President Trump says he will pardon a former Virginia sheriff who was convicted of selling deputy sheriff badges to several businessmen in exchange for cash payments both directly to the sheriff and to his campaign account. The disgraced sheriff, Scott Jenkins, was due to begin his 10-year sentence on Tuesday. 

Mr. Trump made his announcement in a Truth Social post on Memorial Day, saying that Jenkins was the victim of a weaponized federal prosecution. 

“As we have seen, in Federal, City, and State Courts, Radical Left or Liberal Judges allow into evidence what they feel like, not what is mandated under the Constitution and Rules of Evidence,” Mr. Trump says. “This Sheriff is a victim of an overzealous Biden Department of Justice, and doesn’t deserve to spend a single day in jail.”

Jenkins was convicted last year of accepting $75,000 in bribes — both in cash for his personal use and in the form of campaign donations — from eight individuals between 2015 and 2023. The purpose of the bribes was so that the sheriff could grant the individuals in question auxiliary deputies’ badges, which came with special privileges including being able to skip security lines at airports, carry weapons without permits, and potentially avoid speeding tickets. 

The men were also given official county sheriff badges and law enforcement identification cards. 

Only three of the men who bribed the sheriff were named in the indictment, while the others had their names redacted. One of the men named in the indictment, Rick Rahim, bribed Jenkins so that he could have his gun rights restored, having previously been convicted of a felony. The auxiliary badge allowed Rahim to purchase and carry a firearm without a permit from the state. 

Federal prosecutors alleged in their indictment that Jenkins concealed the bribes for years by “encouraging the payment of bribes in cash or through other individuals rather than directly to him” or “disguising bribe payments as purchases of firearms and creating false documentation of the purported purchases.”

During the trial, several video and audio recordings were played showing Jenkins receiving the cash and check payments, and confirming that he would get his benefactors their badges in exchange for the cash. 

“I’m gonna make it official with a badge,” Jenkins says to one man in a video played for the jury, immediately after the individual had given him a check for $5,000. 

In April, Jenkins said during a video conference call with the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association that he believed the president would grant him relief if he was able to get in touch with someone at the White House.

“I truly believe if I could get an hour of time with someone in the administration and lay out some facts with my attorney and I really believe if they could hear the other side which I couldn’t get in front of the jury — I believe wholeheartedly in the president,” Jenkins told the group, according to NBC 4 Washington. “I believe if he heard the information, I know he would help if he knew my story.”

Jenkins was caught by law enforcement thanks to the help of two undercover FBI agents, who both paid bribes to the sheriff as part of the investigation — bribes that Jenkins accepted. 

“Every law enforcement officer takes an oath to serve and protect the community,” the FBI’s top agent at the Richmond, Virginia, office, Stanley Meador, said in a statement after Jenkins was sentenced in March. “That includes following the law they’ve sworn to uphold. I am proud of the diligent work our investigative team did on this case to bring Jenkins to justice.”