Sen. Bernie Sanders said late Tuesday that President Donald Trump’s decision to grant clemency to several prominent white-collar criminals — including the former governor of Illinois and a financier known as the “junk bond king” — was a demonstration of how the U.S. criminal justice system favors the powerful while punishing the vulnerable.
“Trump granted clemency to tax cheats, Wall Street crooks, billionaires, and corrupt government officials,” tweeted Sanders, a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate. “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,” added Sanders, who is running on a platform that includes sweeping reforms to the criminal justice system.
Trump, who on Tuesday declared himself the “chief law enforcement officer of the country,” pardoned or commuted the prison sentences of 11 people, including financier Michael Milken, who served 22 months in jail for racketeering and securities fraud charges; former New York City police commissioner Bernard Kerik, who was convicted on multiple counts of tax fraud and lying to the government; and Illinois’ former Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who was convicted of bribery, wire fraud, and attempted extortion after trying to sell Barack Obama’s vacant Senate seat.
“He’s got a obviously a big fan in me,” Blagojevich said of Trump after being released from prison Tuesday. “And if you’re asking what my party affiliation is, I’m a Trumpocrat.”
Rod Blagojevich: “He’s [Pres. Trump] got a obviously a big fan in me. If you’re asking what my party affiliation is… I’m a Trumpocrat.” pic.twitter.com/ztVuNuCQYq
— Haleigh Hoffman (@HaleighHoffman) February 19, 2020
Jay Young, executive director of Common Cause Illinois, said in a statement that by commuting Blagojevich’s sentence, “Trump once again swims in the swamp he promised to drain.”
As The Daily Beast reported late Tuesday, several of the people Trump granted clemency are “either Fox News regulars or have been championed by the president’s favorite cable-news network.”
“And in another case, the family of one pardon recipient dished out massive contributions to the president’s re-election campaign just months before Trump’s clemency spree,” according to The Daily Beast.
In response to The Daily Beast’s report, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) tweeted, “It looks like in the Trump White House, you can buy a pardon.”
“This is corruption,” Warren added, “plain and simple.”
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
Last week, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment. We are presently looking for 350 new monthly donors in the next 6 days.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy