Tea Party governor’s last act: Pardons for hundreds

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Talk about a vindictive loser.
Outgoing Tea Party Republican Governor Matt Bevin of Kentucky has now pardoned hundreds of convicts since he lost a close re-election race one month ago. Among those benefitting from his exit are five convicted killers and other violent felons. One of the men receiving a pardon just happens to have family members who hosted a high-dollar fundraiser for the governor’s re-election campaign this past summer.

Gov. Bevin issued 428 pardons in the month before leaving office this week under objection. Bevin wanted to challenge the election results but Kentucky does not have a law mandating it and he was unsuccessful.

41-year old Patrick Brian Baker received an unconditional pardon from his 19-year prison sentence this week after being convicted in 2017 “of reckless homicide, first-degree robbery, impersonating a peace officer and tampering with physical evidence,” The Times-Tribune reports. The victim’s wife and three children were in the home when the acts occurred.

Saying, “I’ve never seen a more compelling or complete case … the evidence was just overwhelming,” Judge David L. Williams had lamented at sentencing the convicted felon could be imprisoned for only 19 years.

“I believe it would be a miscarriage of justice to do any less,” Williams added. “It’s 19 years because that’s all I can give you…if I could give you more, I would.”

But as Newsweek reports, “Baker’s brother and sister in law, Eric and Kathryn Baker, hosted a fundraiser for Bevin at their home in Corbin, Kentucky, in July last year,” according to The Courier Journal. They raised a whopping $21,500. The pair added $4000 to the pot as well.

Baker’s co-defendants are not receiving pardons, despite the fact it was Baker who pulled the trigger.

Others receiving pardons “include one offender convicted of raping a child, another who hired a hit man to kill his business partner and a third who killed his parents.”
https://www.alternet.org/2019/12/tea-p ... -election/
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.-Huxley
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis Brandeis,

Re: Tea Party governor’s last act: Pardons for hundreds

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Rev Mike Huckabee was on Fox claiming that Trump should get a third term and Trumpians are arguing for repealing the 22nd Amendment because Trump was cheated... (people were mean to him?).

This isn't gonna be pretty no matter what. Bevin shows how it might work (claim illegal votes and burn it all down).
It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach.

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Re: Tea Party governor’s last act: Pardons for hundreds

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Bevin is trash. I live in KY and I'm glad to see him go. He didn't even carry a number of reliably repub areas in the burbs - I'm not alone in my dislike for him. Anyone one with any modest degree of name recognition could have beat him. If tRump does go down in defeat next November, there is no way that he will go quietly. Even if he loses in a landslide, he will claim "illegals" voted him out. I would love to see him dragged from the oval office in shackles doing the perp-walk leg-chain shuffle.

Re: Tea Party governor’s last act: Pardons for hundreds

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YankeeTarheel wrote: Fri Dec 13, 2019 2:06 pm
highdesert wrote: Fri Dec 13, 2019 9:42 am Just wait until Donnie's last day in the WH, pardons for Manafort and others?
If Trump has his way, his last day in the White House will be when he's a 130 years old and takes his last breath.
And Donnie Jr. takes over like Kim Jong Un in North Korea.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.-Huxley
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis Brandeis,

Re: Tea Party governor’s last act: Pardons for hundreds

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joemac wrote: Fri Dec 13, 2019 3:34 pm Bevin is trash. I live in KY and I'm glad to see him go. He didn't even carry a number of reliably repub areas in the burbs - I'm not alone in my dislike for him. Anyone one with any modest degree of name recognition could have beat him. If tRump does go down in defeat next November, there is no way that he will go quietly. Even if he loses in a landslide, he will claim "illegals" voted him out. I would love to see him dragged from the oval office in shackles doing the perp-walk leg-chain shuffle.
It was nice to see some limits on the politics of hatred. Bevin couldn't threaten and scream his way to victory in a red state. Remember that Kansas rejected Kobach and other states had teacher revolts that helped more voters than the NRA, RNC, DNC, and DSCC ever did. The country is not lost yet.
It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach.

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Re: Tea Party governor’s last act: Pardons for hundreds

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McConnell Says Bevin's Last-Minute Pardons of Violent Criminals 'Completely Inappropriate': 'Honestly, I Don't Approve'

https://www.newsweek.com/mcconnell-says ... te-1477235
Kentucky Senate President Robert Stivers called for an investigation into Bevin's pardons, asking the U.S. Attorney General's office to get involved.

"From what we know of former Governor Bevin's extreme pardons and commutations," said Stivers in a statement, "the Senate Republican Majority condemns his actions as a travesty and perversion of justice. Our citizens, and especially the crime victims and their families, deserve better."
It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach.

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Re: Tea Party governor’s last act: Pardons for hundreds

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And he defended the methodology behind his 11th-hour flurry of pardons, tweeting that his decisions came after he read hundreds of pages of court records and spent hundreds of hours reading applications and files. "Each case had its own set of facts, evidence, lack of evidence, supporting documents, reasons and unique details, most of which the arm-chair critics are not aware of," he said. "Am I perfect? No... Never have been... But I did my very best, over many hours, days, weeks and years, to reach fair and just decisions."

The more than 400 pardons and commutations, issued after his loss in November to Democrat Andy Beshear, included low-level drug offenders, as well as a man who was convicted of raping a 9-year-old in Kenton County, another who hired a hit man to kill his business partner, a man who killed his parents and a man who beheaded a woman before stuffing her in a barrel.
Earlier Friday, two Democratic lawmakers called on Attorney General-elect Daniel Cameron to appoint an independent special prosecutor to investigate potential criminal wrongdoing involving Bevin's pardon of Patrick Brian Baker.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/pol ... 644895001/

So much for the law and order party.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: Tea Party governor’s last act: Pardons for hundreds

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TrueTexan wrote: Sat Dec 14, 2019 11:08 am A Blueprint of the actions Trump will take when and if he ever leaves office.
Except Trump won't get investigated for his pardons. We all know what is going to happen.

Bevin has no real friends or wealth in comparison.

I do wish I could fund some billboards in Kentucky with Bevins and Mitch together. And the Trumps.

President Trump holds rally in Kentucky to support Gov. Bevin ahead of election
It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach.

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Re: Tea Party governor’s last act: Pardons for hundreds

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The FBI is asking questions about the pardons Matt Bevin issued during his last weeks as Kentucky governor, the Louisville Courier Journal of the USA TODAY Network has learned. State Rep. Chris Harris, D-Forest Hills, told reporters that a criminal investigator contacted him last week and asked what he knew about Bevin's pardons. Harris did not elaborate on what questions were asked, and he declined to say which law enforcement agency contacted him. "I can confirm that I have been contacted by someone looking into the pardons that were issued by Gov. Bevin on his way out the door," he said. "The impression I got is that there was an investigation ramping up." 'I talked to people out the wazoo':Former Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin defends controversial pardons, blames outrage on 'political opportunism'

Two sources with knowledge of the inquiry told The Courier Journal on Monday that an FBI agent had spoken with Harris. A spokeswoman with the FBI office in Louisville did not immediately respond to an email requesting comment. Bevin has received national criticism for pardoning or commuting the sentences of more than 650 people following his failed reelection bid in November.

State prosecutors and leaders such as U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have condemned several of Bevin's decisions, particularly his pardon of Patrick Baker, who had servedtwo years of a 19-year sentence for reckless homicide and robbery in the slaying of a Knox County man in front of his family. The Courier Journal reported on Dec. 11 that Baker's brother held a campaign fundraiser at his home for Bevin in July 2018 that raised $21,500. The former governor also received a letter from business executive Terry Forcht, one of the state’s Republican mega-donors, urging Bevin to pardon Baker.

Forcht has given at least $2.8 million to state and national political causes in the last 40 years, including more than $100,000 to Bevin's campaign and inauguration funds.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nat ... 739204001/
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

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