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Josh Smith, a pardoned drug offender who served as the No. 2 official at the federal Bureau of Prisons, abruptly announced Monday he was leaving the agency without giving a reason for his departure. But he had a tense relationship with some of the BOP’s employees, some of whom have also raised questions about contracts awarded during his year-long tenure.
In a post from his personal X account, Smith thanked President Trump for the chance to serve in his administration as BOP’s deputy director, an opportunity that arose in 2025 after Mr. Trump pardoned him for drug-related crimes in 2021.
“Three decades ago, I walked through the gates of a federal prison as an inmate. Years later, after receiving a presidential pardon, I was given the opportunity to walk back through those gates as Deputy Director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, serving the very President that gave me that pardon. For that, I will always be grateful to President Donald J. Trump,” Smith wrote.
In a short note to BOP staff on Tuesday morning, director William Marshall formally announced Smith was leaving.
A BOP spokesperson confirmed his departure but offered no additional details.
Smith, in an interview with CBS News, said that his approach to the job entailed overhauling the staffing at the bureau, while also striving to improve rehabilitative services for prisoners so they are prepared when they return to society.
“I believe we should really care about what kind of people we are turning back out into our neighborhoods,” he said. “I’m a tough-on-crime person, but I’m restorative in nature because they’re going to be my neighbor.”
Smith declined to say why he left his role, but he said he didn’t need the job. He did acknowledge that the bureaucracy of the federal government made his role difficult at times — and unpopular with some of the rank and file.
“Bureaucracy in government is difficult,” he said, adding that he is proud he was able to help switch out about 70% of the executive staff — including several top wardens — and focus on leadership development.
“At the end of the day, bureaucracy is bureaucracy,” he added. “I hope what I was able to do was at least start a fire there.”
The Trump administration’s decision to tap Smith as deputy director was seen as highly controversial, given his criminal record. He pleaded guilty in 1998 to conspiring to possess and distribute cocaine and marijuana, and served a five-year sentence in a BOP prison camp in Kentucky.
After starting his own business, he eventually founded the nonprofit Fourth Purpose Foundation, a faith-based group that works with incarcerated people, and he also runs an adjacent media company called Prison Life Media. In that role, he has worked on prison reform advocacy efforts and rehabilitation programs.
By all accounts, Smith’s leadership at the BOP was unconventional — and not just because of his background.
Smith traveled across the country to dozens of prisons and hosted a new podcast called “Transparency Talks.” Some of his visits were unannounced, he said in his LinkedIn posts.
During his tenure, BOP leadership also facilitated allowing reality TV star Todd Chrisley, a convicted felon also later pardoned by Mr. Trump, to visit prisons in the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic regions, according to union officials and media reports.
At one event, Chrisley spoke at the final graduation ceremony for the Residential Drug Abuse Program at the Federal Prison Camp Pensacola. A BOP spokesperson confirmed Chrisley’s visit to Pensacola, but several union officials told CBS News he was allowed to visit other facilities, as well. The BOP director has also been a guest on Chrisley’s podcast.
Chrisley has since used his podcast as a platform to call out BOP staff whom he has accused of behaving improperly, saying he would refer complaints to Smith to get people fired.
In one clip from his podcast, he accused an employee at a prison in Arizona of failing to give a woman visiting a family member a place to breastfeed in private.
“Just so you know, I reported you,” he said. “Stop running around Tucson in that camp over there, trying to figure out who got you. I got you. I reported you to Josh Smith … I want you terminated.”
Smith said he did not have a role in facilitating any of Chrisley’s visits, nor had he appeared as a guest on Chrisley’s program.
Sources familiar with the matter told CBS News that some current and former BOP staffers have been raising questions about Smith’s qualifications and about how certain BOP government contracts were awarded.
For example, in August of last year, the BOP announced it was partnering with Precythe Sturm Advisory Group, a consulting firm run by Anne Precythe, the former director of the Missouri Department of Corrections, to assist with the hiring process for prison wardens. The contract value was for $183,400, according to public contracting records.
But Smith has an outside association with Precythe, too. Less than a year later, in July, the media company affiliated with Smith’s nonprofit released a documentary about Precythe called “Disruptors: Missouri, Anne Precythe.”
Smith touted its release on his LinkedIn page, writing, “Released today! I thoroughly enjoy studying great correctional Leaders!”
Now, he plans to return to working at his nonprofit and media company, he said in a social media post Monday.
CBS News has reached out to Precythe for comment.
Last month, the BOP announced it had awarded a contract to a Texas-based company called Securus Technologies to provide inmates with tablets that it said would be used to help facilitate academic coursework, career training, access to rehabilitation and healthcare information.
Union officials who represent corrections officers at the BOP, however, say that the tablets may create safety concerns for staff and be misused.
Smith told CBS News he had no role in any of the BOP’s contracting, and that he had disclosed that his nonprofit’s media company was working on a documentary about Precythe at the time her firm was retained.
Union officials also said they felt Smith’s policies often undermined staff and seemed to put prisoners’ needs first.
“Inmates are elevated more than staff,” said Joe Rojas, a retired correctional worker and union official who still engages in union activity for the Southeast region. “He is very toxic when it comes to staff. I am talking about managers, wardens. This is almost like a revenge tour,” he added.
Fernando Lopez, a retired BOP employee who still serves as a local union official, told CBS News he was forced to retire, rather than be fired, after he criticized Smith on his personal Facebook page over Smith’s conduct during a prison visit on July 6, 2025.
He said Smith showed no interest in meeting with BOP employees and spent most of his time speaking with inmates. Lopez also alleged that Smith ordered BOP staff out of the room while he met with the inmates, telling them he was “one of them,” referring to the inmates.
“F*** you, you f***ing pardoned crook,” he wrote on Facebook, adding that Smith would never earn his respect.
“I don’t think he came in there at all with the intent of helping staff or the bureau,” he told CBS News. “I also think he is lashing back at officers for whatever hard time he had while he was in here.”
Smith says he doesn’t recall the incident with Lopez, but conceded,
“I’ve been challenging a lot of processes. It’s never going to be comfortable while I’m around.”
Former BOP employees have lampooned Smith and the BOP director on a Facebook parody account known as the Federal Bureau of Prisons Avengers.
In one post Tuesday, members were invited to post their “best meme” as part of a “farewell card” for Smith.
A sticker that has also been circulating among current and former employees, meanwhile, depicts Marshall, Smith and Chrisley standing together as Chrisley holds up his middle finger. “F@ck Staff,” it says.
Smith said he takes it all in stride. And he said he does not believe some of the attitudes of former employees are reflective of the views held by those who still work at the BOP.
“They’re just bitter on the outside working with unions, and it’s the way it’s always been,” he said.
