Brace yourselves for another unwarranted and reckless attack by the “bucket of rocks” throwing drama queens of the leftist media. President Trump has surely crossed a line somewhere, and they’ll be damned if they won’t throw spaghetti at the White House walls until something sticks.
The boil alert follows Trump commuting the sentence of Alice Marie Johnson and considering a full pardon or clemency for a half dozen more as White House leakers report. Johnson now joins Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, boxer Jack Johnson, and conservative commentator Dinesh D’Souza, to name a few.
Seems presidential enough to clear thinking and not hysterics, people. But those prone to panic attacks and hyperventilation episodes feel oh so differently.
He must be insane, as The Washington Post opinion writers continue to shriek, honoring their name and truly going postal. The pardons have been “nothing but right-wing trolling” says Paul Waldman; alarmist Jennifer Rubin stopped hoarding canned goods in her bomb shelter long enough to warn of, “a warm up to a Constitutional crisis.”
The Op-ed team conclusively decided that what “is offensive here is not the pardon power, but the use of it” for “arbitrary, political, and unjustified” motivations.
Bias Much?
“Arbitrary, political, and unjustified” is what the Postals have used to describe cases that were heavy-handed in sentencing and that have been labeled political only in that the recipients were conservative. With Trump, there are no random or arbitrary or unjustified decisions. But you should decide for yourself.
Alice Marie Johnson, 63, had her life sentence for cocaine trafficking commuted to time served after 22 years. She was immediately released from Aliceville Federal Correctional Institution in Alabama. A long and influential list of those in support included Members of Congress, the U.S. Attorney, and the warden at her prison who had petitioned Obama in 2017, though he denied her plea for clemency just weeks before leaving office. Trump took their advice and Johnson is now home with her family.
The late Jack Johnson was America’s first black heavyweight champion; imprisoned for taking a white woman across state lines, during the Jim Crow era. The woman was his fiancé, later to become his wife, but that was fuel to the fire and Johnson was arrested under the Mann Act, also known as the White-Slave Traffic Act. Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama were heavily petitioned by Congress to pardon him posthumously — and really who was this going to hurt? But Trump cleaned up their legacy of indifference.
Another case that the elite media has only cursorily covered — if you blinked you missed it — is that of former Navy Seal, Kristian Saucier, whose crime was to photograph the submarine where he worked. No, he did not leave his men behind in Benghazi (Hillary) or delete thousands of emails (Hillary), or scrub his government server (still Hillary), yet he spent a year in prison until his recent pardon.
Is This Pardoning on Par?
Desperate for any ratings boost out of the media black hole, CNN sounded the alarm on Trump’s reckless pardoning, bellowing, “a pace that could pick up rapidly in the not-too-distant future.”
Well, let’s take a peek at past Pardoners in Chief. According to Pew Research Center “Barack Obama ended his presidency having granted clemency to more people convicted of federal crimes than any chief executive in 64 years,” yet somehow dodged the pleas on behalf the Johnsons.
That’s in great contrast to George W. Bush’s stingy record of only 77 petitions granted over his eight-year reign. But the Grand Poobah of abusing the pardoning process? You guessed it, President William Jefferson Clinton who handed them out like DumDum suckers to Trick or Treaters.
His list is most impressive and includes his half-brother Roger Clinton (cocaine possession), brother-out-law, Hugh Rodham’s clients, Carlos Vignali (cocaine trafficking) and A. Glenn Braswell, of fraudulent Gero Vita fame. Over $400,000 was allegedly paid by the two clients for their new lease on life.
Pay Day
Oh, but wait, there’s more! Remember Mark Rich? Yes, that Mark Rich, treasonous and fraudulent financier:
“Rich received a pardon for charges, dating to 1983, of tax evasion, tax fraud and violating U.S. embargoes by trading with Iran during the U.S. hostage crisis. Both he and business partner Pincus Green were in Switzerland at the time of their indictment, and neither returned to the U.S.”
Clinton’s number two under Attorney General Janet Reno, Eric Holder, strong-armed his own staff to abandon the memo to the president advising against granting clemency to 16 members of the deadly Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional (FALN) Puerto Rican terrorist group, responsible for 130 bombings and 6 deaths.
You guessed it: pardoned.
Sadly, there is a list as long as your arm of Clinton’s pay-to-play justice, yet the elite leftist media worries now about Trump potentially granting a pardon to Martha Stewart. Remember, just like cleaning house of Obama staff members, who served at the pleasure when he claimed the Oval Office, Trump has the prerogative to pardon, commute, and grant clemency to those whom he feels have been unjustly targeted and imprisoned, by the most corrupt Department of Justice this country has ever seen. And with a stroke of his pen, he has the power to do just that.
The power was granted when he swore the oath “I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” It’s good to be the leader of the free world.
