President Trump has taken some criticisms for the pardons he recently issued, so let’s take a look at one of them: Michael Milken. In 1990, Milken pleaded guilty to a technical securities offense, for which he was pardoned on Tuesday. Milken was an outsider who took on a cozy establishment, beat them at their own game, and then was chewed up and spit out by a shameful criminal law system. His pardon was well-deserved.

Milken came from a humble background. As a nerdy Jewish teenager, he attended a public high school in Encino, California, and his rise was a great example of the American Dream. He wasn’t a member of the club, but he got a job at the white-shoe, Philadelphia-based Drexel Burnham Lambert investment firm, where he was quickly recognized as a whiz.