February 18, 2020 "Information
Clearing House" - Authoritarianism is
usually associated with a punitive spirit—a leader
who prosecutes and incarcerates his enemies. But
there is another side to this leadership style.
Authoritarians also dispense largesse, but they do
it by their own whims, rather than pursuant to any
system or legal rule. The point of authoritarianism
is to concentrate power in the ruler, so the world
knows that all actions, good and bad, harsh and
generous, come from a single source. That’s the real
lesson—a story of creeping authoritarianism—of
today’s commutations and pardons by
President Trump.
Trump
commuted the sentence of
Rod Blagojevich, the former governor of
Illinois, who was eight years into a sentence of
fourteen years, for various forms of corruption in
office. The President pardoned several other
white-collar criminals: Michael Milken, the
junk-bond king, who pleaded guilty, in 1990, to
securities violations; Bernard Kerik, the former New
York City police commissioner, who, in 2009, pleaded
guilty to charges of tax fraud and lying to the
government; and Edward J. DeBartolo, Jr., a former
owner of the San Francisco 49ers, who, in
1998, pleaded guilty to concealing an extortion
attempt.(Milken and Kerik served time in prison;
DeBartolo was fined a million dollars and suspended
for a year by the N.F.L.)