Pardons, arrests and double standards

You can tell what party controls the executive and legislative branches of government just by hearing the kinds of issues and actions percolating in Washington and in states and cities around the nation.

The treatment of illegal aliens and the Democrats’ use of sanctuary cities is a prime example.

A two-time appointee of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jen Kerns was a prime spokeswoman for the California Republican Party. She actively served in a number of GOP causes before leaving California in 2012 … over public safety concerns.

Since California Gov. Jerry Brown began his early prisoner release program of convicted felons, drug dealers and other offenders, Kerns said she no longer felt safe as a single female walking home from work. She explained that in the past 10 years progressives have increasingly placed the so-called “rights” of illegal immigrants over the public safety of its residents.

Kerns believes San Francisco’s “sanctuary city” policy has brought shame on California. The illegal immigrant criminal activity is also draining the state’s budget. It’s estimated that illegal immigrants now make up one-fourth of the prison inmate population.

California is not alone in seeing its resources drained. An Op-Ed in The Hill, a top political website, stated that “a population of just over 3.5 percent residing in the U.S. unlawfully committed 22 percent to 37 percent of all murders in the nation.”

While San Francisco’s Mayor Edwin Lee has called illegal immigration “part of the DNA of the city,” Kerns blames that kind of liberal leadership for harboring illegal immigrants and allowing killers like Kate Steinle’s to walk free.

She says the Steinle verdict was a slap in the face to every law-abiding American citizen. The girl’s killer had been deported five times and was a seven-time convicted felon. A look at presidential pardons and commutations under the past two administrations is also quite revealing.

Barack Obama pardoned 1,700 federal prisoners, mostly nonviolent inmates who were serving lengthy sentences. He set the single-day record for use of the clemency power, granting 330 commutations on Jan. 19, 2017, his last full day in office.

Obama also commuted the majority of Chelsea Manning’s sentence. The transgender woman, formerly known as Bradley Manning, was charged with giving 700,000 military files and communications to WikiLeaks.

Obama issued more commutations than the past 13 presidents combined. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, then a senator in 2014, called Obama’s actions “an alarming abuse of the pardon power.”

As of last week, President Donald Trump has pardoned two people and commuted one person during his 15 months in office.

He issued his first pardon last August to Joe Arpaio, the former no-nonsense Arizona sheriff who was convicted of ignoring a federal court order in a racial-profiling case.

Last week, Kristian Saucier, a former Navy sailor, received Trump’s second pardon.

Saucier, who served as a machinist’s mate aboard the USS Alexandria from 2007 to 2012, used his cellphone to photograph parts of the submarine while it was docked at the Naval Submarine Base in Groton, Connecticut. A worker at the naval base found Saucier’s cellphone near a Dumpster and found the photographs while going through it. The worker brought the cellphone to a retired Navy petty officer, who then notified federal agencies about the sensitive submarine pictures. Saucier was sentenced to one year in prison and a $100 fine, along with six months home confinement, 100 hours of community service and a ban on owning guns.

Ronald Daigle, Saucier’s attorney who served as a military police officer in Iraq from 2005 to 2006, said he saw “hundreds, or thousands” of photos that service personnel had taken that could have been considered sensitive and that those cases were usually handled in-house.

Greg Rinkey, another attorney for Saucier, said the verdict was unfair when you compare it to other individuals such as Hillary Clinton and her aide Huma Abedin, who clearly mishandled classified information.

Abedin’s estranged husband and former congressman Anthony Weiner was found to have some of the former secretary of state’s emails on his computer when it was seized by federal investigators in connection to another case. After a lengthy investigation, the FBI recommended not to indict Hillary, citing there was no intent to subvert. There were, however, thousands of emails that were destroyed so we have no idea of their content.

Machinist Mate 1st Class Kristian Saucier, meanwhile, got in trouble, was prosecuted and imprisoned for taking photos that were deemed a national security risk. Saucier’s shipmates, his family and most sane people know he isn’t a spy and wasn’t involved in any subversive activity.

This kind of comparison — pitting elitists versus average Americans — does not bode well for career politicians and only gives more credence to the belief that they are held to another standard under the law.

By Jim Zbick | tneditor@tnonline.com