Trump goes on a pardoning spree
(THIS) SHOULD BE TREATED AS ANOTHER NATIONAL SCANDAL BY A LAWLESS EXECUTIVE.
WASHINGTON • President Donald Trump pardoned seven people on Tuesday, including former junk bond king Michael Milken and commuted the sentence of Rod Blagojevich, the ex-illinois governor convicted of trying to peddle Barack Obama’s vacated U.S. Senate seat.
The people affected ranged from those charged with defrauding the federal government to drug and theft charges. Blagojevich, a Democrat who appeared on Trump’s “Celebrity Apprentice” reality show while awaiting trial, began serving a 14-year sentence in 2012 after being convicted of wire fraud, extortion and soliciting bribes while governor.
“That was a tremendously powerful, ridiculous sentence,” said Trump, who produced the show before running for president.
Blagojevich, 63, was removed from office in 2009 after prosecutors said he tried to sell or trade the U.S. Senate seat Obama vacated after winning the 2008 presidential election.
Milken, once considered Wall Street’s “junk bond king,” was indicted in 1989 in an insider trading probe. After pleading guilty to securities violations, he paid $1.5 billion and served about two years in prison. Since then he has headed up the non-profit Milken Institute.
Trump also pardoned former New York Police commissioner Bernard Kerik, who was sentenced in 2010 to four years in prison for tax fraud and for making false statements.
Kerik, an ally of former New York mayor and Trump lawyer Rudolph Giuliani, had tried to conceal apartment renovations paid for by a contractor the city had blacklisted because of suspected ties to organized crime.
Kerik pleaded guilty to hiding the renovations from the IRS and lying to White House officials while being vetted to lead the Homeland Security Department under President George W. Bush.
Trump also pardoned Eddie Debartolo Jr., the former owner of the San Francisco 49ers. He pleaded guilty in 1998 to failing to report a felony in a riverboat casino license bribery scheme.
“The pardoning of these disgraced figures should be treated as another national scandal by a lawless executive,” said Democratic Rep. Bill Pascrell, a critic of Trump’s pardons