President Trump Offers Clemency to Blagojevich, Kerik, Milken and others
Evan Vucci/AP
We ran the numbers: There are 1065 news articles covering this topic. 79% (841) are left leaning, 17% (178) center, 4% (46) right leaning.
President Trump commuted the sentence of former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich and pardoned former New York Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik and former Wall Street financier Michael Milken.
A left-leaning article by The New York Times highlights that Trump came under fire for commuting Blagojevich’s sentence, which he received after being convicted of trying to peddle Barack Obama’s vacated U.S. Senate seat. Furthermore, Trump pardoned Milken, who was once considered Wall Street’s “junk bond king.”
NPR published a centrist article reporting that Trump admitted to not knowing Blagojevich very well, but that he seemed like a very nice person when he was on Trump’s reality television show, “Celebrity Apprentice.” Trump justified his pardon of Michael Milken by stating that he relies heavily on recommendations of others to inform his clemency decisions, but that Milken has done an incredible job for the world with his research on cancer.
A right-leaning article by New York Post highlights that in response to being pardoned, Milken said that there were no words “to express my appreciation and gratitude to President Trump.” The article also notes that Trump pardoned former 49ers owner, Edward DeBartolo Jr., who was convicted in 1998 of a gambling fraud case.