A last-minute Bush pardon for Michael Milken?

L.A. Weekly's Nikki Finke reports today on Hollywood chatter that billionaire Michael Milken is spending big bucks lobbying for a pardon by President Bush before he leaves office Tuesday.

The 62-year-old Milken, of course, is the finance legend who built the modern junk bond market in the 1980s while at Drexel Burnham Lambert, only to have the government indict him on racketeering and other charges in 1989. He pleaded guilty in 1990 to lesser counts of conspiracy and fraud related to illegal securities trading after denying the much broader array of allegations.

Milken, who served almost two years in prison after his guilty pleas, is barred from the securities industry. He has spent the last 15 years on philanthropic efforts and his Milken Institute think tank in Santa Monica.

From Finke:

Now I'm hearing from sources that current-day philanthropist Michael Milken is "spending a bundle" trying to get George W. Bush to pardon him by January 20th. My insiders say the amount is in the seven figures to highly connected consultants and attorneys. It'll be interesting in today's climate of economic crisis to see whether Bush succumbs to this influence peddling for Milken who was the poster boy for Wall Street greed in the 1980s.

Newsweek reported in November that Washington lawyer Ted Olson, who was solicitor general during Bush's first term, had submitted a pardon request on Milken’s behalf.

President Clinton apparently considered a pardon for Milken in 2001.

JewishJournal.com blogger and onetime Milken employee Dean Rotbart argued passionately for a pardon in a Dec. 17 post.

I’m just speculating, but one factor that could work against Milken is public outrage over Wall Street’s conduct of the last two years in funding the subprime mortgage catastrophe. Bush would be pardoning a man who was the king of 1980s subprime securities -- junk bonds.

Bernie Madoff's alleged $50-billion Ponzi scheme also might give the White House pause before pardoning a high-profile Wall Street figure now.

We’ll know by noon EST on Tuesday.

-- Tom Petruno

Photo: Michael Milken. Credit: Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[Charles Duran]

It would be a great closing act to have Bush pardon Milken, I wish very much that he would do just that.

That money has corrupted our political system is beyond question, but to have it confirmed in such a bold way would be a stark reminder for those needing another example of the effects of legal bribery in our political system and the dire need of reform.

I;m afraid Bush is too wily to ever give the public the opportunity witness such a brazen use of political malpractice.

[Reidh B.]

Bush ought to pardon Bernie Madoff as well.

[Duude]

Bush won't be pardoning Milken. Bush isn't anything like Clinton. Clinton has a price, and can be had if one stepped up with the green. Bush doesn't care. Presidents pardon people the whole time they are in office. The last minute pardon is just acknowledged for its drama and intrigue. Compared to other Presidents who served 8 years, Bush has pardoned far fewer than any other President over the last century. Additionally, his pardons have so far been limited to drug offenses from 20 years ago where people have already since served their time, or other relatively low level crime. One exception was the commutation he provided Scooter Libby who I believe deserves a pardon. I also would like to see those two border guards currently incarcerated be pardoned.

[Misty]

I believe the legal effect of a pardon is almost zero. It is mainly for 'image' purposes.

[Mark]

Milken is a financial terrorist against America and should be waterboarded with his Likud sugar daddies.

[martscan]

Rather than consider a pardon for Milken, I'd be more inclined to question why he only served a paltry 22 months of a 10 year sentence, and why he wasn't sent back to prison for violating terms of his sentence. Defenders of Milken, on the basis of his charitable contributions, overlook the fact that Milken pleaded guilty to crimes that took considerable amounts of time and ingenuity to concoct and exercise. They were not simply 'nuanced' missteps in an esoteric regulatory environment, on the contrary, Milken's crimes were intentionally devised to defeat detection by regulators, and they were egregious in number and damage to counterparties. As an alumnus of Drexel in the early 80s, I can personally attest to an insufferable atmosphere of hubris that permeated the place. Rotbart's piece of shilling dreck notwithstanding, Milken was no knight...he was the stinkiest (Jewish) skunk among skunks.

[Doug Sterling]

Michael Milken did little if anything wrong, and certainly deserves a pardon. Milken was well respected by the people he did business with, the vast majority of whom made profits on his efforts. He was laid low by his ill-considered relationship with Ivan Boesky, and the ruthless ambition of Rudolph Giuliani.

[martscan]

Michael Milken spends more money on PR to fabricate an image of himself, than most people will earn in a lifetime. It is woefully obvious that these efforts produce puff pieces about Milken that regularly appear in respected journals and media, the LOS ANGELES TIMES being one of them. Much of the thrust of these PR efforts has been to shift blame from Milken to such disparate sources as Ivan Boesky, Rudy Guiliani, the SEC and the DOJ.

The fact of the matter is that Milken realized the potential and utility of high yield bonds to facilitate corporate financing strategies that had been extant, but overlooked, for years. He did not 'invent' them. In time, Milken's network and influence was such that he could place billions in financings by merely condoning a deal and telephonically working his network. While many of these deals were complex and intricate structures of financial arcana, they were really nothing more than financial legerdemain designed to not only raise huge amounts of money, but to inordinately enrich the strategists by means generally considered to be legal. However, human nature being what it is, the use of bribes, via warrants, false pricing mechanisms and attempts at circumventing regulations and tax laws, led to the inevitable weak link breaking. That link was Ivan Boesky.

To assert that Milken was a paragon of respect and 'hail fellow well met' by his peers is akin to saying Jesse James was loved by his gang members. How many money managers that did business with Milken were convicted of bribery? Even Fred Joseph, a stickler for regulatory propriety, and Drexel, along with hundreds of others, sued Milken for damages. And to contend that Milken was 'laid low' by Boesky is a PR snippet of the 'Big Lie' theory. Boesky couldn't carry Milken's intellectual lunch, and wasn't much more than a pawn on Milken's chess board.

After all the PR and hyperbole, the fact is that Milken is a convicted crook that used junk bonds as a 'gangsta' uses a .38 and a fast car.

[mike silverstein]

Convictus

Trapped by a heartless SEC,
Condemned to the pit where the felons board,
I thank the lawyers who earned their fees
For my undiminished hoard.

Caught in the grip of nasty fate
I might a lengthy sentence got,
But with the help of legal pros
I did some time, but not a lot.

Beyond the cell, the bars, the wire,
Looms a record I’ll always bear,
But with the p.r. choir I’ll hire,
A brighter image will soon appear.

It’s not important the stuff I did,
How crookedly I played the game,
I can buy out of a blighted past,
Money can cure the need for shame.

mike@wallstreetpoet.com

[martscan]

Mike Silverstein:

Terrific Mike, simply terrific. Many deserved kudos.

[Paul Haider]

The facts are simple and easily obtained. Michael Milken, the principle founder of the Prostate Cancer Foundation, has been a significant investor in the venture capital industries since his RICO conviction and lifetime ban from the securities industry.

Michael Milken founded Proquest Investments, a $1 billion venture capital fund, with a specific investment thesis centered around prostate cancer after founding the Prostate Cancer Foundation. If you review the board members to ProQuest, you will find that six of the seven scientific advisors to ProQuest Investments are executives or member doctors to the Prostate Cancer Foundation. It seems clear that ProQuest Investments operates as a for profit extension of the Prostate Cancer Foundation, a 501(c)(3) designated non-profit.

The Prostate Cancer Foundation (PCF) appears to be a philanthropic charade and no more than a sophisticated network for insider trading devised by and perpetuated by Michael Milken. The public contributes to PCF to fund a cure. A small cabal of doctors from PCF sit in review of applications for grants that get awarded by PCF and can then invest in the very best ideas PCF plum. ProQuest Investments operates as a for profit extension of the Prostate Cancer Foundation, a 501(c)(3) designated non-profit. Also alarmingly is the fact that a large amount of the charitable contributions go directly to PCF doctors themselves or their universities.

The amount of control and influence the Michael Milken possesses over prostate cancer community should be cause for great concern when considering the fact that he is not a public official and not accountable to any public oversight committee. Rather, he is a convicted felon accused of systematic manipulation of the financial markets.