Is Now the Time for a Federal Expungement Process?

The Conversation That Started Everything

Alright Nightmare Success lifters, we need to talk about something that’s been weighing on my mind. I had a conversation with my good friends Jeff Grant and Drew Chapin from the White Collar Support Group about federal expungement. And what came out of that talk might change everything for people coming home from federal prison.

Jeff was attending a webinar when he heard something that stopped him cold. Rachel Barkow from NYU Law, who used to be on the U.S. Sentencing Commission, said one simple sentence: “There’s nothing preventing Congress from passing a federal expungement law.”

“I just like I stopped that in my tracks,” Jeff told me. “Did I hear what I just heard? I couldn’t rewind it. And but I did call her up the next day. And I said, is that true? And she said, oh, yeah, it’s true. But no one’s ever gotten this off the ground.”

That phone call launched what we’re now calling the Federal Expungement Initiative. Because here’s the thing that blew my mind when Jeff explained it: all 50 states except Alaska have some form of expungement. But if you’re a federal felon? There’s no exit ramp. None.

Why Federal Felons Get Left Behind

Drew put it perfectly when we talked about this disparity. When he walks into those Yale and Berkeley classrooms where he speaks, he’s not walking in as an ex-felon. “I’m a felon, you know. That status remains and even if I were to be somebody who received a presidential pardon, I would still have that record and I would still have that felon label.”

That hit me hard. Because we all know presidential pardons are rare. Extremely rare. And even those don’t wipe your record clean.

Why should someone convicted in federal court be treated differently than someone convicted in Missouri or Florida? It makes no sense when you really think about it. The presidential pardon is basically the only path to any form of relief at the federal level. And that’s a tough road.

Jeff’s experience getting his law license reinstated gave him a taste of what real redemption could feel like. “That was like a hand being passed over me that this guy’s okay, right?” he said. “I think that my daughters are proud for me to be their father again.”

Building the Coalition

After that first call with Rachel Barkow, Jeff reached out to legal heavyweights Mark Osler and Doug Berman. Both jumped on board immediately. The timing felt right with all the criminal justice reform conversations happening.

But here’s what I love about their approach: they’re not trying to reinvent anything. “We’re not trying to recreate the wheel and reinvent something,” Jeff explained. “There are some really good things out there from states that all it needs to do is be recrafted a little bit for the federal level.”

They’ve got Paul Weiss providing pro bono legal research. They’re building a real coalition. And Jeff thinks within the next few months, they’ll be talking to senators on the Judiciary Committee about sponsoring actual legislation.

The parameters they’re discussing aren’t easy. We’re talking about probably seven years post-release before you’d even qualify for expungement. This isn’t a quick fix. Some crimes would never qualify. But for those who could earn their way out? It would be life-changing.

What This Really Means for Reentry

Drew’s been home about two and a half years now. I’ve watched him build a successful consulting business, speak at top universities, and turn his experience into what he calls his “earned secret.” But even with all that success, that felon label follows him everywhere.

“I don’t know that you work around anything,” Drew said when I asked how he handles it. “You really sort of like work with it… I disarm it in a way by owning it.”

That’s powerful. But imagine if there was an actual off-ramp. Not just learning to work with the label, but earning your way past it entirely.

Jeff made an important point about this being bigger than just white-collar cases. “Although we’ve decided to take the lead advocacy on this as a white collar support group and as people who’ve been prosecuted or convicted of white collar crimes, we’re doing this for benefit of everybody.”

The White Collar Conference Connection

This federal expungement push connects directly to what we’re doing with the White Collar Conference coming up October 11. They’ve got Jeffrey Toobin as a keynote speaker. They’re bringing in Joe Bankman, Sam Bankman-Fried’s father, for a family perspective on high-profile prosecutions.

And they’re dedicating a whole panel to the nuts and bolts of pardons and expungement with the academics who really understand this stuff. Because as Jeff pointed out from attending other criminal justice conferences, “Nobody knows what’s going on. Nobody knows the history.”

The White Collar Support Group meets every Monday night on Zoom. They’ve had 1,600 members come through over the years. On any given Monday, about 40 people show up to share resources and support each other.

Jeff’s favorite moment? “When someone comes on for the first time and they’re scared… And then all of a sudden, their face pops up on the screen. And they’re freaking out. Like, they can’t believe that, oh, my God, like, I can go in through this alone for sometimes years. And there’s like 40 people here who are going to give of themselves freely.”

Why This Matters Now

What excites me most about this initiative is the mindset behind it. As I told Jeff and Drew, when you get out of prison, everything is “you can’t do this, you can’t do that.” So we’re used to pushing through barriers.

Maybe that makes us the perfect people to tackle something everyone says can’t be done. We’re already experts at connecting dots and finding ways around obstacles.

Jeff thinks this could create real incentives for successful reentry. If people knew there was an actual path to clearing their record after proving themselves for years, that might help with recidivism too.

The conversation around criminal justice reform feels different right now. More people are touched by the system, either directly or through family. Social media has given formerly incarcerated people platforms to tell their stories in ways that connect with people.

This federal expungement initiative isn’t about erasing the past. It’s about creating a future where redemption can be complete, where serving your time actually means something, where there’s an exit from a system that currently has no off-ramp.

That’s a future worth fighting for.