Posted on 07/21/2007 7:28:09 AM PDT by kellynla
Questioned by an audience member at a forum, President Bush said he could not promise to pardon former U.S. Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean.
"I'm not going to make that kind of promise in a forum like this," Bush said at the Nashville event yesterday, which focused on his budget.
Bush referred to the U.S. attorney responsible for the case, Johnny Sutton, as "a dear friend of mine" and called him a "fair guy" and "even-handed," according to a White House transcript.
The president elicited laughter when he told the questioner, "You've got a nice smile, but you can't entice me into making a public statement."
"I know this is an emotional issue, but people need to look at the facts," Bush 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."
(Story continues below)
Ramos and Compean are serving 11- and 12-year prison sentences, respectively, after a jury convicted them last year of violating federal gun laws and covering up the shooting of a drug smuggler as he fled back to Mexico after driving across the border with 742 pounds of marijuana. Sutton's office gave the smuggler, Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila, immunity to serve as the government's star witness and testify against the border agents.
As WND reported, after a Senate hearing Tuesday, Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and John Cornyn, R-Texas, asked Bush to commute the sentences, saying "it became very clear the sentences did not match the crime."
Feinstein concluded the hearing with a vow to look further into why prosecutors charged the men under section 924(c) of the U.S. code, which requires a 10-year sentence for using or carrying a firearm in the commission of a crime of violence.
Feinstein, during questioning of Sutton, argued the statute did not apply to Ramos and Compean in their pursuit of a drug smuggler at the Mexican border, because there was no underlying crime.
The senators called use of the statute in the case "prosecutorial overreach."
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif. – who will chair a similar hearing in the House July 31 – told WND he believed the Senate session helped revive flagging interest in the case as Ramos and Compean passed 180 days of imprisonment while awaiting their appeals.
He would prefer a pardon, but said he was pleased Feinstein was taking action and found it ironic a "liberal Democrat" would do more than some "squishy Republican senators."
"I was gratified and just overwhelmed with admiration for Sen. Feinstein, that she definitely is taking this issue seriously and decided she is going to step up and fight for these little guys that are being squashed," Rohrabacher told WND.
Many supporters of Ramos and Compean have argued that if the president could pardon or commute the sentence of former White House aide "Scooter" Libby, he should show mercy to border agents who were prosecuted while a drug smuggler went free. The president commuted Libby's 30-month prison sentence earlier this month.
Rohrabacher told WND Sutton has refused to testify at the July 31 hearing of the Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
The congressman will examine alleged involvement of the Mexican government in the decision to prosecute the agents and others, including Texas Deputy Sheriff Gilmer Hernandez. Sutton's Western District of Texas office also prosecuted Hernandez, who was convicted of violating the civil rights of two illegal aliens injured from shell fragments that struck them as the officer shot at the tires of a van in which they escaped from a routine traffic stop. The van driver had tried to run over Hernandez.
In his prepared testimony Tuesday, Sutton acknowledged the case had been "the subject of widespread media attention and heated debate."
He insisted that since the convictions, "it has been clear that some individuals do not understand the facts of the case, while others are merely concerned with using it to make a point about some other issue, such as illegal immigration."
Sutton said he wanted to use the hearing to "set the record straight by discussing the ample facts already in the public record, but I will be limited to discussing only information in the public record."
After recounting the prosecution's view of the case, he concluded: "The prosecution of Compean and Ramos was about our commitment to the rule of law and about two former law enforcement officers who committed serious crimes. An honest reading of the facts of this case shows that Compean and Ramos deliberately shot at an unarmed man in the back without justification, destroyed evidence to cover it up, and lied about it. A jury heard the facts and voted to convict. Faithfulness to the rule of law required me to bring this case."
As to the question at hand. I am not influenced by the talk show hosts you demean. [Who, BTW, played a critical role in defeating that very poorly constructed piece of legislation about immigration.] I am influenced by having read the Ramos-Compean trial transcript, which was kept from the public for an extraordinary period.
Requesting that Pres. Bush intervene and pardon a perceived miscarriage of justice is neither conservative nor liberal. I have seen people on both ends of the political spectrum be opposed to the way this trial was conducted. That Article II, section 2 of the Constitution states the President has the power to issue pardons, simply means citizens are partitioning and exercising their constitutional rights to ask the President to exercise his.
I totally disagree with your characterization of the US Border Agents. But, that is your opinion. However, your inability to see the inappropriateness of their sentence concerns me. To alter an old saying, “Justice abused is justice denied!”
What I find compelling is the transition in Cornyn’s position—toward full support of Compean and Ramos. Shortly before the hearings, he was singing some of the same Sutton/White House mantra, saying only that he thought the sentences seemed excessive.
He has since seen the misrepresentations made by the prosecution, the withholding of information from the jury, etc. Once he did his homework, he saw the light.
No pardon for these two, but 12-20 million pardons for people here illegally.
I think Jorge has lost it.
“Yes, sure. My friend, Harriet Miers. My friend, Alberto Gonzalez. My friend, Johnny Sutton”
My friend, Gonzales.....My friend, Chertoff.....
ad nauseum!!
Thanks for the info, Kelly!
B U M P
“Screw Bush and Sutton!”
Right now, it is the other way around : )
His first talking point was “an unarmed person...was shot in the back.” Well, it turns out the only person who knew the first “fact” for certain was Davila, and he had no incentive whatever to admit it. The second “fact” was, in fact, proven wrong by the medical examiner who said the bullet entered Davila’s left buttock from the SIDE! So after distorting the “facts” in such a way to a jury who counted on the prosecutors not distorting the truth, Sutton claims the jury’s verdict vindicates him. But, then he always seems to over look the members of the jury who admitted they would NOT have voted “guilty” had they had the information that Sutton suppressed.
This case is uncomfortably like the one here in North Carolina where the DA just was fired and disbarred for suppressing evidence that would have proven the Duke students innocent. I can only hope a similar fate awaits Mr. Sutton, but I will not hold my breath.
Me too!
You’re welcome.
working with new pc & Vista
the reference link did not come up in the post for whatever reason.
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PhyllisSchlafly/2007/02/17/lets_prosecute_drug_smugglers,_not_border_patrol_agents&Comments=true
Like all good Marines, I am off to “hit the beach!”LOL
Have a good one!
Does anyone know the website for donating to help these agents’ families? I hear they are stretched to the limit for keeping their families intact.
I just donated and I think it was through Grassfire. Let me see if I can find a link. I trust that org and believe the money will get to the agents.
OK, there are links in the center of this page to donate. They also recently sent us the agents’ addresses, but those are on my other computer. Maybe they are listed on this site too.
GWB is afraid of offending muslims and leftists. After all, he needed the democrap’s help in trying to ram Shamnesty down our throats.
“He has no intentions of pardoning them...”
As he has no intentions of dealing with Iran, either. Those miserable, subhuman bastards will continue to kill our troops, while we sit around with our thumbs up our backsides.
Have a great weekend, kelly!
Not stupid; arrogant and stubborn. Just as he is on illegal immigration. He actually thinks his experience with Mexico and a Mexican nanny in Texas translates to justice and reality today. He is wrong and a dunderhead here. But, those two character traits also make him right on the WOT. Why he cannot see the two questions are linked is beyond me but it is not stupidity , it is self righteousness.
Sutton came off as a “hack” for Bush and the Mexican consulate !!
Totally!
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