Federal Court Judge "It's Not Surprising a Criminal Like Trump Pardons Other Criminals"

Them's fightin' words from Iowa District Court judge, Robert Pratt.

Pratt said, “Apparently to get a pardon, one has to be either a Republican, a convicted child murderer or a turkey.”

Pratt was referring to Trump’s Republican allies in the government, security contractors convicted of killing civilians in Iraq, and the turkey that is pardoned each Thanksgiving.

The AP reports that Pratt’s statement came when he was asked by the news outlet for a comment on the recent pardoning of former aides for ex-Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) who were convicted on corruption charges related to the Iowa caucuses.

Jesse Benton and John Tate both worked on Paul’s 2012 presidential campaign, reports the AP, and were convicted of hiding $73,000 worth of payments to former Iowa state Sen. Kent Sorenson (R) in exchange for his endorsement of Paul. Both men were sentenced to six months of home confinement and probation before Trump pardoned then.

Pratt oversaw Sorenson’s case in 2017 and sentenced him to 15 months in prison despite prosecutors recommending a more lenient sentence in light of Sorenson’s guilty plea and cooperation, notes the AP.

Sorenson’s testimony ultimately helped to convict Benton and Tate, as well as Dimitri Kesari, former deputy campaign manager for Paul. 

Comments

  1. Owen GrayDecember 30, 2020 at 9:27 AM

    Justice is supposed to be blind -- not stupid.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Disaffected LibDecember 30, 2020 at 2:14 PM

      My guess, Owen, is that judge Pratt is at or very near mandatory retirement. Otherwise it would be surprising that he spoke so freely.

      Delete
  2. Caillo Lisa June 26, 2021 at 10:55 AM

    This is another testimony on how Chief Dr Lucky cured my HIV disease. Do you need a cure for your HIV disease? Do you want to be cured from your cancer disease? Or you want to be free from any type of disease. Kindly visit his website https://chiefdrluckyherbaltherapy.wordpress.com/ . He just cured my HIV disease and I’m very grateful to him, he is the only herbalist that can cure you.
    WhatsApp number : +2348132777335
    Via Email : chiefdrlucky@gmail.com
    Thank you all for reading,
    God bless"

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Up in Smoke. 300 Sq. Mi. of Amazon Rainforest Lost Every Day.

Image
  The Amazon rainforest is disappearing at what should be an alarming rate. 312 sq. mi. or 808 sq. kms. every day. Over the past 30 years humans have destroyed a patch of the Amazon equal in area to the states of Texas and New Mexico . The Amazon – historically a great carbon absorber, since trees take in carbon dioxide and release oxygen – now releases more carbon than it stores, which adds to, rather helps to reduce, our global climate crisis. Deforestation rates decreased slightly from 2004 to 2012. But since then, they’re back on the rise, especially in the past couple of years, since Jair Bolsonaro became president of Brazil. In 2018, as Bolsonaro campaigned as a patriotic man of the people, scientists predicted that once the Amazon lost more than 25% of its tree cover, it would become a drier ecosystem, all because deforestation changes weather patterns (due to how trees respire), which in turn reduces rainfall. Furthermore, as the forest becomes fragmented, areas surrounded...
Read more

The Cognoscenti Syndrome

  There is a group of people I think of as the Cognoscenti, people who are well educated, very informed and of rapidly diminishing relevance. Their ranks include writers such as Chris Hedges and Glen Greenwald. These are people who have honed an almost Puritanical value system, readily finding fault in any direction. They are scathing in their attacks on Republicans and Democrats alike to the point where they become nihilists. They don't endorse. They prescribe. This is where they fail. They're unable to advocate for anything that might resonate with the public whose interests they argue are being trammeled. Donald Trump was bad but Joe Biden is scarcely better. This is where their elitism comes in.  74 million may have voted for Trump but, hey, they didn't know any better. The mob that stormed the Capitol. They were just victims of the system venting their frustrations. All the racism, bigotry, xenophobia, misogyny, white nationalism - inevitable side effects of their oppr...
Read more

Who Asks "Why?"

Every time there's a conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians, all we hear is 'why?'  Why, as in, whose fault is this? It's easier to affix blame if you can truncate the event. Pick a convenient start date, something recent. In this case we'll make it either the Israeli eviction of Arabs from Jerusalem or the scuffle that took place outside the mosque in response. If those don't work, let's go for Hamas launching unguided rockets into Israel. That's even better because it tags Hamas with the blame. The nice thing about this approach is you can just keep using it. It goes on and on, just as it has for the past half-century since the '67 war. You can even date this whole mess to the beginning of the occupation of the Palestinian territories. The Israelis are said to have called these periodic wars, "mowing the lawn." The idea is that, every now and then, you have to take these Arabs to the woodshed. And then you keep your powder dry unt...
Read more