“It is just unseemly,” CNN host John King said. “If you’re going to do it, have the courage to do it in the light of day and explain it to the American people. It’s a stain on his legacy to do it like this. We could have an argument about, is it necessary, has Donald Trump promised retribution? Yes he has, if you're the President of the United States who said the curse of Donald Trump was that he didn't respect democracy and didn't respect norms, have the courage to look the American people in the eye and explain what you're doing.”
Former Obama aide David Axelrod said that the timing of the pardons looked suspicious.
“The fact is that Trump has been saying this for a long time. That doesn‘t explain why in the last 10 minutes of your presidency you slip a release out there, it just made the whole thing look tawdry,” Axelrod said.