Headline Roundup • February 18th, 2020
President Trump Commutes Blagojevich's Prison Sentence
Summary from the AllSides News Team
Featured Coverage of this Story
Chicago Sun-Times
If Roger Stone is dispatched to prison for years, President Donald Trump will commute his sentence or pardon him altogether.
The odds of that happening soared on Tuesday, the minute Trump commuted the sentence of Rod Blagojevich, the former Illinois governor, and wiped clean with pardons the criminal records of some other high-profile people.
Trump does nothing for anybody that is not, at bottom, for himself. In this case, Blagojevich becomes the beneficiary.
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump commuted the prison sentence of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich on Tuesday, one of several high-profile grants of clemency he issued as he ramped up his criticism of federal prosecutions.
Trump announced pardons for former New York City police commissioner Bernard Kerik, rogue financier Michael Milken and former San Francisco 49ers owner Edward DeBartolo Jr., who pleaded guilty in a gambling fraud case in the late 1990s. The president said he has not decided what to do with convicted allies Roger Stone, Paul Manafort and...
By commuting the sentence of Rod Blagojevich, President Trump has boosted one of the mosquitolike corrupt officials who suck the blood out of democracy.
After all, this is not someone who deserves presidential leniency.
In December 2011, Blagojevich was sentenced to 14 years in federal prison after being convicted of various corruption-related crimes he committed as Illinois governor. Most notable among these was his effort to sell the vacant Senate seat of newly elected President Barack Obama. Blagojevich was recorded on a wiretap referring to that seat, saying, "I've got...
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