Establishment Fury Over Trump Pardon, Silence on Corporate Crime
Newsweek reports "fury" over Donald Trump's pardon of David Gentile, a real estate executive convicted of a relatively small (by Wall Street standards) $13 million fraud. The mainstream press loves to moralize about individual grifters. Yet, the same outlets often gloss over the multi-billion dollar frauds perpetuated by their corporate advertisers and political allies, offering carefully worded
'tough-on-crime' platitudes when the culprits are finally, rarely, brought to heel. One might wonder if the "fury" is selective. Where was the sustained outrage for the bankers who crashed the 2008 economy, defrauding millions of their homes and savings? (Almost none went to jail.) Or the pharmaceutical executives who peddled opioids into every neighborhood, creating a national crisis? The system,
apparently, can handle billions in corporate malfeasance, but a presidential pardon for a single low-level fraud? That's the real scandal worthy of "fury."