Democrats in West Virginia set on fire President Biden’s choices from last-minute clemency recipients, who say they would expect such actions from their rival, President-elect Trump.
In a statement released late Monday, local party leaders said they applauded Biden for leading the U.S. “through significant economic challenges” but said commutations were given to people convicted of public corruption.
“Public corruption is a violation of trust. When public officials abuse the power of their office for personal gain, they not only harm the communities they are supposed to serve, but they also undermine trust in our government institutions,” wrote Chairman Mike Pushkin, a state lawmaker from Kanawha County.
“Even more troubling, this type of pardon is exactly what we would expect from President-elect Donald Trump, not President Biden.”
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A welcome sign greets travelers exiting the East River Mountain tunnel on Interstate 77 near Princeton, West Virginia. (Fox News/Charles Creitz)
In a statement for the state party, Pushkin — a state delegate from Kanawha County — criticized Trump’s first-term pardons of former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, Gen. Michael Flynn, political strategist Stephen K. Bannon and ex-Rep. Rick Renzi, R-Ariz.
“By following the same path, President Biden has legitimized the idea that government officials who violate their oath of office are above the law,” Pushkin said.
Worse, it will embolden Trump to issue even more pardons for political corruption when he returns to the White House.
Pushkin and other Democrats were particularly critical of Biden’s decision to pardon the disgraced Judge Michael Conahan of Pennsylvaniathe key figure in the kids-for-cash scandal.
Conahan was convicted of receiving kickbacks for sentencing juveniles to for-profit prisons.
Rep. Hollis Lewis, D-Charleston, told Fox News Digital that he, too, disagreed with Biden’s decision to grant Conahan clemency.
“The one that upset me was the judge involved in the cash-for-kids case,” he said.
“Anytime you have individuals preying on our most vulnerable population, which is children and the elderly, it’s very problematic.”
Former Luzerne County Court Judges Michael Conahan, front left, and Mark Ciavarella, front right, leave the U.S. District Court in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on September 15, 2009. (AP photo)
Lewis said presidents of both parties have made questionable clemency choices, adding that pardons are an important tool that have their place.
“I don’t think anyone needs to carry around a red letter of a crime for very long, depending on the specific crime they committed, if that part allows them to move on with their lives,” he said.
“But especially when it comes to crimes involving the elderly … and children, or crimes involving patterns of violence where the evidence is clear and beyond a reasonable doubt, then perhaps we should think twice before acquitting those individuals.”
In its statement, the WVDP also criticized Biden’s clemency for ex-Dixon, Illinois Comptroller Rita Crundwell — punished for embezzling $54 million in the nation’s largest municipal fraud case.
The third case mentioned involved Jimmy Dimora, a former Cleveland county commissioner who was involved in a pay-to-play scheme.
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Fox News Digital reached out to Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who is now an independent but still caucuses with Democrats.
West Virginia previously made headlines during the presidential pardon season, when former President Bill Clinton granted his widely rebuked pardon to then-fugitive financier Marc Rich.
Rich was accused of tax evasion and circumventing sanctions against Iran and apartheid in South Africa.
However, Rich also had a stake in an aluminum manufacturer on the Ohio River when it was accused of locking out 1,500 workers and hiring scabs, amid accusations that such a move was illegal because the plant reportedly carried out an exclusion.
Members of the West Virginia Union reportedly picketed in Switzerland for Rich’s office.
Clinton’s pardon of Rich and business partner Pincus Green earned him a federal investigation initially led by New York prosecutor Mary Jo White.
When White’s term ended in 2002, she was replaced by a young federal prosecutor whose name would resurface many years later in another Clinton controversy: James Comey.
