Trump flexes his power of pardons
White collar convicts star on list of those granted clemency
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump, citing what he said was advice from friends and business associates, granted clemency Tuesday to a who’s who of white collar criminals from politics, sports and business — including financier Michael Milken — who were convicted on charges involving fraud, corruption and lies.
The president pardoned Milken as well as former New York City police commissioner Bernard Kerik and Edward DeBartolo Jr., a former owner of the San Francisco 49ers. He also commuted the sentence of Rod Blagojevich, a former Democratic governor of Illinois. Blagojevich was released from prison Tuesday night.
Their political and finance schemes made them household names, and three received prison terms while DeBartolo paid a $1 million fine.
Trump also pardoned David Safavian, the top federal procurement official under President George W. Bush, who had been sentenced in 2009 to a year in prison for lying about his ties to lobbyist Jack Abramoff and obstructing the sprawling investiga
tion into Abramoff ’s efforts to win federal business. The president also granted clemency to six other people.
Trump has repeatedly stated his commitment to prison reform and addressing the excessive sentences given to minorities. At the urging of Kim Kardashian West in 2018, he pardoned Alice Marie Johnson, a 63-year-old African American woman serving a life sentence for a nonviolent drug conviction. Johnson was the centerpiece of a TV ad the Trump campaign ran this month during the Super Bowl.
But the president’s announcements Tuesday were mostly aimed at wiping clean the slate for rich, powerful and well-connected white men. And they came after years of sophisticated public relations campaigns aimed at persuading Trump to exercise the authority given to him under the Constitution.
Patti Blagojevich, the wife of the former Illinois governor, frequently appeared on Fox News calling for Trump to commute her husband’s sentence. Kerik, a regular on Fox News, appeared on the network as recently as Monday night. Milken has sought to rebrand himself as a philanthropist in recent years as allies campaigned on his behalf for a pardon.
In conversations with his advisers, Trump has also raised the prospect of commuting the sentence of Roger Stone, his longtime adviser, who was convicted in November of seven felony charges, including tampering with a witness and lying under oath in order to obstruct a congressional inquiry into whether the Trump campaign conspired with Russia to influence the 2016 election.
Asked about a pardon for Stone on Tuesday, Trump insisted that “I haven’t given it any thought.”
Democrats pounced on Trump’s announcements.
“Today, Trump granted clemency to tax cheats, Wall Street crooks, billionaires and corrupt government officials,” Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., the leading Democratic candidate for president. “Meanwhile, thousands of poor and working-class kids sit in jail for nonviolent drug convictions. This is what a broken and racist criminal justice system looks like.”
‘Lawless executive’
Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., D-N.J., said in a statement that the president abused the pardon power by using it to reward friends and repair the reputations of convicted felons who do not deserve it.
“The pardoning of these disgraced figures should be treated as another national scandal by a lawless executive,” he said.
But Trump on Tuesday defended his grants of clemency.
Trump was particularly critical of the 14-year prison sentence for Blagojevich, who was convicted of trying when he was governor of Illinois to essentially sell the Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama when he became president and once appeared on the reality series, “The Celebrity Apprentice,” which Trump hosted.
“That was a tremendously powerful, ridiculous sentence, in my opinion,” Trump said after announcing that Blagojevich would go free after serving eight years in prison. The president alleged that the former governor was a victim of the same forces that investigated him for years, citing James Comey, the former FBI director, and Patrick Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney in Chicago who prosecuted Blagojevich.
“It was a prosecution by the same people — Comey, Fitzpatrick, the same group,” Trump told reporters, misstating Fitzgerald’s name.
Trump gave no indication that he relied on the usual vetting process that guides presidents making use of their constitutional authority to wipe away criminal convictions or commute prison sentences.
Traditionally, the pardons office in the Justice Department would make recommendations about pardons and commutations to the deputy attorney general, who would weigh in and then pass the Justice Department’s final determinations to the White House. Instead, Trump told reporters that he followed “recommendations” in making his decisions.
Those recommendations, according to a White House statement, came from the president’s longtime friends, business executives, celebrities, campaign donors, sports figures and political allies.
High-brow portfolio
In pardoning Kerik, who pleaded guilty of tax fraud and lying to the government, Trump said he heard from more than a dozen people, including Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor and Trump’s personal lawyer; Geraldo Rivera, a Fox TV personality; and Eddie Gallagher, a former Navy SEAL and accused war criminal whose demotion was overturned by Trump last year.
Kerik had a pardon application pending and Blagojevich had a commutation application pending; but a source close to the pardons office did not believe that the pardon attorney had given either of those applications full-throated support.
Milken, the investment banker who was known in the 1980s as the “junk bond king,” fought for decades to reverse his conviction for securities fraud. Richard LeFrak, a billionaire real estate magnate and longtime friend, Sheldon Adelson, a prominent Republican donor, and Nelson Peltz, a billionaire investor who hosted a $10 million fundraiser for the president’s 2020 campaign Saturday, were among those who suggested that the president pardon him.
Milken did not have a pardon or commutation applications pending at the Justice Department’s pardons office, meaning that Trump made that decision entirely without official Justice Department input. Two previous applications had been denied and closed.
Football greats Jerry Rice and Joe Montana — but also singersongwriter Paul Anka — urged him to pardon DeBartolo, who pleaded guilty in 1998 to concealing an extortion attempt. DeBartolo avoided prison but was fined $1 million and suspended for a year by the National Football League. He later handed over the 49ers to his sister Denise DeBartolo York.
Trump on Tuesday also pardoned a tech executive who pleaded guilty to conspiracy, the owner of a Texas construction company who underpaid his taxes and a woman convicted of stealing cars. He also commuted the sentences of a woman convicted of drug distribution, another woman who was part of a marijuana smuggling ring, and a minority owner of a health care company who was sentenced to 35 years for a scheme to defraud the government.
Milken, who was credited in the 1980s with using junk bonds to finance big debt-laden corporate buyouts, pleaded guilty to securities reporting violations and tax offenses and the Securities and Exchange Commission banned him for life. The investigation came to highlight the corporate excesses on Wall Street in the 1980s.
Kerik, a police detective, served as Giuliani’s bodyguard and chauffeur during the 1993 mayoral race and later served in a series of highranking positions in the city’s Department of Correction. Eventually, Giuliani named Kerik correction commissioner in 1997 and police commissioner in 2000.
DeBartolo presided over the golden era of the 49ers when the team won five Super Bowl championships under coach Bill Walsh with legendary players like Steve Young, Ronnie Lott, Montana and Rice. He was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2014 despite his conviction.