When President Donald Trump announced that he would be issuing a pardon for retired General Michael Flynn, his former National Security Adviser, the president’s opponents ripped the move as an alleged abuse of the president’s clemency powers.
Take the idiot Adam Schiff-For-Brains (D-CA) for instance:
“Donald Trump has repeatedly abused the pardon power to reward friends and protect those who covered up for him. This time he pardons Michael Flynn, who lied to hide his dealings with the Russians. It’s no surprise that Trump would go out as he came in — Crooked to the end.”
Of course, Schiff lies every time he opens his mouth. He lied to the American people for over 2 years, constantly claiming on cable network news programs that he had in his possession definite evidence of Russian collusion, yet he never produced any of that evidence. He said this every single time he was given the chance. And even after the Mueller witch hunt ended with the special counsel having to admit there was zero evidence of collusion, Schiff still continued to claim there was evidence. This man is a pathological liar.
Not only did General Flynn not lie to the FBI about sanctions, which is what Schiff is referring to in his tweet lies, but according to the 302 documents of Flynn’s interview with the FBI, they never asked him a single question about his discussions of sanctions with the Russian ambassador. How could the FBI charge Flynn with lying about sanctions when they never asked him about it? If I know this, then Schiff, the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, has to know as well. Therefore, he’s still lying.
Attacking President Trump’s use of the pardon power to help allies is nothing new. A lot of people were upset when Trump pardoned former Maricopa County (Arizona) Sheriff Joe Arpaio in 2017 for targeting Hispanics while searching for illegal aliens. You don’t look for little old ladies with blue hair and aluminum walkers when searching for illegal aliens in Arizona.
Liberals complained about Trump’s pardon of Dinesh D’Souza, a conservative icon, lecturer, author and filmmaker, who was singled out by President Barack Obama for making a movie “2016: Obama’s America” with some claiming D’Souza’s pardon was more about Trump’s ego and partisan politics than justice. Can you believe that? The man was targeted by the former president of the United States and the dingbats at NBC ignored that part of the story and reported it was about some sort of personal flaw in Trump’s character.
With such an outrageous amount of alleged abuse of the pardoning powers, normal people who watch the news would think that President Trump must have racked up an enormous number of pardons and commutations over the last 4 years. And they could not be more wrong. In fact, going all the way back to McKinley, President Donald Trump has the lowest number pardons and/or commutations than any other past president.
According to the non-partisan think tank Pew Research Center, who recently released a report, Trump had granted clemency only 44 times. He granted only 28 pardons and 16 commutations, which means he granted only 0.5 percent of all the clemency requests he received.
The president’s haters may not like the people he granted clemency, but the Constitution gives him that power, and it is absolute.
Compared to the guy in the White House right before him, Trump would be considered an amateur.
President Barack Obama issued clemency 1,927 times. He issued 212 pardons and 1,715 commutations. And none of the same whiners against Trump issued as much as a peep.
A lot of Obama’s clemency decisions were considered highly controversial. According to Pew:
“But Trump is far from the only president who has faced scrutiny over his use of clemency. Obama’s frequent use of commutations, particularly for prisoners convicted of drug-related crimes, prompted criticism from Republicans, who said it benefited ‘an entire class of offenders’ and infringed on the “lawmaking authority” of the legislative branch.”
Obama boot-lickers and other sycophants will defend the former president’s use of clemency by claiming he only came through for 5.3 percent of requests received. But to leave it there would rob you of the whole story. Yes, it was less than 6 percent of all requests, but during Obama’s eight years in the Oval Office, clemency requests jumped almost three times the previous record number, to 36,544, where you’d have to go all the way back to FDR.
And it was the Obama administration that was responsible for the spike in clemency requests during those 8 years as they actually created a program called “The Clemency Initiative,” where the administration called on prisoners to request clemency. The sheer volume of petitions for clemency is what drove the percentage rate of granted requests down.
VIDEO OF THE DAY
Idiots Twerk On Ambulance After Shooting In Oakland, CASo, why all the hubbub over Trump’s use of the pardon power? That’s being treated no differently from anything else this president has done. His detractors hate his guts and will trash everything he’s done no matter how appropriate. Given the facts about presidents invoking clemency, their complaints reflect more on their own character flaws than anything President Trump has done.
Rich is a conservative syndicated opinion writer and owner of Maga-Chat.com. He writes about politics, culture, liberty, and faith.
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