# '60 Minutes' opens season 59 on Trump's pardons

> Lesley Stahl digs into the lawyers and lobbyists who turned clemency into a business, and CBS knows Trump is watching.
- Title: '60 Minutes' opens season 59 on Trump's pardons | Shortify
- Summary: Lesley Stahl digs into the lawyers and lobbyists who turned clemency into a business, and CBS knows Trump is watching. A network still tangled in a Trump…
- Keywords: 60 minutes, cbs news, trump, media, television, '60, Minutes', opens, season, Trump's, pardons, The Hollywood Reporter
- Source: The Hollywood Reporter — https://hollywoodreporter.com/news/politics-news/cbs-60-minutes-segment-lesley-stahl-trump-pardons-1236698386
- Author: Alex Weprin
- Published: 2026-09-11T23:51:01+00:00
- Read time: 1 min
- Topics: 60 minutes, cbs news, trump, media, television
## Season 59 leads with pardons
The premiere of '60 Minutes' devotes a segment to Donald Trump's use of the presidential pardon, the most charged of the three stories in the episode.
## Third of three reveals
CBS announced it last, after Jon Wertheim's profile of Rams coach Sean McVay and Norah O'Donnell's interview with the U.S. pilot shot down and rescued in Iran.
## A market for mercy
Stahl's segment, 'The Pardon Economy,' tracks the lawyers and lobbyists who built a trade around getting clients clemency.

> Lesley Stahl and 60 Minutes investigate the world of lawyers and lobbyists who have created a new pardon economy.
## An old power, newly contested
Presidents have granted pardons since George Washington. CBS frames the constitutional power as controversial from the start, and never more than under Trump.

> It's a constitutional power that has been controversial from the start.
## The show is rebuilding
New executive producer Nick Bilton is restarting the season after an exodus of talent, both voluntary exits and forced ones, leaning on veterans Stahl, Whitaker, Wertheim and O'Donnell.
## Trump already sued them
He sued CBS over a '60 Minutes' interview with Kamala Harris, so any segment aimed at him draws extra scrutiny. Ex-news chief Wendy McMahon expects shows three, four and five to get interesting.

> shows three, four, and five could get quite interesting, I think
## Key takeaway

A network still tangled in a Trump lawsuit is leading its season with an investigation into how he sells access to pardons.