If Trump's 36 Clemencies Are an Abuse of Power, What Were Obama's 1,927?
If Democrats and their allies in the media didn’t have double standards, they’d have no standards at all.
This is especially true for the media, which feigned outrage last Friday after President Donald Trump commuted the sentence of longtime Republican operative Roger Stone.
Stone, who was a high-profile target of the left’s favored Mueller investigation, received his commutation days before he was set to begin serving a 40-month prison sentence.
The 67-year-old was convicted last year on counts of obstruction, making false statements and witness tampering.
According to those critical of the apparent politicization of federal law enforcement agencies, Stone was convicted of lying about a crime which never occurred, and of telling that lie to individuals with badges and alleged political motives.
Recent revelations of the true scope of Mueller’s political witch hunt were of no use in Stone’s case, so the president intervened.
Stone was spared serving prison time at the 11th hour by the commutation, and the country’s activist media was none too pleased.
Dishonest reporters were so peeved to see Stone slide through their hands they ignored a few stunning facts about presidential pardons and commutations.
Trump was immediately accused of abusing his powers as president to issue clemency to a personal acquaintance facing a stiff prison sentence.
NBC News reporter David Mark jotted down the news, portraying Trump as some sort of clemency machine.
“Commuting Stone’s sentence before Election Day is completely on-brand for Trump. He has already issued so many controversial pardons and repeatedly flouted the law that the Stone move is just a continuation of the same political background noise,” Mark wrote.
Mark added Trump that had been readying for the decision, and had “softened the ground for the Stone commutation through past use of presidential pardon and commutation powers.”
The New York Times, of course, used the news as a way to connect Trump to President Richard Nixon, who faced likely impeachment before resigning, and also noted that “Trump’s action was too much even for some Republican critics of the president, who called it an abuse of power intended to subvert justice.”
Likewise, others were quite vocal about Trump showing Stone clemency:
Trump has made a mockery of our Constitution, values, & way of life.
His record of criminal & sociopathic behavior is a precursor of greater danger & harm to our country.
What else must he do before his supporters see the threat he poses to America?
https://t.co/Qkzi3gYagp— John O. Brennan (@JohnBrennan) July 11, 2020
The fact that getting the help of the slezoid Roger Stone on his slimy campaign might plausibly have motivated Trump’s corrupt and impeachable abuse of his commutation power is enough to condemn Trump in the eyes of anyone who cares about the U.S.https://t.co/Qa38wWoaiT
— Laurence Tribe (@tribelaw) July 12, 2020
BREAKING: Trump just commuted sentence of Roger Stone. Trump should be removed immediately for this gross and obscene abuse of power. Ridiculous.
— Scott Dworkin (@funder) July 11, 2020
But these grifters and others ignored Trump’s stunningly small number of pardons and commutations, which pale in comparison to the number issued by his predecessors, especially those who were Democrats.
Since 2017, President Trump has granted clemency to a total of 36 individuals.
That includes 11 commutations and 25 pardons in three and a half years.
By comparison, former President Barack Obama granted clemency to a grand total of 1,927 people (1,715 commutations and 212 pardons) during his two terms in office, according to the Pew Research Center.
FiveThirtyEight, meanwhile, admitted in a 2017 story that “Obama granted clemency unlike any other president in history.”
The polling and analytics blog pointed out that on his way out of office, Obama “granted clemency to more people than any president since Harry S. Truman.”
“Obama’s clemency is almost always given by freeing people from prison with commuted sentences, not pardoning people after their release.”
Obama’s 1,927 acts of clemency dwarfed those of his immediate predecessors.
President George W. Bush granted clemency to only 200 individuals, according to Pew, while President Bill Clinton used his powers of clemency 459 times.
Only Democrats Truman, with 2,044, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, with 3,796, and Woodrow Wilson, with 2,827 pardons and commutations, edge out Obama for the most actions granting clemency while in office since the start of the 20th century.
Trump has granted clemency to 36 people, which is good for 53 times fewer than the number of pardons and commutations issued by Obama.
Of course, Trump’s infraction is that he granted clemency to a man that the left wanted to see fall.
As Stone celebrated his sentence commutation on social media last week, the establishment media collectively wept.
Cry more, Lib pic.twitter.com/ad0ZTD2tYW
— Benny (@bennyjohnson) July 11, 2020
But their outrage is not driven by a desire to see justice prevail.
They are driven by a hatred for all things which bear Trump’s name, and their hypocrisy knows no bounds.
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