The Commutation

The big news here is President Donald Trump’s commutation of the prison sentence of impeached former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Doing so is completely within President Trump’s legal authority. It is also uncalled for and unwise.

The editors of the Chicago Tribune declaim:

After Trump revealed his wrongheaded commutation Tuesday, former U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald and the three trial lawyers who prosecuted Blagojevich issued a reminder that said in part:

The criminal conduct for which a jury unanimously convicted Mr. Blagojevich included the following actions:

(1) extorting the CEO of a children’s hospital by withholding important state funding to help sick children until the CEO provided campaign contributions;

(2) extorting the owners of a racetrack by intentionally holding up the signing of important state legislation until the owners provided campaign contributions in response to an explicit demand for them;

(3) extortionately demanding funding for a high-paying private sector job, as well as campaign contributions, in exchange for naming a replacement to an open U.S. Senate seat; and

(4) lying to the FBI to cover up his criminal activity.

Trump’s decision spits in the eye of those prosecutors, but also the jurors who found the ex-governor guilty. Remember, too, that we’ll never know how many top-notch people were cheated out of careers in government, or how many employers lost chances at state contracts because, during the Blagojevich years, the fix was in. Nor may we again see such a selfish betrayal as Blagojevich’s effort to sell that Senate seat, which belonged not to him but to the people of Illinois.

while the editors of the Sun-Times first agree with the commutation but then launch into an attack on President Trump’s motives for it:

We have long argued that the former governor is guilty as charged but that his 14-year sentence was way too harsh. On the merits of the case, and especially given the considerably shorter sentences handed out to public officials guilty of more egregious corruption — such as the 6 1⁄2 years given to bribe-taking former Gov. George Ryan for racketeering, conspiracy and fraud — we would argue Blagojevich has been fully and fairly punished. He has been imprisoned for almost 8 years.

But Trump’s decision to commute Blagojevich’s sentence at this time is all of a piece with the president’s warnings that he’s not about to stand by and watch Stone go off to prison for any extended time.

Stone is one of Trump’s closest and shadiest back-channel operatives. He was found guilty of obstructing a congressional investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, including five counts of making false statements to Congress and tampering with a witness.

If Stone’s conviction stands, and especially if he is forced to serve prison time, Trump knows it will be seen as a symbolic indictment of the president himself, who wants the world to believe Congress’ entire probe of Russian interference was a “hoax.”

He did not receive the maximum sentence allowed under the law for his crimes. I concur with the district court judge who rejected Blagojevich’s appeal of his sentence: “these are serious crimes that had an impact on the people of Illinois”. The argument that it’s hard on his kids is specious. Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time. All crimes are hard on the children of the felons. His crimes were hard on many, many more children.

Taken together President Trump’s pardons and commutations would seem to convey the message that white collar crimes should just not be punished severely. I think the opposite. Just because you commit your crimes with a pen rather than a gun doesn’t make them better. IMO the punishments were too lenient rather than too severe.