Posted on 07/19/2007 6:39:50 PM PDT by Rodney King
No Pardon Promise for Ex-Border Patrol Agents By Fred Lucas CNSNews.com Staff Writer July 19, 2007
(1st Add: Adds background.)
(CNSNews.com) - President George W. Bush Thursday praised the federal prosecutor who was grilled two days earlier by a Senate panel for his role in the conviction of two U.S. Border Patrol agents for the shooting a drug dealer.
Taking questions from members of the Nashville, Tenn., Chamber of Commerce after a speech, Bush declined to promise to pardon the two agents, as a growing number of lawmakers are urging.
"I'm not going to make that kind of promise in a forum like this," Bush said. "Obviously I am interested in facts. I know the prosecutor very well, Johnny Sutton. He's a dear friend of mine from Texas. He's a fair guy. He is an even-handed guy."
Sutton has a long association with the president. Between 1995 and 2000, he served as then Texas Gov. George W. Bush's criminal justice policy director.
Before he was appointed to the post of U.S. attorney, Sutton served as a policy coordinator in the Bush-Cheney transition team when the president was first elected.
Bush spoke for the first time in months regarding the controversial case of Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, sentenced to 11 and 12 years respectively in federal prison for shooting a fleeing drug smuggler in the buttocks in February 2005 and then trying to cover up the shooting. Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila, a Mexican national, was attempting to smuggle 743 pounds of marijuana into the country.
On Wednesday, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) sent Bush a letter asking him to commute the sentence. A bill in the House, with more than 100 co-sponsors, is calling for a congressional pardon.
Bush gave no sign Thursday that he was feeling the heat over the episode.
"I know this is an emotional issue, but people need to look at the facts," he said. "These men were convicted by a jury of their peers after listening to the facts as my friend, Johnny Sutton, presented them. But anyway, no, I won't make you that promise."
Sutton, who has borne the brunt of public anger over the Ramos-Compean case, offered Aldrete-Davila immunity from prosecution for trying to smuggle the drugs into the U.S., in return for the Mexican's testimony against the two border agents.
In an interview with Cybercast News Service early this year, Sutton attributed public sentiment to distorted media coverage of the affair.
He faced fire from members of the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday during a hearing examining the case.
Senators criticized him specifically for bringing a firearms charge that has a mandatory 10-year-minimum sentence, while also asking why Aldrete-Davila had been given immunity. Sutton was also asked why the jury in the agents' trial was not told about an alleged subsequent drug-smuggling offense by Aldrete-Davila.
Sutton has held firm that the prosecution was about upholding the rule of law. He stressed that Aldrete-Davila was unarmed and that the two agents had attempted to cover up the shooting.
In their letter to the president, Feinstein and Cornyn - both Judiciary Committee members - said the hearing had "confirmed the concerns raised by many members of the public: that this penalty levied on these agents is excessive and that they deserve the immediate exercise of your executive clemency powers."
"Ramos and Compean have now been in prison for more than six months," the letter continued. "Agent Ramos has been physically assaulted while serving his term and the agents' request to remain out of prison while their appeal was pending was denied by the Fifth Circuit. Both agents will remain incarcerated for many more months, even if their conviction is ultimately thrown out - unless action is taken quickly."
The woman who asked the president about the agents at the Nashville gathering said, "The Tennessee General Assembly passed a resolution, with 91 votes in the House and 30 in the Senate, asking our Tennessee delegation … to go to you asking for a pardon for these two men that were tried, where information was … kept back from their trial.
"And there's also a resolution in the House, H.R. 40, with a number of our Tennessee delegation signed on to that," the woman added. "Will you pardon these men that are unjustly imprisoned?"
Bush replied, "You've got a nice smile, but you can't entice me into making a public statement."
What if I type it?
Bush is a pile of excrement....
In all seriousness, Bush has completely jumped off the deep end in regard to immigration and border enforcement (not to mention law enforcement).
Bush commutes his friend’s sentence (which I agree was the right thing to do, as Scooter was ramrodded on false charges), but will not give these border agents a pardon for DOING THEIR JOB.
Maybe they should have had Cheny shoot them in the face.
Maybe they should have had Cheny shoot them in the face.
Good grief. It's not like she asked "boxers or briefs"--
And Vicente Fox et.al. - they are the ones really wagging the Dog.
I agree. What a complete fool I was to believe in this guy. Now I’m just waiting for 2009. It can’t get here quick enough for me.
His disconnect from the American people is disturbing.
I actually don’t think that Brownie was all that bad. It wasn’t his job to rescue NO from their own idiocy and corruption, the media made that his job after the fact.
My name is Mark and I have ADS - Arbusto Derangement Syndrome
Tolerate? Bush actively promoted Sutton. Bush' message to Border Patrol: Don't mess with my amigos!(wetbacks)"
My feelings exactly.
Bush knows this is not right. He is acting like a dictator on this issue and the illegals issue. Why is he making us all suffer?
Sorry, I expect no amnesty for these Border Patrol agents from Bush. Amnesty is for foreigners only - remember, “See you at the bill signing!”
Truth hurts?
7.) Our eternal friends, the Saudis.
And so it grows:
1. Harriet Miers
2. Alberto Gonzales
3. Michael Brown
4. Johnny Sutton
5. George Tenet
6. Condi Rice
7. Saudi Arabia
8. Michael Chertoff
It runs in the family. Don’t forget his dad making buddy-buddy with the man who raped Juanita Broaddrick.
It pays to be the friend of the President. It is too bad these two border patrol agents are not among his list of friends.
I nominate this as post of the year.
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