PARDON THE INNOCENT

“Drexel was making a lot of money. So here, they were basically taking market share. They were a disruptor. If you use today's term, they were a disruptor. A lot of people don't like Elon Musk because he's a disruptor. People didn't like Bill Gates and Microsoft because they're a disruptor. Number two, because he developed a market and people believe in what he was doing, he was able to finance people who wanted to acquire other companies that they thought were undervalued in the market.”

“One of the things, I guess, about Mike that I saw from the sis from this that is amazing that people can also learn Though a bad thing's happened to you, life isn't over. You can still go on. Mike has an unbelievable ability. I don't think I know anyone who can do this the way he does it. That you could knock him down. You could kick him in the stomach. No matter how many times you do it do it, he gets up. He gets up. He dusts himself off. He goes about being productive and trying to make the world better, and he does it without bitterness. He does it without carrying a grudge.”

“In February 2020, president Trump actually granted, of course, Michael Milken a full pardon. Not only did president Trump grant him a pardon, but when he called Mike to tell him that he was getting a pardon, he said, you know, and this is a real pardon. This you've never done anything before me. And then the White House issued a press release that went in great detail on the fact of what Mike has done in his life for in the world of finance, for companies to get capital that couldn't get capital, what Mike had done in philanthropy, in cancer research to save lives, and the fact that even in the press release, it talked about that what Mike pled to was were all novel.”

“Lowell had almost no contact with mister Boesky, or the transacting they were looking at, but he was Mike's brother. And it was interesting in that as I talk about in the book years later when I caught a class at Stanford Law School about this case and what happened, I brought in the young prosecutor who worked with mister Giuliani at the time to talk about this perspective years later on the case and upon the process. And when we asked him specifically about the indictment of Lowell Milken, he acknowledged the fact that Lowell would not have been indicted if it wasn't to bring pressure on his brother. So, yes, that was a tool they used. He was, you know, for lack of a better term or maybe it is a vestor, he was a hostage.”

“Mike came to Drexel in his twenties, coming out of Wharton, and he went to Drexel because Drexel was a cop research firm on the street. As Mike developed credibility as he as he talked institutions about these mods and got people interested in doing that, Drexel allocated funds to him to invest. So Drexel started for the first time to do original issues of high yield bonds. They actually companies that did not have the track record to get investment rate rating, but that Drexel believed to its research and meeting management and understanding the industry would be successful. They started financing companies that could never get financing before. This is sort of where the term democratization of capital came from.”

“Criminal process is very different. The government has tremendous power. So in a criminal prosecution, the investigation starts. The only party that can get any information is the prosecutor. They have a grand jury. They could issue subpoenas and get documents. They could call you in front of the grand jury, take your deposition with your lawyer in the hallway. They can't even be in the same room with you. As a person under investigation, you have no rights at all unless until and unless you get indicted.”

“We actually found things that they would accept that Mike could plead to, none of which. And this is why I go in great detail in the book so people understand how in many ways ridiculous it is. None of which had ever been the subject of a criminal prosecution before or since. What was shows what shows how ridiculous it is is when the judge who sentenced Mike did an analysis of the economic effect of everything Mike led to, but the five different things. She found that the economic effect of four of the things he led to was zero. And the economic effect of the fifth was about $280,000 because of commissions that were not disclosed.”

“Before you, if you're doing something, you're successful, you might come out of the public eye, get out there and tell your story. Let people hear from you, who you are, and what you're doing. My view was he was considered reclusive. He didn't want not wanna talk to the media. So I think that hurt him a lot in that who Mike was was defined by the government through this process, where if he had defined himself before, it would made a difference. If you're gonna be out there, make sure you define who you are so others don't define.”