Andy McCarthy: How Stone's commutation compares to 'infamous' presidential pardons
Andy McCarthy weighs in on President Trump commuting Roger Stone's sentence and how it compares to other presidential pardons
Fox News contributor Andy McCarthy said on Monday that Democrats and the media’s reaction to Roger Stone’s commutation was “remarkable” considering past presidents' controversial use of the power.
“[President Obama] granted more pardons than any president in history,” the former federal prosecutor told “The Brian Kilmeade Show.”
McCarthy said President Bill Clinton pardoned his own brother and witnesses from investigations that involved Clinton.
“He pardoned Marc Rich, infamously with the help of (Attorney General) Eric Holder. That was just a straight-up political payoff. He pardoned a CIA director, his HUD secretary, and eight people who were under investigation in his Agriculture Department. And that was just sort of getting warmed up, that doesn’t count the terrorist pardons and the other politically motivated pardons,” McCarthy said.
TRUMP COMMUTES ROGER STONE'S SENTENCE, DAYS BEFORE PRISON TERM SET TO BEGIN
In a lengthy statement released late Friday, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said the president had made the decision to commute Stone's sentence "in light of the egregious facts and circumstances surrounding his unfair prosecution, arrest and trial."
“Roger Stone is a victim of the Russia hoax that the Left and its allies in the media perpetuated for years in an attempt to undermine the Trump presidency,” McEnany said in a statement Friday night.
“There was never any collusion between the Trump campaign, or the Trump administration, with Russia. Such collusion was never anything other than a fantasy of partisans unable to accept the result of the 2016 election. The collusion delusion spawned endless and farcical investigations, conducted at great taxpayer expense, looking for evidence that did not exist.”
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McCarthy said Obama set a record for presidential pardons.
“He pardoned Chelsea Manning, who transmitted classified information to Wikileaks. Giving sensitive information to Wikileaks apparently became a problem when Trump became president,” McCarthy said.
“But, the thing people don't focus on is just like Obama tried to get the federal immigration law changed and then on his own he basically issued or decreed DACA after many times saying he didn't have the authority to change the law on his own. He also wanted Congress to change the federal narcotics laws and when they didn't change it to his satisfaction, what they did was use the pardon power to slash the sentences of people who had been convicted of narcotics violations.”
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