Trish Regan: You may not like Trump’s pardons, but don’t insult our constitution
Past presidents have pardoned controversial people before without being called ‘dictators’
FOX Business’ Trish Regan shares her thoughts on President Trump, the liberal media and presidential pardons.
Democrats are accusing the president of being a dictator for following the U.S. Constitution. They’re angry that he pardoned former Governor Rod Blagojevich, "Junk Bond King" Michael Milken, and former San Francisco 49ers owner Edward J. DeBartolo Jr.
But, let’s be clear: Presidents have the authority to do this, courtesy of the U.S. Constitution. You may not like it, you may not like him, you may not like who he pardons, but, to hurl irresponsible insults at him, our Constitution, and our country? This is the height of insanity.
You have the chief legal analyst at CNN saying this is how authoritarians behave.
Note to the lefty mediaites: Article II. Section 2. Clause 1 of the U.S. Constitution reads, “He shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States.”
Translation? If someone has committed a federal crime, the president can pardon that person or reprieve that person’s sentence. The fact that these so-called television lawyers are so dishonest and such political hacks that they’d try to ignore that? What else can you expect from CNN?
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Meanwhile, it’s not like this hasn’t happened before (and I’d argue with far more controversial people).
Former President Bill Clinton walks onstage to delivers remarks during a summit on the country's opioid epidemic at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Monday, Oct. 30, 2017. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
Consider former President Bill Clinton’s notorious pardoning of Marc Rich, the controversial fugitive billionaire financier. He was on the FBI’s most-wanted list for illegally trading with Iran during the Iran hostage crisis when 52 U.S. embassy personal were being held hostage in Iran for 444 days.
The guy didn’t care. He didn’t care that there were U.S. hostages in Iran. He was just looking to make a buck. And given many of the Democrats' sympathy for Iran, who knows what his politics were on that one.
Rich was sentenced to 300 years in prison in 1983 for fraud, racketeering and tax evasion, but, he never served his time because of the stand-up guy that he was, he fled the U.S. for Switzerland.
Rich’s ex-wife, gave $200,000 in political donations to the Democrat party in 2000, $450,000 to Clinton’s Presidential Library and reportedly more than $100,000 to Hillary Clinton’s senate campaign.
And just like that, one year later, in 2001 – presto! Clinton pardons Marc Rich.
He later renounced his U.S. citizenship.
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Former U.S. President Barack Obama delivers a speech at the 16th Annual Nelson Mandela Lecture in Johannesburg, South Africa, Tuesday, July 17, 2018. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)
Former President Jimmy Carter, who was president during the Iran hostage crisis was pretty critical saying: "I don’t think there is any doubt that some of the factors in his pardon were attributable to his large gifts. In my opinion, that was disgraceful."
It was disgraceful. But, President Clinton had the power to do it according to Article 2, Section 2, Clause 1 of the U.S. Constitution.
How about Obama pardoning former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning? She was out there leaking national security secrets and Obama let her off the hook. Did we see Republicans say he was a dictator?
Manning was just one of the hundreds of Obama’s pardons and 1,700 plus commutations.
Some you may never even have heard about. There was the time that Obama pardoned a Chicago terrorist responsible for more than 120 bombings.
This man, Oscar Lopez Rivera, was head of a Chicago-based cell called “The Armed Forces of National Liberation,” a violent group pushing for the independence of Puerto Rico. Between 1974 and 1983, Rivera’s terror cell initiated a wave of destruction resulting in the deaths of six individuals while wounding dozens.
But, Obama let him off.
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I highlight this – not because it was right – I don’t like it one bit, but, because it’s allowed under our Constitution.
And I circle back to the president’s most recent pardons that the Democrats are so hysterical over.
It is his right as president. And unless you’re going to tear up the constitution – and I realize many of these lefties want to do exactly that – unless you’re going to tear it up, recognize what it says.
And, can the left stop with the theatrics? Russia, Kavanaugh, Ukraine, now this? You know what happened to "The Boy Who Cried Wolf," don’t you?
The Democrats, who are acting like a bunch of babies right now, would be well advised to re-read that little children’s story.