At least he is consistent, he just loves corruption, does not matter if it is GOP Democrat or even foreign.
Blago will come out as a hardened Republican and Trump supporter that is pro gun and gives praise to Jesus.
from his wikipedia age: After an 18-month-long grand jury investigation conducted by the Bronx District Attorney's Office, Kerik pleaded guilty in Bronx Supreme Court on June 30, 2006 to two ethics violations (unclassified misdemeanors). Kerik acknowledged that during the time he was Interior Minister of Iraq, he accepted a $250,000 interest-free "loan" from Israeli billionaire Eitan Wertheimer and failed to report it. Kerik first met the billionaire, whose vast holdings include major defense contractors, when Kerik took a four-day trip to Israel less than two weeks before September 11, 2001 to discuss counter-terrorism with Israeli officials.[22][25] On November 8, 2007, Kerik was indicted by a federal grand jury in White Plains, New York on charges of tax fraud, and making false statements to the federal government about the $250,000 he received from Wertheimer. Prosecutors further accused Kerik of receiving about $236,000 from New York real estate mogul Steven C. Witkoff between 2001 and 2003.[22][25] Some of the New York charges were dropped in December 2008, but Kerik was then re-indicted on the same charges in Washington, D.C.[26] On November 5, 2009, Kerik pleaded guilty to eight felony tax and false statement charges,[27] and was sentenced to forty-eight months in federal prison and three years' supervised release (probation). Kerik was represented in the matter by a notable NYC Criminal Defense Attorney, Michael F. Bachner.[28] He surrendered to the U.S. minimum security prison camp in Cumberland, Maryland, on May 17, 2010. He was discharged from federal custody on October 15, 2013, and after serving five months' home confinement, his supervised release concluded in October 2016. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Kerik
Trump loves Blago for some reason -- had him on his show to improve peoples' opinion of him and a few other weird things.
Geez... he really is breaking out all the crooks... Trump pardons Michael Milken, face of 1980s financial scandals https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/18/trump-pardons-michael-milken-face-of-1980s-financial-scandals.html Again, from Milkin's wikipedia page: In March 1989, a federal grand jury indicted Milken on 98 counts of racketeering and fraud. The indictment accused Milken of a litany of misconduct, including insider trading, stock parking (concealing the real owner of a stock), tax evasion and numerous instances of repayment of illicit profits. One charge was that Boesky paid Drexel $5.3 million in 1986 for Milken's share of profits from illegal trading. This payment was represented as a consulting fee to Drexel. Shortly afterward, Milken resigned from Drexel and formed his own firm, International Capital Access Group.[12][25] On April 24, 1990, Milken pleaded guilty to six counts of securities and tax violations.[1] Three of them involved dealings with Boesky to conceal the real owner of a stock:[30] Aiding and abetting another person's failure to file an accurate 13d statement with the SEC, since the schedule was not amended to reflect an understanding that any loss would be made up Sending confirmation slips through the mail that failed to disclose that a commission was included in the price Aiding and abetting another in filing inaccurate broker-dealer reports with the SEC Two other counts were related to tax evasion in transactions Milken carried out for a client of the firm, David Solomon, a fund manager[30] Selling stock without disclosure of an understanding that the purchaser would not lose money Agreeing to sell securities to a customer and to buy those securities back at a real loss to the customer, but with an understanding that he would try to find a future profitable transaction to make up for any losses The last count was for conspiracy to commit these five violations. As part of his plea, Milken agreed to pay $200 million in fines. At the same time, he agreed to a settlement with the SEC in which he paid $400 million to investors who had been hurt by his actions. He also accepted a lifetime ban from any involvement in the securities industry. In a related civil lawsuit against Drexel he agreed to pay $500 million to Drexel's investors.[32][33] Critics of the government charge that the government indicted Milken's brother Lowell to pressure Milken to settle, a tactic some legal scholars condemn as unethical. "I am troubled by - and other scholars are troubled by - the notion of putting relatives on the bargaining table," said Vivian Berger, a professor at Columbia University Law School, in a 1990 interview with The New York Times.[34] As part of the deal, the case against Lowell was dropped. Federal investigators also questioned some of Milken's relatives about their investments.[12] At Milken's sentencing, Judge Kimba Wood told him: "You were willing to commit only crimes that were unlikely to be detected. ... When a man of your power in the financial world ... repeatedly conspires to violate, and violates, securities and tax business in order to achieve more power and wealth for himself ... a significant prison term is required.["29] In statements to a parole board in 1991, Judge Wood estimated that the "total loss from Milken's crimes" was $318,000, less than the government's estimate of $4.7 million and she recommended that he be eligible for parole in three years.[35] Milken's sentence was later reduced to two years from ten; he served 22 months.[36][37] In June 2018 it was reported that some of president Donald Trump's advisers, including Rudy Giuliani, the onetime federal prosecutor whose criminal investigation led to Milken's conviction, were urging the president to pardon Milken. Milken's attempts to secure a presidential pardon have spanned multiple administrations.[38]
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-to-commute-sentence-of-ex-gov-blagojevich-pardon-kerik All of these crimes are things Trump is familiar with. Probably he thinks it is the cost of doing business. No wonder why he pardoned those people. He sees nothing wrong in what they did.
Article II Section 2 of the Constitution gives the President those powers. Alexander Hamilton was a huge proponent as a check against the judicial system for unjust punishments. Another one of those things where the Founding Fathers assumed that we wouldn't have a conman/crook in the highest office of the land.