New York Times columnist Jeffrey Toobin is highly upset that President Donald Trump commuted former Rep. George Santos’ prison sentence.
In fact, Toobin was so upset, he wrote an entire op-ed titled “The Santos Commutation Is No Joke” in which he whines incessantly about the commutation. But, as is always the case with people like this, he doesn’t mean a word he says.
For those who haven’t heard, President Trump earlier this week freed Santos, who was serving an 87-month prison sentence after he was convicted of wire fraud and identity theft.
“Over his two terms, Mr. Trump has pardoned or commuted the sentences of a raft of former Republican members of the House,” Toobin complained.
Among those receiving such grants were Duke Cunningham, of California, who was convicted of taking over $2 million in bribes, among other crimes; Duncan Hunter, also of California, who pocketed thousands of dollars of campaign contributions and spent it on extramarital affairs; Rick Renzi, of Arizona, who was convicted of racketeering and extortion; Robin Hayes, of North Carolina, who lied to investigators in a bribery investigation; Chris Collins, of New York, who pleaded guilty to insider trading and false statements; Michael Grimm, also of New York, who pleaded guilty to tax evasion and also admitted in court that he committed perjury and hired undocumented immigrants; John Rowland, of Connecticut, a former governor as well as congressman, who pleaded guilty to election fraud after going to prison years earlier in a separate scandal; and Steve Stockman, of Texas, who was released after serving only two years of a 10-year sentence for stealing upward of $1 million.
Toobin further argued that Santos did not deserve a commutation and “remains best known for the colorful falsehoods that he told about his personal and professional lives, from his nonexistent volleyball championships to his never-happened career at Goldman Sachs.”
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He further explained that Santos was convicted for “using the credit card numbers of campaign contributors and others to purchase luxury goods for himself.”
Trump’s commutation also meant that the former lawmaker doesn’t have to pay the court-ordered $370,000 restitution to his victims.
The author contended that Trump could have portrayed his pardons and commutations “as fresh starts for men who had acknowledged their wrongdoing and wanted to start new chapters.” However, “some of the pardoned and commuted Republicans still refer to themselves as ‘political prisoners’ and victims of ‘witch hunts.’”
Toobin concludes that “pardons and commutations offer X-rays into the souls of presidents. More than any other presidential actions, clemencies tell us who they are.”
This has been especially true of Mr. Trump. Of course, his most notorious pardons remain those for the 1,500-plus rioters and other criminals at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, who tried, by violent means, to overturn Mr. Trump’s loss to Joe Biden in the election of 2020. But the clemencies for George Santos and the other Republican politicians are part of the same piece.
Mr. Trump’s worldview is characterized by amoral deal-making, where friends are rewarded and enemies punished, regardless of the merits of their underlying conduct. In the end, the clemency for Mr. Santos wasn’t even really about the former congressman but rather about the president who granted it. Mercy, which was and remains the proper justification for the pardon power, had nothing to do with it.
As I always say, the best way to tell whether someone truly believes what they say is to see how they apply their principles when the proverbial shoe is on the other foot. Toobin, as with most leftist members of the chattering class, failed this test.
Miserably.
Shortly before leaving office, former President Joe Biden commuted the sentence of former Pennsylvania judge Michael Conahan, who was convicted in 2011 for his participation in a “kids-for-cash” scandal. He and another judge accepted bribes to the tune of $2.8 million in kickbacks in exchange for sending over 2,300 children — some as young as eight years old — to for-profit detention centers.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court later overturned about 4,000 juvenile convictions because of the scheme. In fact, one mother, whose son committed suicide after being incarcerated through the scheme, slammed Biden’s decision, calling it “an injustice.” Even Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro criticized the move, saying Biden “got it absolutely wrong.”
The former president also released a slew of violent criminals. Russel McIntosh was freed after he was convicted of federal drug offenses. However, he had a history of violent crimes, including the fatal shooting of a woman and her two-year-old daughter. He pleaded guilty to state charges for the murder.
There was also Adrian Peeler, who was serving time for his part in a 1999 conspiracy to murder Karen Clarke and her eight-year-old son in Bridgeport, Connecticut. The victims were on a witness list. They were killed about a month before they were set to testify in a separate murder trial involving Peeler’s brother.Yet, Biden still offered him clemency.
Toobin never complained about any of these commutations or the others Biden, or his autopen, signed.
This isn’t to say that Santos deserved to be freed. What he did to his donors was odious — and I think he should still be in prison. The conditions he was living in were definitely not just, but perhaps Trump could have made sure he was not being mistreated.
Still, Toobin clearly has no problem with presidents freeing unsavory people from prison — he just thinks it’s wrong if a Republican president does it, which is why there is absolutely no reason to take him or his ilk seriously.
