Trump Commutes Sentence Of Governor Convicted Of Trying To Sell A Senate Seat, Resolving Long-Standing Concern That Political Corruption Still Carried Consequences

The Filing

WASHINGTON. Capping a single afternoon of executive clemency that bypassed the Justice Department office normally tasked with reviewing such matters, President Donald J. Trump on Tuesday commuted the sentence of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, a Democrat convicted in 2011 of attempting to sell the United States Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama, thereby resolving a long-standing concern within the administration that a politician could still go to prison for treating public office as a personal asset.

Blagojevich, who had served roughly eight years of a fourteen-year sentence, was among eleven people granted clemency in the same announcement, a group that also included junk-bond financier Michael Milken, former New York City police commissioner Bernard Kerik, and former San Francisco 49ers owner Edward DeBartolo Jr. Officials noted that the recipients shared no single common thread beyond having been convicted of federal crimes and having, at various points, been championed by people the President watches on television or has personally met.

The White House emphasized that Blagojevich had suffered enough, a determination reached without consulting the prosecutors who tried him, the appeals courts that twice upheld the bulk of his convictions, or the Office of the Pardon Attorney, which according to multiple accounts learned of several of the day's grants from the news. The former governor, a past contestant on the President's reality program "Celebrity Apprentice," had spent his post-conviction years describing his prosecution as a political hit, a framing the President found persuasive.

"He served eight years in jail. That's a long time," Mr. Trump told reporters before boarding Air Force One, adding that he did not know Blagojevich well but had watched the former governor's wife make the case for clemency on cable news. A senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the grants reflected the President's view that the cases had dragged on long enough and that the individuals involved were fundamentally good people who had been treated unfairly by a system grown too harsh.

The clemency arrived thirteen days after the Senate voted to acquit Mr. Trump in his first impeachment trial, a sequence the administration characterized as coincidental. Legal scholars observed that the President had, within the span of two weeks, been formally cleared of abusing the powers of his office and then exercised those powers to clear others of abusing theirs, an arrangement they described as internally consistent.

At press time, the White House confirmed it was reviewing additional applications from candidates who had distinguished themselves through prior conviction, demonstrated loyalty, or a favorable mention on a program the President had recently finished watching.

Who Benefits

§President Donald J. Trump, who normalized executive clemency as a personal favor untethered from the Justice Department review process, building precedent and goodwill he would later draw on for his own allies and, eventually, himself.
§Rod Blagojevich, freed from prison roughly six years early and rebranded from convicted felon to victim of an overzealous system, a narrative he would go on to promote and monetize.
§Michael Milken, pardoned for the securities-fraud case that defined a Wall Street era, his rehabilitation completed by the same federal government that had once prosecuted him.
§Bernard Kerik, relieved of his tax-fraud conviction and restored to the good standing of the President's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, who had long advocated on his behalf.
§Edward DeBartolo Jr., the former NFL owner cleared of his role in a Louisiana riverboat-gambling bribery scheme, free to resume public life as a sports elder statesman.
§Wealthy and well-connected advocates, including billionaires, celebrities, and donors, who learned that direct access to the President's attention had itself become a viable legal strategy.
§Future recipients of Trump clemency, for whom the day established that the surest route to a pardon ran through cable television and personal acquaintance rather than remorse or the formal review process.

Sourced to the public record · presented without editorial embellishment