Grants clemency to 11, commuting Blagojevich and pardoning Milken, Kerik, and DeBartolo

Trump granted executive clemency to 11 people in a single day, commuting the 14-year corruption sentence of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich and pardoning junk-bond financier Michael Milken, former New York City police commissioner Bernard Kerik, and former San Francisco 49ers owner Edward DeBartolo Jr. Several recipients had been championed on Fox News or had personal or wealthy-donor ties to Trump's circle; Blagojevich had appeared on Trump's 'Celebrity Apprentice.' Trump called Blagojevich's sentence 'ridiculous' and said he had been 'treated unbelievably unfairly.' Critics, including Illinois Republicans who had prosecuted Blagojevich, characterized the batch as a personalized use of the pardon power favoring the connected and the celebrated over ordinary defendants.