Trump Grants Clemency to Another Round of People He Saw on Fox News

President Donald Trump on Tuesday granted clemency to 11 people, including several convicted felons who are either Fox News regulars or have been championed by the presidents favorite cable-news network.

Among those granted pardons or sentence commutations were former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who was sentenced to 14 years in prison for attempting to sell former President Obamas Senate seat; former New York City police commissioner Bernard Kerik, who was sentenced to four years in 2010 for tax fraud and lying to the feds; and Michael Milken, the junk-bonds king whose early-1990s insider-trading conviction made him a poster boy of white-collar crime.

Unsurprisingly, a key influence that led to Trumps decision, particularly as it related to Blagojevich, was Fox News. The same could partly be said of the decision on Kerik, a frequent Fox News guest whose pardon was backed by several of the networks stars; Milken, whose pardon was supported by Fox Business Network host and Trump loyalist Maria Bartiromo; and Angela Stanton, an occasional pro-Trump TV pundit whose pardon was pushed by frequent Fox News guest and evangelical leader Alveda King.

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Trump made the Fox News connection abundantly clear, telling reporters that he decided to commute the rest of Blagojevichs sentence because hed seen the ex-governors wife Patti Blagojevich pleading her husbands case on Fox.

I watched his wife on television, Trump declared, adding that he didnt know the ex-governor very well despite Blagojevichs appearances on The Celebrity Apprentice years ago.

In mid-2018, the president repeatedly asked close advisers to explore a Blagojevich pardon and, while doing so, emphatically referenced clips hed seen on Fox, including a segment on informal Trump adviser Jeanine Pirros weekend show, according to two sources who independently discussed the matter with the president at the time.

According to liberal media-watchdog Media Matters for America, Patti Blagojevich took to Fox programming in April 2018 to push for her husbands sentence to be reduced, making at least seven appearances on some of Trumps favorite primetime shows such as Tucker Carlson Tonight and The Ingraham Angle.

The hosts, meanwhile, didnt even bother with subtlety during the interviews. For instance, Tucker Carlson asked Mrs. Blagojevich what she would say if you could speak to the president.

Kerik, meanwhile, has been a frequent guest of Fox News primetime programming for several years, generally offering on-air criticism of how Democrats handle New York Citys police department and criminal justice in general.

In what can generously be described as ironic, Kerik appeared the evening before his pardon on Tucker Carlson Tonight to rail against bail reform in New York while urging for harsher punishment for criminals, claiming crime was down when the police department increased arrests for jumping turnstiles and other low-level misdemeanors.

Kerik has also been used as a Trump-friendly critic of the so-called deep state on Fox News airwaves, at one point advocating for the arrest of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) for trying to carry out an attempted coup of Trump with the whistleblower complaint and impeachment inquiry.

According to the White House, Keriks pardon was supported by Fox News stars like Geraldo Rivera and Judge Andrew Napolitano. Additionally, the administration said, Trumps personal lawyer Rudy Giuliania frequent Fox News commentator and Kerik's one-time bossbacked the decision.

Pirro, meanwhile, celebrated Keriks pardon and Blagojevichs commutation on Twitter, personally thanking the president while declaring that political prosecutions have no place in this country.

The pro-Trump Fox News star, who brushed off Blagojevichs crimes as just practicing politics in an April 2018 interview with Patti Blagojevich, has something of a sordid history with Kerik. Back in 2006, Pirrowho was then running as a Republican for New York attorney generaladmitted she asked Kerik to bug her then-husbands boat to see if he was having an affair after federal prosecutors began investigating whether she and Kerik illegally taped conversations.

While junk-bond king Michael Milken is not a Fox News regular by any measure, his pardon was backed by Bartiromo, yet another Fox star who has morphed into an unofficial mouthpiece of and adviser to President Trump.

Additionally, Angela Stanton, who was pardoned for her role in a stolen luxury-vehicle ring, has appeared on Fox News as a pro-Trump commentatormuch like her godmother Alveda King, who backed her pardonoften arguing that Democrats want more poor women of color to have abortions.

Appearances on Fox News and Fox Businesstwo of Trumps favorite networksare popular vessels for those seeking to make their cases for pardons or clemency directly to the president, a voracious consumer of TV and cable news. The most prominent example was the sustained, successful on-air and behind-the-scenes campaign on Fox to lobby Trump to grant clemency to accused and convicted American war criminals. Fox & Friends Weekend host Pete Hegseth was a ringleader of that highly controversial effort.

[Trump] knows how people play this game, said one source close to the president. Hes even told me before something to the effect of, All these people keep getting themselves on Fox News begging me for a pardon, so hes self-conscious about this stuff. But it doesnt matter, it still has an effect on him.