You can’t subvert justice without creating some rubble. Trump is on a pardon/clemency-granting spree today. Here’s the tally so far:
- Rod Blagojevich, the former Illinois governor who tried to sell Obama’s senate seat and former Apprentice contestant
- Crooked cop Bernie Kerik, former NYC police commissioner and frequent pro-Trump Fox News guest
- 1980s-era insider trading crook Michael Milken
- Edward DeBartolo Jr., former 49ers owner
I read somewhere that Kushner urged Trump to spring Blago months ago because he (Kushner) believed the move would build good will with Democrats. Don’t know if that account of Kushner’s thinking is true or not, but it sounds dumb enough to be something he would believe. Maybe Trump is flooding the zone to minimize he impact of his ongoing activities to corrupt the DOJ and tamper with the judge and jury in the Roger Stone case. The strategy of piling outrage upon outrage has served him well so far.
Open thread.
germy
whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-press-secretary-regarding-executive-grants-clemency-2
There’s a few more names. Some non-political offenses. Each person gets an explanatory paragraph, listing the crime and why they’ve been chosen.
The Moar You Know
I wonder if you can refuse a parson? Probably not. Taking one from this asshole makes you look twice as guilty.
laura
No good will built Jared – though Eddie DeBartolo is the least worst of the bunch. Here’s my thoughts on Milken hoisted up from below:
I am HERE to share all of the reasons that Michael Milken deserves a full pardon. They are Zero/ None/Null Set.
That skeezy jack hole is the genius who’s leveraged buyouts started the rampage of hollowing out any/every business that had profits and property and a customer base and employees. Saddle the business with the costs of taking it over, asset strip everything not tied down, fire all the employees, take the money and run. Rinse. Repeat. Worse by orders of magnitude than meth junkies who strip out the copper wiring on your local public school to sell for scrap.
In a just world, he and his toupe would have rotted in a prison cell til he died. In my world, well, when he cried out in anguish, I’d remind him that he knows what he did and then give it another twist.
Baud
A true criminal justice reformer.
Gin & Tonic
After DougJ Tweeted this gem: “Trump’s Posthumous Pardon of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow Thrills Serge Gainsbourg Fans” I thought, that’s it, shut down the Internet, no more can be accomplished.
robmassing
Someone also believed firing Comey would build good will with Democrats because of how he shanked Hillary. They’re all idiots.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Ariel Friedler seems to be a real estate guy who hacked a computer. David Safavian was part of the Abramoff ripoff.
laura
@laura: read the White House statement and see if you don’t vomit – this was the death knell for working America:
Michael Milken, one of America’s greatest financiers, pioneered the use of high-yield bonds in corporate finance. His innovative work greatly expanded access to capital for emerging companies. By enabling smaller players to access the financing they needed to compete, Mr. Milken’s efforts helped create entire industries, such as wireless communications and cable television, and transformed others, like home building. Mr. Milken’s work also democratized corporate finance by providing women and minorities access to capital that would have been unavailable to them otherwise. In 1989, at the height of his finance career, Mr. Milken was charged in an indictment alleging that some of his innovative financing mechanisms were in fact criminal schemes. The charges filed against Mr. Milken were truly novel. In fact, one of the lead prosecutors later admitted that Mr. Milken had been charged with numerous technical offenses and regulatory violations that had never before been charged as crimes. Though he initially vowed to fight the charges, Mr. Milken ultimately pled guilty in exchange for prosecutors dropping criminal charges against his younger brother. As a result, Mr. Milken served 2 years in prison in the early 1990s. Since his release, Mr. Milken has dedicated his life to philanthropy, continuing charitable work that he began before his indictment. Over the years, Mr. Milken—either personally or through foundations he created—has provided hundreds of millions of dollars in critical funding to medical research, education, and disadvantaged children. Mr. Milken’s philanthropy has been particularly influential in the fight against prostate cancer and has been credited with saving many lives. This pardon has widespread and longstanding support, including from the following individuals: Dr. Miriam Adelson, Sheldon Adelson, David Bahnsen, Tom Barrack, Maria Bartiromo, Ron Burkle, Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao, William Ford, Josh Friedman, Rudy Guiliani, Josh Harris, Rabbi Marvin Hier, Ray Irani, Robert Kraft, Richard LeFrak, Randy Levine, Howard Lorber, Representative Kevin McCarthy, Larry Mizel, Arte Moreno, Rupert Murdoch, Sean Parker, John Paulson, Nelson Peltz, Steven Roth, David Rubenstein, Larry Ruvo, Marc Stern, Steven Tananbaum, Ted Virtue, Andrew von Eschenbach, Mark Weinberger, and Gary Winnick.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@robmassing:
Democrats don’t like the crooks in their party, especially if they’re selling Senate seats. We believe in democracy.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
Fuck – he’s out of his mind!
Dump just pardoned all of Adam Sandler’s movies!
piratedan
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
waiting for his reallocation of Grammy Awards to Kid Rock and Best Documentary to Dinesh D’Souza
Fair Economist
I suddenly feel like I’m not living in Idiocracy anymore. I’m living in a parody of it.
germy
Eljai
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: That’s got to be another impeachable offense!
pamelabrown53
The strategy of “piling outrage upon outrage”, hopefully is reaching its tipping point.
,
germy
Jamie
@Fair Economist: That… actually makes a lot of sense.
:(
MattF
@germy: Only raises the question of ‘what about the E-list?’
trollhattan
@laura:
Elaine Chao, now where have I heard that name before…?
Whole lot of folks scrambling to update their LinkedIn profiles today. Yee-haw, I’m free!
Barbara
Some of these are actually defensible. Others not.
Duane
To hear the White House tell it, Milliken doesn’t just deserve a pardon, he deserves sainthood. Same with Kerik. It’s shameful what happened to these lovely people.
germy
opiejeanne
@laura: Fuck Arte Moreno, sideways with a rusty chainsaw.
Sincerely,
an Angels fan.
JaySinWA
@Dorothy A. Winsor: If the press secretary is to be believed, apparently a few Democrats supported the Blagojevich sentence reduction:
ETA but it still doesn’t mean this clemency will create good will. It is likely added to try and keep the narrative as mixed, much like the Comey firing justification.
germy
Baud
@JaySinWA:
If true, that’s actually pretty impressive.
RedDirtGirl
@Baud: I guess they wanted him out of there.
JaySinWA
@Baud: My inner cynic translates that to “Get this asshole out of here”
@RedDirtGirl: Jinx.
opiejeanne
@Baud: What were they offered in exchange for the letters? More time in the exercise yard?
Or maybe it was along the lines of “we don’t want him here, stinking up our prison”.
Emerald
@The Moar You Know:
IANAL, but I would bet that you can refuse one. By accepting it you admit that you are, in fact, guilty. If you refuse it, ergo, you retain your claim of innocence even though you’re still behind bars?
And plus, when you accept a pardon you lose your fifth amendment rights pertaining to that crime at least. Which is why tRump is not going to pardon Stone or any of his other convicted cronies.
Lawyers, correct me if I’m wrong!
pamelabrown53
@germy:
Thank you, germy, for reminding us that Blago’s corruption ran deeper than trying to sell President Obama’s senate seat.
While it’s exhausting to keep up with Trump’s mayhem and destruction, isn’t it becoming overwhelmingly evident that Trump is gleefully taking the wrecking ball to impartial justice, rule of law?
I still have faith and a steadfast conviction that we can relegate Trump to the bin of the 27%ers.
laura
@trollhattan: a veritable murderer’s row of cheats, cons, grifters and drug dealers.
ChrisS
Trump to posthumously pardon Al Capone … he was only ever charged with minor tax offenses.
germy
Didn’t Rudy help put Milken away?
Dan B
Is it just me or is Blagojevich’s pardon linked to his selling Obama’s senate seat?
Is the new rule: mess with Obama, get a nice favor?
oldgold
Today’s actions are a signal to individuals that have aided and abetted Trump, like Flynn and Stone, to stay silent and you will be taken care of.
pamelabrown53
@ChrisS:
Hah! Sounds like the headline of a Dana Milbank column.
Amir Khalid
Trump plainly believes that corruption is not a crime, especially if you’re someone Democrats despise.
In football news, it is the first night of the UEFA Champions League knockout stages. Liverpool trail 1-0 at Atletico Madrid, while Borussia Dortmund v. Paris Saint-Germain is still scoreless. PSG have one thing in common with Manchester City: they’re both funded by oil-rich Arab states that have been flouting UEFA financial fair play rules for years. I’m rooting for Dortmund. YNWA!
Brachiator
@oldgold:
The Trump Administration is like an ongoing mob film in real time.
JaySinWA
@laura: The named supporters of each of the now pardoned or commuted make for an interesting circle of friends.
I didn’t see a Kardashian in this batch, though, which may weaken Bump’s advice on the best way to get a pardon out of Trump.
Ruckus
@robmassing:
Don’t like to correct the record, but I’m not going to let that stop me.
They’re all fucking idiots.
laura
It’s going to be “lit” when lord dampnut realizes that this Pomplona like run of the felons fails to lift his ratings or win over any dem voters. If I were Jared, I’d be skeedaddling on out the office for a while.
JaySinWA
@Ruckus:
Well yes their significant others are idiots, but that doesn’t mean that they are not idiots as well.
Suzanne
Hoo boy, that swamp sure got drained. Those elites sure know who’s boss.
TS (the original)
@laura:
What a ridiculous list of fawning trump minions. May they all be consigned to the rubbish dump of history
James E Powell
DeBartolo is a big name in Youngstown. I wonder if he’s still popular there.
pamelabrown53
@germy:
Mebbe (he helped put Milken away), but that was decades before he needed a gazillion $$$ a month to maintain a lifestyle and multiple X-wives.
Now he gets to grift on an international level, with impunity.
At least he’ll never have to worry about rent control.
Brachiator
@pamelabrown53:
I think you nailed it. Trump actually takes pleasure in this.
BGinCHI
In case no one has pointed this out: Blago and his horrid wife are hated by both parties and pretty much everyone in the state of Illinois.
His house is down the block from a friend of mine, who reports hovering helicopters at present.
Ruckus
@pamelabrown53:
trump doesn’t want rule of law, he wants rule of trump. He’s showing all of us that he can do whatever the fuck he wants. And we can’t do anything about it.
Boris Rasputin (the evil twin)
@Fair Economist: I was thinking we’re
Ruckus
@JaySinWA:
Nice! And LOL…..
Amir Khalid
@Amir Khalid:
Halftime:
Atletico Madrid 1-0 Liverpool
Borussia Dortmund 0-0 Paris Saint-Germain
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@BGinCHI:
Chicago Tribune had a piece on how his horrid wife was instrumental in getting him released. They are both pieces of work.
jackmac
Kushner though a Blago pardon would build good will with Democrats?
Here’s what Democratic Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker had to say today:
“President Trump has abused his pardon power in inexplicable ways to reward his friends and condone corruption, and I deeply believes this pardon sends the wrong message at the wrong time. I’m committed to continuing to take clear and decisive steps this spring to prevent politicians from using their offices for personal gain, and I will continue to approach this work with that firm conviction.”
encephalopath
He pardoned Blagojevich so Republicans could bothsider political corruption and criminal behavior. “See… Democrats do it too.”
It has nothing to do with the particulars of the Blagojevich case.
Bill Arnold
@Amir Khalid:
Not just corruption. In the previous thread I linked press reports for some of the convictions. By Rule of Republican Projection,
Trump believes:
– (Rod Blagojevich) Corruption is OK
– (Benard Kerik) (1) tax fraud and (2) lying while being interviewed for top level government jobs are both OK
– (David Safavian) obstruction of justice and making false statements are OK.
– (Ariel Friedler) Hacking for personal gain is OK. (Hmmm… )
– (Paul Pogue) Tax fraud is OK. (3 years, not just one)
– (Edward Debartolo Jr) “failing to report a crime” is not a crime, if one is a Trump supporter.
And by rule of projection, D.J.Trump has done or ordered crimes like all of these, for personal gain.
I won’t try to characterize the Milken case in terms of DJT Projection.
(The other ones look more reasonable to me; cover for the Projection Pardons.)
Bill Arnold
[temp to get an edit window]
BGinCHI
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: She’s worse than he is. Daughter of a crooked politician as well.
gene108
@laura:
Milken and his peers, like Carl Icahn, are what broke the American middle class, and hollowed out small towns.
Companies that were traditionally well run meaning they had low debt levels, plenty of cash, funded their pensions, paid their employees reasonably well, etc., were the targets of their take overs, because they weren’t slashing costs to maximize profits and stock prices. Plus the cash on hand, and in pension funds, meant they could payback the corporate raiders use of debt for the buyout.
Reagan’s green lighting of this activity is really what has lead to where we are.
This doesn’t get enough attention.
Milken, Icahn, etc. should have the same connotation with their names as Benedict Arnold.
opiejeanne
@JaySinWA: about Milken and prostate cancer: it’s personal. He had it.
Arte Moreno allows him to sit in the broadcast booth with Cookie Rojas’s son, Victor, and Gubie during the games and blather on about it. Yes, it can be a serious disease, mr opiejeanne had a very aggressive version and is lucky they caught it so soon, but I don’t want to listen to a meandering half-hour PSA while the game is being ignored.
Arte Moreno is a bad owner for many reasons. He manages a lot like Trump, laid off so many people that the front office is now a skeleton crew, he interferes during trades and blows them up, he LIED TO TORII HUNTER!, and is a Trumper
I hope both his and Milken’s dicks fall off.
The Dangerman
@laura:
Outside of the Rabbi, is there anyone on that list that isn’t a sleazy shit?
ETA: Ted VIRTUE? Can’t be his real name
ETA: Per the Mighty Google, Mr. Virtue was Chief Executive Officer of DB Capital Partners with oversight for Deutsche Bank’s $35 billion direct investment portfolio. I was wrong. I was guessing porn star.
Amir Khalid
Liverpool and Dortmund are dominating their respective matches, but Liverpool still trail 1-0 to Atleti and Dortmund are still level with PSG at no score.
ETA: Football’s hot young thing of the moment, Erling Haaland, scores for Dortmund: Dortmund 1-0 PSG.
Miss Bianca
@Boris Rasputin (the evil twin): Oh, dear. Now *that’s* bleak.
(Even tho’ Margaret Dumont is one of my comic actress avatars. Still. Bleak.)
nyrobbin
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Well . . . pieces of something.
gene108
@Bill Arnold:
Trump’s basically said that lying to law enforcement shouldn’t be a crime, especially if the issue the person’s being questioned on isn’t entirely illegal.
Trump really, really wants to make lying to law enforcement both normal and not subject to criminal penalty.
Bill Arnold
@The Dangerman:
Mr Virtue isn’t mentioned in this excellent (NYTimes) piece, but probably should be.
The Money Behind Trump’s Money – The inside story of the president and Deutsche Bank, his lender of last resort. (David Enrich, Feb. 4, 2020)
Philbert
By clemency and commutation, rather than pardons, Trump avoids the crooks losing 5th Amendment rights, amirite? Testing a plan for the future?
Bill Arnold
@The Dangerman:
Sorry, no, Rabbi Marvin Hier is a probable wingnut:
He gave an invocation at the Inauguration of Donald Trump. He has participated in fundraising events for Trump’s 2020 reelection.
Maybe he’s an ethical person, but that’s a stain on his ethics. IMO.
Jay
Dolt 45’s Serial Pardon spree/Murder of Justice signals that the Turd Reich is now holding a Fire Sale where everything must go, before New Ownership takes over in 2021.
Amir Khalid
Erling Haaland scores again to restore Dortmund’s lead after Neymar’s equaliser for PSG. 2-1. Meanwhile, James Milner is on for injured Liverpool captain Jordan Henderson with the side still trailing hosts Atletico Madrid 1-0.
louc
In other Trump news, he’s definitely trolling NYC and other urban areas. Granted, Trump’s budget has the proverbial snowball’s chance, but nonetheless, this is insanity to eliminate drug-sniffing dogs.
I also have to say, as bad as TSA is, it’s not nearly as awful as the old Wackenhut security guards that ran the kabuke theater screenings we used to have at airports. I’ve traveled for work for 23 years and I remember the lax screenings and obviously poorly paid staff who ran the security lines.
Tony Jay
@Amir Khalid:
That Atletico goal was the result of a very lucky bounce, but they all count. Since then it’s been Liverpool 101. Maintain pressure. Intensify pressure. Identify the weaknesses. Make changes to target them. Increase the pressure.
All it takes is one Atletico mistake or drop in concentration and that previous away goal is ours. At Anfield they’re going to get squeezed even tighter, and the officials are very unlikely to be as accommodating to their diving and ‘muscular challenges’.
Bill Arnold
I might have a little sympathy for Judith Negron, but it’s a substantial fraud:
Owner of Miami-Area Mental Health Care Corporation Convicted on All Counts for Orchestrating $205 Million Medicare Fraud Scheme – Defendant Found Guilty of Multiple Fraud and Money Laundering Charges (justice.gov, August 23, 2011)
On the plus side, I haven’t yet figured out how D.J. Trump or family has committed large-scale Medicare fraud; perhaps this one is just trying to normalize fraud against the Federal Government in general, to cover for overbilling re the Secret Service and other such crimes.
Amir Khalid
@Tony Jay:
That said, 1-0 down on aggregate is not — yet — fatal to Liverpool’s chances. Good to see Klopp’s old team Dortmund beating Petroleum Saint-Germain 2-1 in the first leg.
tokyokie
How long before he posthumously pardons Timothy McVeigh and John Wilkes Booth?
tokyokie
@Amir Khalid: Yes, but it would have been nice for the Reds to have scored at least one goal, as away-goals is, I believe, the first tiebreaker after aggregate.
Mai naem mobile
Shiny new object – I think this is just distraction stuff. I think they have these lined up everytime Trumpov needs a distraction. I am not saying I want any of these people.pardoned,sentence commuted whatevs but it’s just more distraction/ owning the libs shit while Roger Stone is getting sentenced. Also gets his name back in the limelight just when Bloomberg and Klobuchar are catching fire.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@oldgold:
Quick question, to anybody really. Let’s say Trump does pardon Flynn and Stone. What would happen if they were assassinated in retaliation?
mrmoshpotato
@germy: I’m surprised Blago’s paragraph isn’t just “Because fuck Obama!”
Bill Arnold
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Overtly or via “natural causes”?
Amir Khalid
@tokyokie:
Per Wikipedia, Booth was killed by Federal troops; he never stood trial for assassinating Lincoln, and thus unlike McVeigh was never convicted. But I suppose a little thing like that isn’t going to stop Trump.
Mai naem mobile
@jackmac: for those who don’t know Gov Pritzker is one of the Hyatt Hotels owners. I so want this guy to become POTUS one day and pull the stuff Trumpov does with his properties just to have the GOP bitch about emoluments and corruption of the US government by people who need to curry favors from the government staying at Hyatts all over.
Amir Khalid
@tokyokie:
I’m aware of the away-goals rule, but remember that last season Liverpool overcame a bigger deficit against Barça. YNWA!
Tony Jay
@Amir Khalid:
Anfield is going to be whole different world. Atletico won’t be able to rely on the officials playing along with their diving and persistent fouling (I thought they had VAR in the Champions League, apparently not) and with only one goal in it we’ve got to be big favourites.
That Dortmund v PSG game sounds like a belter, looking forward to the highlights. And the worse PSG do in the CL the bigger the chances of Mbappe ending up in a red shirt someday.
Mai naem mobile
@tokyokie: I think pardoning James Earl Ray would be more along the lines of something Trumpov would do because Obama Hussein argle bargle.
Chris T.
Huh, so they can’t stand him either?
MattF
@Bill Arnold: The book by Enrich about Deutsche Bank, Dark Tower, is now available.
ThresherK
@Amir Khalid: As someone whose Alsatian ancestry has given me rooting interest in Racing Strasbourg and FC Metz, Petroleum St. Germain had me laughing way too hard.
opiejeanne
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): They’d be dead.
Mohagan
@James E Powell: I’m against these pardons, of course, but I admit to a bit of sympathy for Eddie D’s. As a 49er Faithful, it doesn’t stop me from continuing to loathe Trump, but as my husband put it. “Trump finally did something you don’t hate”.