, according to lobbying reports filed by the firm. The firm collected another $845,000 last year from three other clients seeking clemency, most of which — $600,000 — came from Torrence Ivy Hatch Jr., a rapper known as Boosie Badazz who had pleaded guilty to a firearms possession violation. Mr. Hatch has not received a pardon.
In all, lobbying firms disclosed receiving payments of nearly $5.2 million last year from clients seeking clemency from Mr. Trump for individual clients — about eight times more than was disclosed in 2024 from people seeking clemency from former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. — according to congressional filings. But that likely reflects only a fraction of the spending by clemency seekers, since most pardon advocates claim that their efforts represent legal work that is exempt from lobbying disclosure laws.
As word circulated about successful paid clemency campaigns, more inmates sought out their own pardon fixers claiming access to the president, said Walt Pavlo, who served two years himself starting in 2001 for his role in a fraud scheme and now serves as a consultant for people facing prison time.
“They believe that they can pay for some access, but the other thing is that they think that Trump is sympathetic to their cause, because of what he’s gone through,” Mr. Pavlo said.
Mr. Pavlo said he urges clients to be cautious, predicting that “at the end of the day, there’s going to be a lot of very disappointed people that don’t get pardons that paid a lot of money.”
More firepower
Mr. Burkman and Mr. Wohl are known less for effective lobbying campaigns and more for spurious political stunts, including a robocall scheme to suppress the Black vote in the 2020 presidential election that led to felony convictions and fines for both men.
Mr. Burkman and Mr. Wohl have boasted that they maintain close ties to Mr. Trump and people in his orbit that they can use to win clemency, according to communications reviewed by The New York Times and interviews with two people who have dealt with the lobbyists.
In an audio recording heard by The Times, Mr. Burkman discussed his strategy, saying that he and Mr. Wohl “use a combination of influencers and members of Congress,” as well as going “direct to the president, and I think that’s a very good approach.”
A White House official, who requested anonymity to discuss a clemency case, said that no one in the White House had talked to either Mr. Burkman or Mr. Wohl about Mr. Schwartz.
Mr. Burkman and Mr. Wohl also have privately indicated that they enlisted Ms. Loomer to assist with the Schwartz clemency push.
In an interview with The Times, Ms. Loomer said Mr. Burkman and Mr. Wohl had nothing to do with her decision to champion Mr. Schwartz’s cause and that she was not paid by the lobbyists or Mr. Schwartz to do so.
“A lot of people claim to know me and claim to work with me because of my effectiveness and how well-known I am amongst administration officials,” Ms. Loomer said.
While she acknowledged that she is close to Mr. Wohl, Ms. Loomer said Mr. Schwartz’s case was brought to her attention in a group chat related to Jewish causes. Mr. Schwartz, like many inmates at the Otisville camp, is Jewish.
A week after Mr. Burkman and Mr. Wohl went to work for Mr. Schwartz in April, Ms. Loomer published posts on social media calling for his sentence to be “overturned” and citing it as an example of “judicial tyranny” and “obvious antisemitism” by the judge.
She praised Mr. Schwartz as a “well known member of the Jewish community in New Jersey.”
Mr. Burkman repeatedly hung up on a reporter asking about his work on the Schwartz pardon. He and Mr. Wohl did not respond to a list of emailed questions about their clemency claims.
Mr. Schwartz paid their firm, J.M. Burkman & Associates, $960,000 in the 10 weeks after their hiring last spring, according to lobbying reports filed by the firm. The firm collected another $845,000 last year from three other clients seeking clemency, most of which — $600,000 — came from Torrence Ivy Hatch Jr., a rapper known as Boosie Badazz who had pleaded guilty to a firearms possession violation. Mr. Hatch has not received a pardon.
In all, lobbying firms disclosed receiving payments of nearly $5.2 million last year from clients seeking clemency from Mr. Trump for individual clients — about eight times more than was disclosed in 2024 from people seeking clemency from former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. — according to congressional filings. But that likely reflects only a fraction of the spending by clemency seekers, since most pardon advocates claim that their efforts represent legal work that is exempt from lobbying disclosure laws.
As word circulated about successful paid clemency campaigns, more inmates sought out their own pardon fixers claiming access to the president, said Walt Pavlo, who served two years himself starting in 2001 for his role in a fraud scheme and now serves as a consultant for people facing prison time.
“They believe that they can pay for some access, but the other thing is that they think that Trump is sympathetic to their cause, because of what he’s gone through,” Mr. Pavlo said.
Mr. Pavlo said he urges clients to be cautious, predicting that “at the end of the day, there’s going to be a lot of very disappointed people that don’t get pardons that paid a lot of money.”
More firepower
The efforts by Mr. Burkman, Mr. Wohl and Ms. Loomer did not keep Mr. Schwartz out of Otisville. He reported there in August.
He began leading Torah study classes for inmates.
And he spoke to other inmates about his clemency strategy, complaining that Mr. Burkman and Mr. Wohl were not up to the job, according to two people familiar with conversations in Otisville, who requested anonymity to share jailhouse discussions.
Frustrated, Mr. Schwartz stopped paying Mr. Burkman and Mr. Wohl’s firm.
He turned instead to Josh Nass, a lawyer and lobbyist with connections in pro-Israel Jewish and evangelical circles. Congressional lobbying filings show that Mr. Schwartz paid Mr. Nass at least $100,000.
In an interview, Mr. Nass said that “clemency reflects the belief that people are capable of redemption.” He added “President Trump has shown a willingness to give deserving individuals a second chance and he should be commended for such.”
Mr. Schwartz expressed confidence to other inmates that Mr. Nass would facilitate the pardon, according to the people familiar with those conversations.
Mr. Nass had been paid nearly $300,000 at the end of Mr. Trump’s first term to help a handful of clients seek clemency, according to lobbying filings. None received it.
This time around, Mr. Nass implemented a more comprehensive strategy. He enlisted evangelical figures with connections in Mr. Trump’s circle to highlight Mr. Schwartz’s cause to administration allies. They emphasized Mr. Schwartz’s faith and argued this was a matter of religious liberty.
One person who made the case after being approached by Mr. Nass was Mark Walker, a former North Carolina representative who had been tapped by Mr. Trump to serve as a State Department envoy for religious freedom, according to two people familiar with his involvement. During the first Trump administration, the White House had credited Mr. Walker and others with supporting the commutation of another observant Jewish inmate who had been convicted of fraud.
At Mr. Nass’s urging, Mr. Schwartz’s family also retained lawyers with ties to the White House to file clemency petitions.
The Schwartzes hired Brittany K. Barnett, who had helped secure clemency during the first Trump administration for Ms. Johnson, who was serving a life sentence for a nonviolent drug conviction. Last year, Mr. Trump appointed Ms. Johnson as a White House adviser on clemency and criminal justice.
Ms. Barnett’s website includes photos of her with Ms. Johnson and advertises her “deep understanding of the legal, political and human dimensions of clemency.”
Another petition was filed by Laurin H. Mills, a lawyer who is close to Mr. Warrington, according to three people familiar with his efforts. Mr. Mills and Mr. Warrington worked together at a now-defunct firm on politically charged cases.
Mr. Mills’s petition cast Mr. Schwartz’s sentence as too harsh for the fact pattern, noting that he had paid his restitution and arguing that he was in poor health. (Mr. Schwartz, who was 65 years old when he reported to prison, had told authorities that he suffered from a heart arrhythmia and was borderline diabetic.)
Mr. Warrington did not discuss the Schwartz case with Mr. Mills and did not play any role in facilitating the pardon, according to the White House official.
But Mr. Mills checked in periodically with Sean Hayes, a deputy counsel who works on clemency matters in Mr. Warrington’s office.
Mr. Hayes was among the White House officials who presented the paperwork to the president.
‘Free and safe’
The day after Mr. Trump signed the pardon, Ms. Johnson praised the pardon on social media, writing that Mr. Schwartz “finally spent Shabbat free and safe with his family.”
In a statement to The Times, Ms. Johnson reiterated her support for the pardon of Mr. Schwartz, arguing that a three-year sentence “serves no purpose,” and assailed what she called “the media’s efforts to smear our work.”
After the pardon, Mr. Schwartz still had his Arkansas sentence looming, including the prospect of a state prison term of as long as nine months and an additional $1.4 million in restitution.
But he would be freed on parole in January after only two and a half weeks in state prison by a board appointed by the governor. While Mr. Nass had reached out to Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders of Arkansas and her father, Mike Huckabee, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, the offices for both issued statements to The Times saying that they had not intervened. The board said that it had acted independently.
Shortly after leaving Otisville, Mr. Schwartz and one of his sons took Mr. Nass to Le Marais, a kosher French steakhouse in Manhattan’s Times Square to thank him, according to a person familiar with the episode. A photograph from the dinner shows Mr. Nass and the elder Mr. Schwartz embracing while holding a manila envelope that purportedly contained a copy of the signed pardon.
The trio discussed a handful of the inmates with whom Mr. Schwartz had served time and who, since his pardon, had reached out indirectly to Mr. Nass seeking assistance. Several had discussed offering to pay $500,000 each, with additional $1 million success fees if they secured pardons, according to the two people familiar with the conversations at Otisville.
Mr. Nass declined to represent any of them, according to a person familiar with the offers.
The next month, the elder Mr. Schwartz and his wife attended the White House Hanukkah party, where they met Ms. Loomer.
Ms. Loomer said that Mr. Schwartz thanked her for her posts about his case and said he was grateful to not be in prison.
Mar 5, 2026
The Camps
Detainees told ProPublica that art supplies have been removed in room searches, immigrants have lost access to Gmail and staff hover within earshot during video calls. The Trump administration and a private prison operator disputed detainees’ claims.
When guards appeared earlier this month outside the room Christian Hinojosa shared with her son and other women and children at the immigrant detention center in Dilley, Texas, she guessed what they might be after. She quickly donned her puffy winter jacket, then slipped a manila envelope inside it. “Thank God the weather was cool,” she said — the jacket didn’t raise suspicions.
Then, she said, she was instructed to leave the room while eight to 10 guards lifted up mattresses, opened drawers and rifled through papers. In the envelope were kids’ writings and artwork about life in America’s only detention facility for immigrant families, a collection of trailers and dormitories in the brush country south of San Antonio. She planned to share their letters with the outside world.
Guards have taken away crayons, colored pencils and drawing paper during recent room searches at Dilley, according to Hinojosa and three other former detainees, along with lawyers and advocates in contact with the families inside.
Guards have taken artwork, too, they said — even one child’s drawing of Bratz fashion dolls.
They said detainees have lost access to Gmail and other Google services in the Dilley library amid stepped up searches, seizures and restrictions on communications, making it more difficult for them to contact lawyers and advocates.
They and family members said guards sometimes hover within earshot during detainees’ video calls to relatives and reporters.
“We Are Kidnapped Help!”
Seven-year-old Mathias Bermeo, a detainee at Dilley wrote: “I’m writing this letter so that you can hear my story. I need you to help us. I have been detained for 23 days with my mom and my 3-year-old sister. I cry a lot. I want to get out of here go back to my school. They don’t treat us well here. There are many children. We are kidnapped help!”
The detainees and others interviewed for this story said these measures increased after the Jan. 22 arrival of Liam Conejo Ramos, a 5-year-old in a blue bunny hat, sparked protests and congressional visits. They said the clampdown intensified as children and parents at Dilley wrote letters to share with the public and reporters and relatives recorded video calls with the detainees, including those published by ProPublica this month. The children’s stories, many told in their own words, fueled an outcry over the scope of the Trump administration’s deportation campaign, which the president had promised would focus on criminals.
The detainees said the more they tried to make their voices heard, the more difficult it became.
One mother, who asked to remain anonymous because her immigration case is still pending, told ProPublica that she and her three kids watched through a window as guards swept through their room in late January, removing drawings from the walls and placing colored pencils and crayons in plastic bags before taking them away.
With little schooling available at Dilley and weather too chilly for kids to want to play outdoors, drawing had been the children’s main diversion, the former detainee said. “What were they going to do now?” she said. “They were so bored.”
After the room inspection, the woman said, the children just “cried and cried and cried.”
“I Can’t See My Pet Willi”
A detainee at Dilley wrote, “I feel bad being here! Bad because I can’t because I can’t see my pet willi and I can’t eat what I want and I can’t see my friends from school and at home.”
CoreCivic, the private prison company that runs the Dilley facility for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said in a written statement that routine inspections of living facilities are a common practice and that detainees are informed of what items they are allowed to have in their rooms.
“We vehemently deny any claims that our staff have confiscated or destroyed children’s personal artwork or their related supplies,” the statement reads, adding that there are examples of kids’ artwork “proudly displayed” throughout the facility.
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, said in a statement that “ICE is not destroying children’s letters,” but the agency acknowledged that in one case “all the written items in the cell were seized” as part of an investigation of a mother who DHS said refused to comply with a search and pushed a detention center employee. CoreCivic referred questions to DHS when asked about this incident. ProPublica was unable to reach the mother for comment.
This week, DHS issued press releases that it said were “correcting the record” about Dilley, saying “adults with children are housed in facilities that provide for their safety, security, and medical needs.” DHS’ and CoreCivic’s statements to ProPublica did not answer questions about Google services being blocked or whether guards listen in on Dilley detainees’ calls.
U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, a Texas Democrat, visited Dilley after Liam and his father, both originally from Ecuador, were picked up in Minnesota and transferred in January. He went again last week and was asked at a Friday news conference about reports of children’s letters and drawings being suppressed.
“I believe those stories, because I’ve heard similar stories myself,” Castro said.
He said he’d been told repeatedly that guards had warned detainees not to talk to him. “Yes, I think there’s a lot of secrecy there,” Castro said.
DHS did not respond when asked to comment on Castro’s assertion about the guards. A CoreCivic spokesperson said, “We are not aware of any staff member warning residents not to speak with Rep. Castro.”
The Dilley Immigration Processing Center first opened during the Obama administration primarily to hold families that had just crossed the border. Then Biden ended the practice of detaining families in 2021. President Donald Trump restarted it even as border crossings in his second term hit record lows. Now ICE is ramping up immigration arrests inside the country, and Dilley holds many families who have been living in the United States for years.
The families spend their days behind a metal fence, sleeping in rooms that hold six bunk beds and a common area with a few small tables and desks. More than 3,500 people have cycled through the detention center since the Trump administration began sending families here last spring.
A ProPublica reporter who had been speaking with families at Dilley since late last year went to the center for an in-person visit in mid-January and asked families whether their children would want to write about their experiences. On Jan. 22, we received a packet of colorful drawings and handwritten letters from a detainee who had been recently released, which we later published.
Then on Jan. 24, dozens of detainees staged a mass protest in the yard, which was photographed from above, where they yelled “libertad” and held up hand-drawn signs. The signs were made using the detention center’s art supplies, former detainees said.
That protest and Liam’s detention triggered widespread media coverage and a visit by Castro, who arrived on Jan 28. Supporters gathered outside Dilley, and some clashed with state troopers. At the beginning of February, Liam and his father were released, and ProPublica published the letters it had received. By that time, it had become clear to detainees that their voices — especially children’s voices — had gotten broad public attention.
They kept writing.
“We were looking for help,” said Hinojosa, who collected letters at ProPublica’s request. “We were looking to be heard.”
Hinojosa, along with her 13-year-old son, Gustavo, both originally from Mexico, were released in early February after four months at Dilley to return home to San Antonio. (Although a 1990s legal settlement holds that children should generally not be detained for more than 20 days, DHS has said the settlement should be terminated because newer regulations have addressed the needs of child detainees.)
“My parents say it’s been 4 months but for me and my little sister,” a 9-year-old wrote in one of the letters Hinojosa gathered. “It feels like a year I just want to go to the United States to be with my grandparents and finally end this nightmare.”
“I’m writing this letter so that you can hear my story,” a 7-year-old wrote in another of the letters. “I need you to help us … I cry a lot. I want to get out of here go back to my school.”
“I see how they treat us like criminals,” wrote Edison, a seventh grader from Chicago who was born in Guatemala, “and we’re not.”
“We Are Not Criminals”
While detained at Dilley, 7-year old Diana wrote: “I lived in oregon We were detained in a hospital parking lot I feel bad because I miss my stuffed animals I don’t want to be here and I miss my friends and also miss my teacher and my house and my bed. we are not criminals I’m a very pretty girl.” Obtained by ProPublica. Alien Registration Number redacted by ProPublica.
CoreCivic said that Dilley residents are given a written description of property they’re allowed to have in their living areas, and that decorating rooms with personal items is permitted “provided they do not present a health or safety hazard.”
Former detainees told ProPublica they experienced room searches before January but that they typically were carried out by just two employees at a time, not eight or more.
After guards searched Hinojosa’s room following the protest, she said, she and the other residents were unable to locate their colored pencils, which were purchased at the commissary and stored in a little cup atop the writing table where the kids liked to doodle. “Even knowing that we had paid for those ourselves,” she said, “they removed them.”
“There were many, many families whose children had their pencils and what they created thrown away,” said a third mother, who also asked to remain anonymous because of her immigration status.
“I Just Want to … Finally End This Nightmare”
A handwritten letter with a drawing of four people trapped behind bars:
Nine-year-old Valentina wrote: “I have been detained for a long time. My parents say it’s been 4 months but for me and my little sister Jireth it feels like a year I just want to go to the United States to be with my grandparents and finally end this nightmare that my family has had to live through, I feel like I’ve had the worst days of my life I want God to help us get out of here so we can be happy again and study together as a family. Please help us and our parents get out of here thank you.”
Former detainees and their family members described close attention by guards during calls home, some of which happened via tablet computers in a common area.
Edison, the 13-year-old Chicago seventh grader, cried during a recent video call home that his father shared with ProPublica, saying he felt locked up.
The father, who asked that his son’s last name not be used, recalled the boy saying before the recording began, “Dad, there’s an agent here and he’s watching us.” He said his son sounded panicked.
The mother who said she watched guards sweep her room told ProPublica that after the January protest inside Dilley, a half-dozen guards were posted in a room where calls took place. “Every time someone came in to make a call,” she said, “they practically stood behind you.”
As families held at Dilley continue to try to make themselves heard, Hinojosa and other recently released detainees are determined to help.
Hinojosa carefully protected her fellow residents’ letters and drawings before her release. Every time she left her room, she wore the CoreCivic-issued puffy gray jacket and tucked the drawings and letters inside.
“I carried them around with me all day to prevent anyone from taking them,” she told ProPublica. “I knew they were valuable.”
Many of the pieces she carried were different from the vibrant paper drawings ProPublica received in January. With paper in short supply, Hinojosa said, children drew pictures on the backs of old artworks. With crayons and colored pencils now scarce, some drew in plain pencil.
Hinojosa walked out of Dilley earlier this month with her son Gustavo and with 34 pages of drawings and letters. They capture the names and lives of dozens of people.
Along with long notes from moms who remain inside are simple sketches by the kids detained with them: a teddy bear. A bus going home. A pet cat named Willi. A family of three stick figures trapped behind a wire fence. A family of six stick figures trapped behind a wire fence. A single small stick figure trapped behind a wire fence. Many of the drawings show faces, and most of the faces are frowning.
The Games They Play
So, I guess my questions:
- What is making Paxton think that fighting over the filibuster is a good issue for him?
- Has something come up that tells him he's going to lose, and so this is a Hail Mary of some kind?
- Is this his claim to Über MAGA status?
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) suggested Thursday that he would be open to dropping out of the hotly contested Texas Senate primary against Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) if Senate Republicans met several conditions.
Paxton said on Thursday he would consider exiting the race if Senate leadership eliminated the filibuster — the 60-vote threshold needed to clear most legislation in the upper chamber — and passed a bill that would require voters to show proof of citizenship to register to vote.
The shift from Paxton comes after President Trump on Wednesday said he plans to endorse in the Senate GOP primary “soon” and called for whomever he doesn’t endorse to drop out of the race.
“John Cornyn is a coward who has refused to support abolishing the filibuster to pass this bill. Now, Fake News reporters and the establishment are trying to destroy me with misinformation,” Paxton wrote on the social media platform X.
“The truth is clear: No one has been more loyal to Donald Trump than me—fighting the stolen 2020 election, being in Mar-a-Lago when he announced his 2024 campaign, and standing with him in NY in the face of lawfare,” he added. “For the good of our country and for the good of passing President Trump’s agenda, I am determined to help him get this done.”
Cornyn responded to Paxton’s statement and argued he’s been supportive of getting the voter registration legislation passed.
“I repeat what I have consistently said: I support the bill and have encouraged Senate Republicans to get it done,” Cornyn wrote on X.
However, Paxton’s conditions were quickly shot down by Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.).
“You guys know where the votes are on the filibuster. That’s not going to happen,” he told reporters on Thursday.
Cornyn has expressed some openness to changing the filibuster rules — which Trump backed as lawmakers looked to reopen the government during its shutdown last year. However, Cornyn also expressed concern that eliminating the 60-vote threshold rule could be abused by Democrats if they were to return to power.
The incumbent senator has also supported the SAVE America Act, the legislation that would require voters to show proof of citizenship in order to vote in addition to a photo ID requirement to cast a ballot.
The legislation has passed the House but has stalled in the Senate as Republicans don’t have the 60 votes needed to pass the bill. Some Republicans have floated a “talking filibuster,” which would require Democrats to continue talking on the floor in order to halt its passage. The talking filibuster would only require 51 votes in order to pass legislation once Democrats finished on the floor.
Senate GOP leadership has pressed Trump to endorse Cornyn in the May 26 runoff in an effort to avoid an ugly contest against Paxton.
And The Hits Keep On A-Comin'
If Markwayne Mullin takes the gig at DHS, he'll assume the office on April 1st.
Trump ousts DHS secretary Kristi Noem and replaces her with Republican senator
Noem’s tenure was marked by killings of US citizens by federal agents, a rumored affair and $220m spent on ads
Donald Trump on Thursday announced he was replacing Kristi Noem as homeland security secretary, after the killing of two US citizens by immigration agents and mounting reports of her questionable personal conduct attracted bipartisan criticism.
It was the first major personnel shakeup of Trump’s second term, and in a post on Truth Social, the president said Markwayne Mullin, an Oklahoma senator, would take over from Noem starting on 31 March. The secretary, who he said “has served us well, and has had numerous and spectacular results (especially on the Border!)” would become special envoy for “the Shield of the Americas”, a security initiative Trump said he planned to launch over the weekend.
A Republican former congresswoman and governor of South Dakota, Noem was considered a potential running mate for Trump as he sought re-election in 2024, but ultimately passed over after she admitted in a memoir to killing a dog she owned. The president instead nominated her to lead the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the border patrol and other agencies that took to the streets of major US cities during Trump’s second term to carry out his mass deportation agenda.
Noem became a public face of the crackdown, which ensnared immigrants with documentation and without as well as US citizens, appearing regularly on conservative television networks as well as in promotional material on DHS social media accounts.
After federal agents deployed to Minneapolis killed Renee Good and then, weeks later, Alex Pretti, Noem accused both US citizens of being involved in “domestic terrorism”. But the allegation appeared to fly in the face of what was known about both’s participation in anti-ICE protests, and Democrats along with some Republicans called for Noem to resign after Pretti’s death.
Simultaneously, reports began to emerge of Noem and Corey Lewandowski, a former Trump campaign manager who was her senior adviser, engaging in a personal relationship, despite both being married, amid turmoil at the department.
In February, the Wall Street Journal published a lengthy report into her leadership of the DHS that found Noem and Lewandowski had done little to obfuscate their personal relationship, while berating staff and administering polygraph tests to those they did not trust.
The pair had been traveling on a luxury 737 Max jet equipped with a private cabin, which the department has been seeking to acquire for around $70M for “high-profile deportations”. In one instance, Lewandowski fired a US Coast Guard pilot who left a blanket belonging to Noem on a plane, but then reinstated him because there was no one else to fly them back.
Democrats excoriated Noem when she appeared before the House and Senate judiciary committees in early March. She refused to retract her comments calling the US citizens killed in Minneapolis “domestic terrorists” while dismissing a question about whether she was having “sexual relations” with Lewandowski as “tabloid garbage”.
But even some Republicans signaled concerns with her leadership, with Louisiana senator John Kennedy questioning why the DHS gave $220M to a firm linked to Noem’s former spokesperson to produce advertisements in which the secretary was featured prominently.
Thom Tillis of North Carolina, one of the few Republicans who had called for Noem’s resignation, threatened to hold up Senate business if he did not get responses from her to a slew of questions, while accusing her of obstructing investigations by the department’s inspector general.
He also took her to task for killing both a dog and a goat, as she documented in her book, saying: “Those are bad decisions made in the heat of the moment, not unlike what happened in Minneapolis.”
And there's nothing more on-brand than that for this stupidly fucked up "administration".
Noem’s tenure was marked by killings of US citizens by federal agents, a rumored affair and $220m spent on ads
Donald Trump on Thursday announced he was replacing Kristi Noem as homeland security secretary, after the killing of two US citizens by immigration agents and mounting reports of her questionable personal conduct attracted bipartisan criticism.
It was the first major personnel shakeup of Trump’s second term, and in a post on Truth Social, the president said Markwayne Mullin, an Oklahoma senator, would take over from Noem starting on 31 March. The secretary, who he said “has served us well, and has had numerous and spectacular results (especially on the Border!)” would become special envoy for “the Shield of the Americas”, a security initiative Trump said he planned to launch over the weekend.
A Republican former congresswoman and governor of South Dakota, Noem was considered a potential running mate for Trump as he sought re-election in 2024, but ultimately passed over after she admitted in a memoir to killing a dog she owned. The president instead nominated her to lead the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the border patrol and other agencies that took to the streets of major US cities during Trump’s second term to carry out his mass deportation agenda.
Noem became a public face of the crackdown, which ensnared immigrants with documentation and without as well as US citizens, appearing regularly on conservative television networks as well as in promotional material on DHS social media accounts.
After federal agents deployed to Minneapolis killed Renee Good and then, weeks later, Alex Pretti, Noem accused both US citizens of being involved in “domestic terrorism”. But the allegation appeared to fly in the face of what was known about both’s participation in anti-ICE protests, and Democrats along with some Republicans called for Noem to resign after Pretti’s death.
Simultaneously, reports began to emerge of Noem and Corey Lewandowski, a former Trump campaign manager who was her senior adviser, engaging in a personal relationship, despite both being married, amid turmoil at the department.
In February, the Wall Street Journal published a lengthy report into her leadership of the DHS that found Noem and Lewandowski had done little to obfuscate their personal relationship, while berating staff and administering polygraph tests to those they did not trust.
The pair had been traveling on a luxury 737 Max jet equipped with a private cabin, which the department has been seeking to acquire for around $70M for “high-profile deportations”. In one instance, Lewandowski fired a US Coast Guard pilot who left a blanket belonging to Noem on a plane, but then reinstated him because there was no one else to fly them back.
Democrats excoriated Noem when she appeared before the House and Senate judiciary committees in early March. She refused to retract her comments calling the US citizens killed in Minneapolis “domestic terrorists” while dismissing a question about whether she was having “sexual relations” with Lewandowski as “tabloid garbage”.
But even some Republicans signaled concerns with her leadership, with Louisiana senator John Kennedy questioning why the DHS gave $220M to a firm linked to Noem’s former spokesperson to produce advertisements in which the secretary was featured prominently.
Thom Tillis of North Carolina, one of the few Republicans who had called for Noem’s resignation, threatened to hold up Senate business if he did not get responses from her to a slew of questions, while accusing her of obstructing investigations by the department’s inspector general.
He also took her to task for killing both a dog and a goat, as she documented in her book, saying: “Those are bad decisions made in the heat of the moment, not unlike what happened in Minneapolis.”
Big Shit Comin' - Maybe
If it blows up, then yes - it's about as black as it appears.
Seems like we've been here before.
Lending troubles at Blue Owl Capital and other so-called private credit behemoths are setting off fears of a “bank run,” as one hedge fund put it.
Blue Owl Capital, a giant Wall Street lender, used to do just about anything for attention. It hosted investment advisers at five-star resorts, advertised on digital billboards, slapped its logo on professional tennis players and hosted a pickleball tournament in Central Park.
But for the past few weeks, Blue Owl has been the talk of Wall Street for an altogether different reason. It has been trying to convince investors that its $300 billion portfolio of investments and loans is actually worth what Blue Owl says.
Despite a blitz of conference calls, media interviews and news releases, Blue Owl appears not to have resolved the miasma surrounding the firm. Rather, its efforts to calm many investor jitters may have contributed to worries that Wall Street is on the precipice of a broad, new credit crisis. On Tuesday, Blue Owl stock was down as much as 9 percent, nearing its lowest point as a public company. The share prices of other large lenders also fell.
The uncertainty centers on whether Blue Owl and other colossal “private credit” lenders have been far too optimistic in their assessments of multiyear, privately traded loans tied to risky companies and industries that may now be threatened by advancements in artificial intelligence. If so, these lenders may soon face the unpleasant reality of having to mark down the value of loans to these vulnerable companies or, worse, sell the loans under duress.
Blue Owl has continued to publicly emphasize that its metrics show only 1 percent of its loans are at risk of default, and that it does not foresee more weakening anytime soon. Craig Packer, Blue Owl’s co-president, said in a statement that its portfolio was “attractive and well-diversified.”
Yet the firm’s hand was essentially forced two weeks ago when investors in one of its funds demanded some of their money back. Partly to satisfy those requests, Blue Owl sold $1.4 billion worth of loans, including some to a closely affiliated insurer that Blue Owl did not initially disclose.
Another lender, New Mountain Capital, followed last week, unloading a set of loans at lower prices than it had valued them previously, freeing up cash to repay backers. And late Monday, the investing colossus Blackstone said that it would pay out record withdrawal requests for its biggest lending fund.
Now Wall Street is engaged in a grim guessing game as just about everyone — private-equity giants, investment bankers, hedge fund managers — speculates about who might be forced to the market next, and at what prices. The conflict in Iran could only complicate the calculus, as market volatility typically reaches the weakest recesses of Wall Street first, and the largest private lenders have relied on money from Middle Eastern governments to grow.
“You’re seeing a crisis of confidence,” said Victor Hong, a former investment banking risk executive.
“Anytime somebody hears that other people are getting out, you don’t want to be last,” said Steve Curley, investor and co-managing principal at 55 North Private Wealth.
What is happening represents the first major test for private credit, a catchall term to describe private equity funds run by Blue Owl, Blackstone, Ares and others that now act as lightly regulated banks that loan directly to companies large and small. Unlike stocks, government bonds or, say, oil, these investments are not traded publicly.
Historically, the money that these funds lend out has come from so-called institutional investors such as pension funds that agree to keep their investments in place for years or even a decade.
As the industry has boomed to more than $3 trillion, however, that spigot is running dry. Private credit lenders have shifted to raising money from individuals via mutual funds and other products with complicated-sounding categories such as “business development companies” and “interval funds.”
They all do basically the same thing: collect money from wealthy investors and invest it en masse in private-credit firms and individual loans for a fee.
The rub is that these newer funds have told their investors that they can ask for their money relatively quickly, as often as every quarter. That wasn’t a problem as long as new investments kept flowing in. But now that it isn’t a guarantee, the funds hold multiyear investments that must be liquidated more quickly to pay skittish individuals who want their money back fast.
If too many such investors try to yank their money at once, the funds may elect not to pay back all of them.
Not all are necessarily alarmed — one private credit investor, Hightower Advisors’s Robert Picard, who spoke at the suggestion of Blue Owl, said he was comfortable because many of the loans in question are long-term.
He called firms like Blue Owl some of the “best money managers and lenders that we have in the current U.S. economy.”
Of course, moments of uncertainty on Wall Street also bring opportunity, and opportunists are now circling private credit for a chance to profit from its troubles.
Boaz Weinstein, a hedge fund manager famous for helping bring down JPMorgan Chase’s infamous “whale” trader 14 years ago, is predicting that Blue Owl’s funds will have such trouble meeting redemption requests that he’s offering as little as 65 cents on the dollar to investors who want their money now.
“All you need is the snowball to start going down the hill, and it's started,” Mr. Weinstein said recently at an investment conference, where he was also trying to raise money for his own hedge fund, which places bets against loans it hopes will drop in value.
Another hedge fund, Rubric Capital, in a private note to investors passed around widely on Wall Street, predicted a cascading series of private credit defaults that would partly result from a “mismatch between assets and liabilities,” according to two people who read the letter.
It called out Cliffwater, the biggest operator of interval funds and an aggressive player in selling private credit to individual investors.
Cliffwater’s largest fund, started in June 2019, has since reported a total of just three negative months of investment performance. It now manages $33 billion. The first opportunity this year for investors to ask for their money back is next week.
The note surmised that Cliffwater could be “a canary in a coal mine.” Rubric, founded by a former deputy of the New York Mets owner Steven A. Cohen, predicts that Cliffwater will be “the first domino in the bank run we foresee.”
Cliffwater declined to answer questions for this article. In a note to its clients after The New York Times reached out for comment, the firm described Rubric’s concerns as “overcited and belabored,” and said Rubric had never contacted the firm before disseminating its analysis.
Stephen Nesbitt, Cliffwater’s chief executive, said in a separate statement that there was no asset-liability mismatch; that the fund had earned an A rating from Standard & Poor’s (the second lowest on the investment-grade scale); and that it had sufficient “liquidity” to pay out more than a year of potential redemption requests.
That liquidity, according to public filings, would be achieved by borrowing more money.
The biggest spotlight remains on Blue Owl, whose executives once liked to describe its business as “boring.” Established in 2016 to lend to “junk” rated companies, which are seen as too risky for traditional banks, it listed its stock publicly in 2021 for $10 a share.
Blue Owl’s shares are now down 60 percent from their peak in January 2025.
Last week, under the spotlight for offloading loans to pay out redeeming investors in one fund, the firm held two packed calls with financial advisers to urge them to stick with the firm.
Mr. Packer of Blue Owl said that the loan sale was conducted as an “arms length transaction” and allowed for investors to be repaid more quickly than would otherwise have been possible.
For Blue Owl’s co-chief executive Doug Ostrover there has been time for levity.
Last year, he and Marc Lipschultz, Blue Owl’s other co-chief executive, used their then-skyrocketed shares in Blue Owl to take out personal loans and purchase a stake in the Tampa Bay Lightning of the National Hockey League.
Mr. Ostrover was in Tampa, Fla., on Saturday with his wife for the latest game, according to a video viewed by The Times. At a local bar beforehand, he posed for pictures with waitresses and others, and in a loud speech to dozens of fans offered to buy everyone a shot of alcohol.
The Lightning lost the game, 6-2.
More Uh-Oh
- UBS downgraded U.S. equities, saying factors that powered years of outperformance are starting to fade.
- The dollar risk is a central concern as the firm sees “asymmetric structural downside risks” to the greenback.
- Another pillar of U.S. stock strength — corporate buybacks — is also losing its edge, the bank said.
Andrew Garthwaite, head of global equity strategy at the investment bank, downgraded American equities to “benchmark” in a fully invested global equity portfolio, arguing that the factors that powered years of outperformance are starting to fade.
The dollar risk is a central concern, Garthwaite wrote. UBS forecasts the euro climbing to $1.22 by the end of the first quarter and sees “asymmetric structural downside risks” to the greenback. Historically, when the dollar’s trade-weighted index falls 10%, U.S. equities underperform by roughly 4% in unhedged terms, according to the bank.
Foreign markets are trouncing the U.S. this year as a weaker dollar and cheaper valuations draw capital overseas. The MSCI World ex-US index has gained about 8% in 2026, compared with the little changed performance for the S&P 500. Japan’s Nikkei 225 has rallied 17% year to date, while the Stoxx Europe 600 is up 7%, underscoring a sharp rotation away from American equities. U.S. stocks struggled again Friday as investors fretted over the potential downsides of the artificial intelligence build-out and persistent inflation at home.
Another pillar of U.S. stock strength — corporate buybacks — is also losing its edge, the bank said. The buyback yield in the U.S. is now only roughly on par with global peers, eroding what had been a key support for earnings per share growth and investor flows, UBS said. The combined shareholder yield from dividends and buybacks in the U.S. is now about half that of Europe, the bank said.
“The buybacks yield is no longer exceptional and this had been an important driver of funds flow, EPS and valuation,” Garthwaite wrote.
Valuations add to the unease. UBS calculates that the sector-adjusted price-earnings ratio for U.S. stocks is 35% above international peers, versus an average premium of about 4% since 2010. Roughly 60% of sectors trade not only at higher multiples than their global counterparts but also above their own historical premium, the strategist wrote.
Policy volatility under President Donald Trump is another headwind. This year has brought shifts in tariff policy, proposals to cap credit card interest rates, potential limits on private equity investment in housing, renewed scrutiny of drug pricing, and suggestions to curb dividends and buybacks for defense companies, UBS said.
Still, the noted strategist stopped short of turning outright bearish. Garthwaite said the U.S. economy and equities tend to benefit more than peers when markets are in the early phases of a potential bubble. The bank also expects artificial intelligence adoption to outpace most other major regions, with the possible exception of China, helping sustain earnings growth across key industries.
UBS strategist Sean Simonds set a year-end target of 7,500 for the S&P 500, compared with an average forecast of 7,629 among 14 top strategists, according to CNBC Pro’s strategist survey.
everything Trump touches
turns to shit
On The Mythology Of Greatness
God does not need help from Generals.
The purpose of the separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries.
--James Madison, in a letter objecting to the use of government land for churches, 1803
Mar 4, 2026
Sound Advice
Be kind. You don't know what people are going thru - what special burdens they're under.
So instead of telling them to fuck off,
have a little heart.
Ask them, "How can I help to fuck off today?"
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