President Trump said Thursday that he is considering commuting the sentence of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and pardoning style maven Martha Stewart, potentially taking his unorthodox use of pardons to new heights.
Blagojevich is currently serving an 14-year prison term for corruption in office that included his attempt to “sell” an appointment to a vacant Senate seat.
Stewart served a five-month prison term for conspiracy and making false statements to federal investigators linked to an insider stock trading scheme.
Mr. Trump told reporters traveling with him on Air Force One that Blagojevich’s statement about selling the Senate seat was “a stupid thing to say — but 18 years?”
The president also noted that Blagojevich was a Democrat.
“He’s not my party. But I thought that he was treated unfairly,” Mr. Trump said.
The former governor’s wife, Patti Blagojevich, said the president had lifted the spirits of their family, including their two daughters.
“Amy, Annie and I are very encouraged by the President’s comments today. He’s given us something that has been hard to come by recently … hope,” Mrs. Blagojevich said in a statement. “From the beginning, we’ve eagerly awaited the day when Rod could come back home where he belongs, and we continue to pray our family will be made whole again soon.”
It wasn’t the first time Mr. Trump expressed sympathies for Blagojevich, although it was the first time while president.
“It’s outrageous that Blagojevich goes to jail for 14 years when killers and sex offenders are out walking the …” Mr. Trump tweeted in March 2012.
Mr. Trump’s musings about pardons and commutations came the same day he granted a pardon to conservative filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza.
“I’ve always felt he was very unfairly treated,” Mr. Trump said on Air Force One. “What they did to him was horrible.”
D’Souza was convicted of making an illegal campaign contribution in 2014.
He pleaded guilty to giving $20,000 to New York politician Wendy Long and was sentenced to five years probation, eight months in a halfway house and paid a $30,000 fine.
Mr. Trump said he did not have a personal relationship with D’Souza, and spoke to him the first time Wednesday night when he called D’Souza to tell him about the pardon.
“Nobody asked me to do it,” said Mr. Trump.
He said that a lot of people make illegal campaign contributions and that D’Souza should have gotten “a quick minor fine like everybody else with the election stuff.”
It was the sixth pardon granted by Mr. Trump in 16 months in office.
He pardoned former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio for contempt of court; Kristian Mark Saucier for unauthorized retention of defense information’ Lewis “Scooter” Libby for obstruction of justice and perjury; and boxing legend Jack Johnson for violating transporting a white woman across state lines.
Mr. Trump considered the pardon of Johnson the most important pardon he has granted so far, said White House Deputy Press Secretary Hogan Gidley.
The 1913 conviction of Johnson, who was America’s first black heavyweight boxing champion, has long been considered an egregious case of a racially tinged prosecution.
Mr. Trump also commuted the sentence of Sholom Rubashkin, the former CEO of what was America’s largest kosher slaughterhouse and meat packing plant. He was sentenced to 27 years in prison for bank fraud, a sentence the White House said was too harsh compared to typical sentences for similar offenses.
D’Souza has nettled the left with films such as “Hillary’s America: The Secret History of the Democratic Party” and “2016: Obama’s America.”
The pardon almost immediately came under fire from the left.
“Donald Trump has sent a message to his friends and cronies that if you break laws to protect him or attack our democracy, he’s got your back. That’s the same message he’s been sending to Vladimir Putin for the last two years,” said David Donnelly, president of the liberal advocacy group Every Voice. “Contribution limits are a key bulwark against corruption in politics and pardoning the man who knowingly violated them is in direct conflict with his pledge to drain the swamp in Washington.”
The liberal group Public Citizen described the pardon as a “blazing signal” to Mr. Trump’s allies that they will be rewarded for loyalty amid special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe.
Karen Hobert Flynn, president of left-leaning Common Cause, said Mr. Trump showed his “contempt for the rule of law.”
• Ken Shepherd contributed to this article.
• S.A. Miller can be reached at smiller@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.