Trump Goes Easy on White-Collar Crime. Outrage or Same Old?

I am voting for Bernie Sanders 100%. So-called white collar criminals have evaded accountability all my life, while students against the American War in Vietnam go to jail, while black guys with pot go to jail, while a nurse stealing meds goes to jail, while a Hispanic Republican who mistakingly votes in a local election in TX goes to jail (5 years!). Bernie seems to be the only one who gets it. I was living in LA when Michael Milken and Joseph Boesky were convicted. They cheated people out of a billion dollars. He goes to a golf-club "prison" and is let out in 2 years. Now he is worth more than he stole, flying around in his private jet. "Is this a great country, or what?" I am an American (from a small business Republican family) who is fed up, fed, fed up, and I am voting for Bernie.

Easy answer - same old

Please New York Times, no further references to Trump's statements and tweets unless preceded by a disclaimer like this: Please note: Mr. Trump’s statements are a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. As far as we know, no animals were harmed in the making of them.

Republicans would say that we all benefit from incentives to induce people to work hard and succeed. Being exempt from the law after one accumulates enough wealth could be said to be one such incentive.

For the powerful ......,., For the well connected.....,, “ nothing new under the sun” Pardons are obscene when given to white collar rich boys. What about the millions incarcerated awaiting charges because of unpaid motor vehicle infractions. ???? No pardons for the taxpayers family members in middle class land. Huh?!

The United States of America - best place on eat to be a while collar criminal.

White collar crime is often treated as if it's a victimless crime. There are no bodies with blood streaming from them lying in the streets. Guns, knives, and fists aren't used. The destruction isn't as obvious. Trump's interference in the military is dangerous. He's showed every officer and noncom in the armed forces that ethics, morals, and honor don't matter. Killing the enemy under suspicious circumstances with malice aforethought is acceptable. I think that Trump has confused honor with homicide. I think Americans confuse wealth with intelligence and virtue. Sometimes they are not present with each other. Trump is the perfect illustration of that principle.

As a former prosecutor and criminal defense attorney with 32 years experience, it pains me to read this article. Day in and day out throughout the federal court system, white collar defendants are getting sentenced to HUGE amounts of jail time for what Trump considers, petty crimes. The firefighter who retired and then went back to work and forgot to get a waiver, he gets 5 years jail time. The nurse who after 20 years pilfers the drug cabinet at the hospital, gets 3 years. The driver of a car that had cocaine found in it get 15 years and it wasn't even his. I could go on and on but the disparities are great. Yesterday the Judge sentenced Stone to 40 months and at least was honest when she said the the sentencing guidelines are something they have been complaining about for 30 years. NEVER ONCE has a prosecutor in Federal court in my experience has asked for a DOWNWARD departure in their recommended sentences. Even the Judge yesterday stated that! Trump is making a mockery of our system and how the Attorney General Barr can stay in office is quite perplexing. I guess some men have no shame!

If this GOP nightmare ever ends, we need to do the following (to begin with): 1. Reform the criminal justice system. It needs to assure that white collar criminals do some hard time not just get a slap on the wrist. Rich people must be held accountable for their actions; not just poor people. 2. Get rid of the presidential clemency. It is being used as a political tool and it doesn’t belong in the hands of one person. There are ways in the judicial system to protect a wrongly convicted person. If there are cases that need more scrutiny than they get in the judicial system, then some sort of appeals commission can be set up. 3. Get rid of the Office of Legal Counsel’s opinion of not indicting a sitting president. If any American breaks the law, justice needs to be served no matter where the criminal’s office is located. The decision needs to be taken away from the political environment of the Senate. If we don’t hold the president to the same standard as all other citizens, what is the purpose of having laws? 4. Put stricter laws into place that won’t permit the president to appoint unqualified people to positions of responsibility and to restrict the president’s ability to appoint “acting” personnel. 5. Get rid of the Electoral College!

What is so disturbing to me, is how many republican people I know who do not see the long term down side to Trump's behavior. Or a threat to our government. I am frustrated with how polarized we have become. Constant lying is not normal. The clean-up that will be needed when we regain our brains, may be out of reach.

Does he? Blago’s sentence was draconian.

Didn't Trump also pardon or commute sentences for a few low level drug offenders? Why so little coverage of them?

Trump is exercising powers only a President is granted. Pardoning infamous people attracts more press coverage. I doubt that Trump has any other motive than to be in the limelight and smiling with delight about it.

Justice in the case of Milken, would have been a fine that would have left him penniless. No jail time needed.

"And clemency must extend to white-collar criminals, even to people like Bernie Madoff, if mass incarceration is to end, writes Colleen P. Eren." Yes, all those hundreds and thousands of people convicted of white-collar crimes, absolutely flooding our prisons, must be let go first in order to end mass incarceration. Are you kidding me? The lack of prosecutions, let alone successful prosecutions, and the very real and severe harms that white-collar crimes cause, makes Colleen P. Eren's comments more than ridiculous. More like a criminal act itself. White collar crime, and corruption, is the scourge of our world. It should not only be punished, it should be punished to the extreme. And the convicted felons should be placed smack in the middle of the general prison population. If punishment for white-collar crime was meted out in this manner, I assume that would or at least could serve as a viable deterrent. In the mean time, Trump is busy normalizing white-collar crime so that his own transgressions can be minimized by his cronies in Congress and Justice Department.

For 50 years the Republican Party has supported white collar crime by starving our institutions of financing and support to enforce our country’s laws. Madoff could not have happened without blind complicity. Trump and other real estate developers could not have amassed so much without the complicity of banks willing to allow money laundering. We are drowning in white collar crime to the point that we are not completely governed by white collar criminals.

'Debatable' offers a clear, and I believe, cordial view regarding each side. We have 'Lock 'em up' and 'Hay, let's be fair.' Unfortunately, we aren't debating fairness or unfairness. Trump and his henchmen don't care about these. He's threatening us, not asking for justice. When Marco Rubio argued for Trump's acquittal because "...even if all of the charges were true, they would not justify Trump's removal nine months before he faces re-election, taking into account both "the severity of the wrongdoing alleged" and "the impact removal would have on the nation" given "the bitter divisions and deep polarization our country currently faces." https://reason.com/2020/02/05/good-and-bad-reasons-for-acquitting-trump/ What Rubio doesn't recognize is that Trump creates this deep polarization for his benefit. We are dealing with unnerved authorities, people like Rubio, who hope to maintain accord by giving Trump what he wants. Rubio is like a scared husband who keeps hoping against experience to make his wife happy; this time, if he tries harder, harder than ever before, she might stop beating him. Until Trump supporters recognize they are in this same dysfunctional relationship with him, they will vote him back in out of yes, love, yet also dread. Then again, perhaps my view is way overblown, hay, maybe if he gets back in, he will be beautiful.

The justice system has always been corrupt. It's white power. It always has been. Trump is just a clumsy implementer. Note three years for Roger Stone, when the real recommendation was 7-9. Berman Jackson caved to Trumps white authority. Again, Trump is a terrible liar. Jeb Bush would have done it without headlines.

The hosts of the debates for the Democratic candidates for president in 2020 need to change the way the "bunch sprint" of hand-raising to speak is allowed to take place. The hand-raising method of capturing the attention of the moderators makes the candidates look like a group of elementary school children wanting to use the restroom urgently. Hand-raising is undignified by candidates seeking the presidency and lowers the tone of the whole debate to a crowd of shoppers pursuing the last bargain at Walmart. A simple technological fix by the debate hosts would save time and present a more dignified and coherent perception of the debate. Each candidate could press a button on their podium which would cause the podium to light up when they have a response to a speaker. The colors of the podium could be coded to tell the moderator which candidate pressed their button first to speak. Of course there are other solutions, however any of those solutions would most likely be an improvement over the frantic hand-waving of the candidates.