U.S. President Donald Trump walks on the South Lawn as he returns from North Carolina at the White House in Washington D.C., the United States, Feb. 7, 2020. U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday that Mick Mulvaney will remain as his acting chief of staff amid media reports that the aide's future at the White House is in doubt. (Xinhua/Liu Jie)

US President Donald Trump came under fire Tuesday for commuting the sentence of Rod Blagojevich, the ex-Illinois governor convicted of trying to peddle Barack Obama's vacated US Senate seat.

Trump also pardoned Michael Milken, once considered Wall Street's "junk bond king," along with six others, and commuted the sentences of another three people. The recipients of clemency had been convicted on charges ranging from defrauding the federal government to theft.

Blagojevich, a Democrat who appeared on Trump's "Celebrity Apprentice" reality television show while awaiting trial, began serving a 14-year sentence in 2012 after being convicted of wire fraud, extortion and soliciting bribes while being the governor.

"That was a tremendously powerful, ridiculous sentence," said Trump, a real estate developer who produced and starred in the NBC show before clinching the Republican presidential nomination and winning election to succeed Obama in the White House in 2016.

Within hours, the Chicago Tribune quoted a US Bureau of Prisons statement saying Blagojevich "is no longer in custody" at a federal detention center in Colorado.

Chicago television station WGN-TV aired footage of the former governor, his once jet-black hair now white, at Denver International Airport as he was making his way home.

"I'm profoundly grateful to President Trump. It's a profound and everlasting gratitude," Blagojevich told reporters. "He didn't have to do this, he's a Republican president."

Blagojevich, 63, was removed from office in 2009 after prosecutors said he tried to sell or trade the US Senate seat Obama vacated after winning the 2008 presidential election.

Trump's decision was criticized by both Democrats and Republicans, although some Democrats supported the move.

"Blagojevich is the face of public corruption in Illinois, and not once has he shown any remorse for his clear and documented record of egregious crimes that undermined the trust placed in him by voters," five Republican congressmen from the state said in a joint statement.

Trump's pardons come two days before the expected sentencing of his long-time friend Roger Stone on Thursday, amid speculation that the president could pardon him as well.

Milken was indicted in 1989 in an insider trading probe. After pleading guilty to securities violations, he paid $1.1 billion and served about two years in prison.

Since then has headed the non-profit Milken Institute, focusing on a wide span of research, including curing cancer, public health, aging, California and financial markets. Each year the titans of finance flock to the Milken Institute Global Conference, where fund managers and marketers woo prospective investors and philanthropists to make pitches for funding.

Reuters