According to law professor Harvey Silverglate, as he wrote in his book Three Felonies a Day, had Milken not been famous and wealthy, critics might have taken a closer and more dispassionate look at the fabricated case against him. It now seems irrefutable that both Michael Milken’s financial success and Trump’s political success made them the targets of our weaponized system of justice. Milken was an easy scapegoat to satiate a growing public resentment over the so-called excesses of the 1980s.

In Trump’s case, an inability to effectively navigate the “political swamp” in Washington D.C. made him an easy target for ruthless Democrats eager to destroy him for having the audacity to win the White House in 2016 against the swamp’s anointed candidate, Hillary Clinton. Milken showed how you can raise capital outside of the large established New York investment banks, Trump proved how to win an election without the large establishment political donors.

The charges against Milken were more about taking down a high-profile figure than achieving true justice, according to numerous experts in business ethics, such as Professor Norman Barry, author of the book Business Ethics. //

By examining the cases against Donald Trump and Michael Milken, it becomes evident that targeting successful and or controversial individuals without solid evidence of criminal behavior does not advance the cause of justice; it undermines it. However, what is even more disturbing is how our justice system is used against people without any financial means whatsoever.