• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, Yesterday

Trump’s pardon of reality-TV stars Todd and Julie Chrisley earlier this year is the likely centerpiece of Lifetime’s sprawling eight-hour docuseries about the couples’ incarceration and sudden freedom granted at the stroke of the President’s pen.

The story of how this came about is told in the show -- titled “The Chrisleys: Back to Reality” -- which plays out over four evenings that started last night (Monday) with Episodes 1 and 2.

It continues tonight (Tuesday, September 2) with two more episodes, then two more next Tuesday (September 9), and the final two installments on Tuesday, September 16.

In telling the story of this pardon, perhaps the show will shed a little light on why the President involves himself in issues that most people would not consider to be the business or concern of the President of the United States.

Pardoning reality-TV stars, decrying the changes in logo design and interior decoration at Cracker Barrel restaurants, and stage-managing the Kennedy Center are just a few of them.

Lifetime provided the first episode of “Back to Reality” for preview, but that episode does not cover the pardon or come close to it.

The episode covered the Chrisley family without Mom and Dad because they were still in prison following their 2022 convictions on federal bank fraud and tax evasion charges.

After well-publicized trials, Todd, 56, was sentenced to 12 years at a Florida prison camp, and Julie, 52, was sentenced to seven years in a federal facility in Kentucky. 

Both of their incarcerations ended on May 28, when Trump pardoned them, effective immediately. They each left their respective prisons later that day.

Though they were not seen in the first episode of “Back to Reality,” their voices were heard on recorded telephone calls they made from prison to family members.

In Episode 1, viewers were able to catch up with the Chrisleys and learn how they were all coping without the family patriarch and matriarch.

The situation took emotional tolls on all of them, and created rifts between some of them.

Among other things, eldest daughter Savannah Chrisley, 28, holds a great deal of resentment toward her family members since she was the only one working hard to earn her parents a pardon.

As seen in video clips in the Episode 1, Savannah’s strategy was to become a very visible celebrity supporter of President Trump’s election campaign.

Over and over again, she is seen in MAGA hats and outfits, in crowds greeting fans, and also speaking at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee last July. 

Inevitably, Trump took an interest and pardoned her parents, though he did not know them and had never met them.

“The Chrisleys: Back to Reality” represents a change of networks for the Chrisleys from NBCU-owned USA Network to Lifetime.

They were once one of the most successful reality-TV families in America. Their show, “Chrisley Knows Best,” ran for nine seasons (2014-23) on USA, and would have continued if not for Todd and Julie’s trials and subsequent sentences.

That show depicted the family at the height of their reality-TV fame. “Back to Reality” reveals the “reality” of what happened afterward.