If this isn't the epitome of corruption, I don't know what is. Ukraine has nothing on the Trump administration.
3
Dare something worthy of prison if you want to be somebody.
What's infamy matter if you keep your fortune?
2
I remember Milken as a symbol and a key player of unconstrained capitalism. He made it possible to loot and destroy companies who dared save for a rainy day. He had to be stopped, if only for a while. Junk bonds were replaced by differing iterations of concentrated capital, such as Private Equity and fostering the myth of corporate shareholder value.
5
The amazing thing to me is that it is now considered "populist" for a billionaire to pardon another billionaire gone rogue. Even more amazing is that Democrats are unable to counter this narrative.
4
Maybe Mr. Milken would consider donating all his money to the Equal Justice Initiative to help those who have had little legal help and no wealthy connections. Many of them deserve to be out of prison and pardoned as well. Mr Milken could be brave, sacrifice and live on a middle class income. Now that would take real character and courage.
4
"Milken Had Key Allies in Pardon Bid: Trump’s Inner Circle"
Well duh...
Birds of a feather and all that.
3
The statement lacks nuance, but to put it simply, the bad guys are winning these days. I don't know how and if it ends, but I know it's wildly disheartening.
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The criminal element of society can be a "tight knit" group.
4
We attended Girl From The North Country on Saturday:
"steal a little and they throw you in jail, steal a lot and they make you king"
3
The Milken investigation was driven by powerful forces to stop Drexel, and a media led by the Wall Street Journal's James Stewart, who was the editor in chief. James Stewart went on to write profit by writing a book about it. No one before or after has ever been charged with let alone convicted of stock parking. Stock parking is a victimless crime.
Mr. Milken has always lived a simple life and dedicated the vastly majority of his fortune and time to charitable causes.
2
@Buford W. Classic 1% response. . . there were no victims to Milken's crimes! How about the thousands who lost their jobs as Milken's junk bond funded raiders came and tore apart companies like vultures putting billions in their pockets. I will point out that calling what Milken did as "stock parking" hides the fact that what he was actually doing was requiring bond issuers to buy his next junk deal, creating a modified ponzi scheme. As far as his simple life. . . I would not call owning a private jet a simple life!
4
@j p smith Milken and Drexel were all about providing capital to the small dynamic entrepreneurs with poor credit ratings that the prestigious Wall Street firms Goldman Sachs and Mike Bloomberg's Salomon Brothers would not speak to. After Milken was forced to leave Drexel is when the problems began and when the recession hit became worse. Warren Buffett also lives a simple life, same house for forty years. But Buffett also has a jet. The jet is his one indulgence.
...I don’t know, something about ‘drain the swamp’?
1
Justice is for sale to the highest bidder
4
Finally - Thank G-d!
Congratulations Mike.
3
Michael Milken was the Houston Astros of the 70's. He cheated and bullied his way to success with an air of arrogance.
2
I'm happy for his 96 year old mother. I suppose, though, that all those thousands his greed helped ruin had mothers, too,
8
The swamp speaks and is heard
1
Milken sounds like he hangs out with some good people Rudy and Sheldon those are some quality human beings.
1
Are you kidding me ... !! Belong the the right club and your fellow members will grease the skids for you out of trouble ... These people have no shame ... !!
Hey Donald, how much to "fix" my parking tickets, buddy?
2
Milken's conviction helped make Giuliani's career, and then Giuliani turned around and helped revive Milken's reputation. One hand washes the other. And even writer James B. Stewart profited from Milken with his book "Den Of Thieves". The gift that keeps giving. And Giuliani did threaten Milken's brother, and even his aging father, with jail time as an incentive for Milken to surrender to 98 largely trumped up RICO charges, later whittled down to 5.
I don't understand. Milkin has already served his sentence, such as it was, and a pardon comes with an admission of guilt. So what's the point? Those of us who remember him will always know him as a greedy, cheating scammer. Younger folks who don't remember will come to know him as a criminal now. And those who swim in the same swamp clearly won't care either way. I know I'm missing something, but then I've never done anything for which I wanted a presidential pardon and am not rich enough to buy one if I had.
2
"When Mr. Trump announced the pardon on Feb. 18, the
White House played down Mr. Milken’s crimes, calling the
federal charges against him “novel” and asserting that he
pleaded guilty in 1990 only to spare his younger brother,
Lowell Milken, from prosecution. Mr. Milken’s spokesman
has made similar claims in the past."
I wonder if Mr. Milken and any of the people named in this article realize that a federal pardon from the President must be formally accepted, and that that formal acceptance of the pardon carries with it "an imputation of guilt [Burdick v. United States]."
In accepting the pardon, Milken basically admits his guilt to the charges he was convicted on (regardless of his protestations to the contrary), and thereby waives his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination on matters related to those convictions.
With Trump handing out pardons like candy, no one should believe that being pardoned is only positive and comes with no downside for the pardon recipient--the human prop Trump is using to signal to others, i.e. Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, in Trump's ongoing efforts to intimidate witnesses and destroy the rule of law.
Has Milken accepted the pardon?
If so, how does he feel about becoming yet another cudgel Trump has wielded to destroy democracy and the rule of law in the United States?
Is he okay with that?
That fact that the well-connected super rich can buy almost anything they want, with a little patience and timing, has always been true. Let's thank the Trump administration for making that explicit, and making the open secret all open.
17
This shows how much the Republican Party has changed under Trump. Milken was able to retain significant wealth despite his conviction. Rather than show remorse, he used these resources to buy influence and eventually use that influence to obtain a pardon from an administration that rewards its rich and well connected friends. He somehow seems to be arguing that his conviction was compelled by threats to prosecute his brother despite the statement, required of all those who plead guilty, that he did commit the crime he was charged with and was pleading guilty voluntarily. By comparison President George W. Bush declined to pardon Milken, later denouncing a system of "massive injustice" that rewarded those with "connections to the president" with pardons.
15