I’m not entirely sure what to make of this, but Senate President Robert Stivers — a Republican — has called on the Department of Justice to investigate former Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin’s pardons.
Kentucky Senate President Robert Stivers is calling on the U.S. Attorney's Office to investigate the pardons issued by former Gov. Matt Bevin.
The Courier Journal first reported Wednesday that Bevin issued hundreds of pardons during his last days in office. Those pardoned included a man who was convicted of raping a 9-year-old in Kenton County and other convicted killers.
"From what we know of former Governor Bevin's extreme pardons and commutations, the Senate Republican Majority condemns his actions as a travesty and perversion of justice," Stivers said. "Our citizens, and especially the crime victims and their families, deserve better."
It appears that Stivers and his fellow Republicans are not too happy with Bevin, especially since it looks like Bevin took a payoff to pardon a convicted murderer. Democrats are pushing for the new state attorney general — ahem, a McConnell crony by the name of Daniel Cameron — to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the pardons. While it all sounds nice on its face, I am not sanguine about the DOJ under William Barr to investigate ANY Republicans.
But there is pressure for the state Republicans to at least go out and condemn Bevin. This is not just because of the terrible optics of pardon payoffs or Bevin’s love of child rapists. The state judge who sentenced Peter Baker — the pardon payoff murderer — is the former leader of the state Republican senate — a man by the name of David Williams. And Williams is outraged that Bevin says the evidence against Baker was “sketchy.”
Judge David Williams, the former president of the Kentucky Senate, sentenced Baker in 2017. He said in 30 years of practice: “I’ve never seen a more compelling or complete case … the evidence was just overwhelming.”
Oh, by the way, the prosecutor in that case is also a Republican. Therefore, this is also another “Fuck you!” from Bevin to his fellow Republicans. Did I also mention that the getaway drivers in this case are sitting in prison with 50 year sentences? So yeah this is so obviously political that only the most corrupt prosecutor would not look at this.
Oh. I just described William Barr. My bad!
Did I also mention that Bevin’s former campaign manager is doing his Sargeant Schultz routine of “I know NOTHING!”?
And, guess which Russian loving terrapin poked his head out from his shell to say that this “inappropriate”?
FRANKFORT — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell joined the growing number of officials criticizing former Gov. Matt Bevin's controversial pardons, calling ones for those convicted of violent crimes "completely inappropriate."
McConnell made the remarks about Bevin's last-minute pardons in Frankfort on Friday, shortly after filing his paperwork to run for reelection next year.
“Honestly, I don’t approve," McConnell said of his pardons. "It seems to me it was completely inappropriate. I expect he has the power to do it, but looking at the examples of people who were incarcerated as the result of heinous crimes, no, I don’t approve of them.”
You know if I was this unpopular I would keep my head down. But Matt Bevin is Matt Bevin. And this means sticking to your guns and Tweeting out a response that he is damn right:
Bevin said he reviewed hundreds of applications for pardons and commutations during his four years in office and that he did not grant every application that was put in front of him. Bevin pardoned and/or commuted the sentences of 661 people in 2019, according to the Secretary of State’s office. He did not give an exact number for how many requests of pardons and commutations he reviewed.
Bevin said he reviewed every application on his own and wrote every word of justification for each pardon granted and each sentence commuted.
Bevin concluded by saying that no community is more or less safe now than it was before the pardons.
“We are blessed to be Americans, living in a land that offers the possibility of a second chance for those who have ruined their first one,” he wrote.
And here is another example of one of those people deserving a “second chance.” :
Tom Handy, a former commonwealth’s attorney in Laurel and Knox County, said he had never been angrier in his life than when he found out Bevin had pardoned a man who was convicted of beheading a woman and putting her in a 55-gallon barrel. On Thursday, he said he didn’t think Bevin had read the full case.
“His arrogance to think that his God-like ability to understand things from afar... that arrogance is appalling,” Handy said.
Emboldened is mine.
And the hits just keep on coming for Bevin. I just saw that Bevin’s pardons scandal has made the national news! CBS Evening News spent some of their “If it bleeds, it leads” time on Matt Bevin:
Convicted killers pardoned by outgoing Kentucky governor
He really is Kentucky’s Trump.
Saturday, Dec 14, 2019 · 5:03:52 PM +00:00 · Merlin1963
Joe Gerth of the Louisville Courier-Journal has more on the list of pardoned inmates. TRIGGER WARNING.
But many of Bevin’s other pardons hint at corruption or just bad judgment. The fact that he and his staff won’t explain to the people of Kentucky, beyond the few words in the orders granting release and a tweet storm early Friday evening, what he was thinking is troubling.
Look at this list:
- Patrick Brian Baker, who shot and killed a man in a home invasion five years ago. Bevin freed him after Baker’s family hosted a political fundraiser for Bevin in 2018, raising $21,500 for him that went directly to Bevin to repay himself money he loaned his 2015 election campaign.
- Dayton Jones, who was convicted of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy at a party with a foreign object, causing internal injuries and then posting a video of it on the internet, according to the Kentucky New Era in Hopkinsville.
- Micah Schoettle, who was convicted last year of raping a 9-year-old child in Kenton County and sentenced just last year to 23 years in prison. Not only is he free from prison, but he won’t have to register as a sex offender, a status designed to help law enforcement and neighbors — and possible victims — track his movements.
- Delmar Partin, who in 1994 in Knox County, killed his former lover then chopped off her head and placed her body in a 55-gallon drum destined for a toxic waste site.
- Kathy Harless, who was sentenced to life in prison after she gave birth in a Grayson County flea market outhouse and threw the baby in a cesspool. Bevin wrote that she had "paid enough for the death of her newborn son.”
- Blake Walker, who was convicted in 2003 in Adair County of killing his parents and leaving their bodies in a basement. He was 16 at the time.
- Irvin Edge, who hired a hit man to kill his business partner in Daviess County.
- Kurt Robert Smith, who was convicted in 2002 in Fayette County of the murder of his 6-week-old baby. The child’s brain was so swollen that the seams between the bones in his skull were pushed half an inch apart, a state medical examiner testified.
- Daniel Scott Grubb, who threw a cinder block at a friend in Knox County, killing him, then enlisted a friend to bury the body.
- Michael Hardy, who was convicted in Warren County of the 2014 wanton murder of Jeremy Pryor.
- Christian Moffett, the drug-dealing, gun-toting, burglarizing son of former state Rep. Phil Moffett, who has numerous convictions over the past three years – some of them this past April. Phil Moffett contributed $1,000 to Bevin in 2015 and 2019.
According to Gerth, none of the prosecutors or the victim’s family members were notified before the pardons were issued. Also, each and everyone of these men and women can now go out and buy a gun in Kentucky. And the sex offenders do not have to go on a list.