WV Democrats say Biden's 'egregious' pardon choices are 'what we would expect from Trump'

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Biden commutes nearly 1,500 sentences, pardons 39

Fox News' Brooke Singman provides details on President Biden's record-setting act of clemency.

West Virginia Democrats torched President Biden’s choices of last-minute executive clemency recipients, saying they would expect such actions from their rival, President-elect Trump.

In a statement released late Monday, local party leaders said they applauded Biden for leading the U.S. "through significant economic challenges" but blasted commutations being given to people convicted of public corruption.

"Public corruption is a betrayal of trust. When officials abuse the power of their office for personal gain, they not only harm the communities they are supposed to serve, but they also erode faith in our government institutions," wrote Chairman Mike Pushkin, a state lawmaker from Kanawha County.

"Even more troubling, these kinds of pardons are exactly what we would expect from President-elect Donald Trump, not President Biden."

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A welcome sign greets travelers leaving the East River Mountain tunnel on Interstate 77 near Princeton, West Virginia. (Fox News/Charles Creitz)

In a statement for the state party, Pushkin criticized Trump’s first-term pardons of former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, Gen. Michael Flynn, political strategist Stephen K. Bannon and ex-Rep. Rick Renzi, R-Ariz.

"By following this same path, President Biden has legitimized the idea that public officials who violate their oaths of office are above the law," Pushkin said.

"Worse still, it will embolden Trump to issue even more pardons for political corruption if he returns to the White House."

Pushkin and other Democrats were particularly critical of Biden’s decision to pardon disgraced Pennsylvania Judge Michael Conahan, the key figure in the "kids-for-cash" scandal.

Conahan was convicted of receiving kickbacks for sentencing young people to for-profit prisons.

Delegate Hollis Lewis, D-Charleston, told Fox News Digital that he, too, took issue with Biden’s decision to give Conahan clemency.

"The one that got me upset was the judge who was involved in the cash-for-kids case," he said.

"Any time that you have individuals who prey on our most vulnerable population, which are children and the elderly, that's very problematic."

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Former Luzerne County Court Judges Michael Conahan, left, and Mark Ciavarella, right, leave the U.S. District Courthouse in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on Sept. 15, 2009. (AP Photo)

Lewis said presidents of both parties have made questionable clemency choices, adding that a pardon is an important tool that has its place.

"I don't think anybody needs to walk around with a scarlet letter of a felony for the whole lot, depending on the particular crime that they committed; if that pardon is going to allow them to move on with their lives," he said.

"But specifically when it's crimes involving the elderly… and children or crimes with patterns of violence where the evidence is clear and there's no reasonable doubt, then maybe we ought to think twice before we exonerate those individuals."

In its statement, the West Virginia Democratic Party also criticized Biden’s clemency for ex-Dixon, Illinois Comptroller Rita Crundwell, who was punished for embezzling $54 million in the largest municipal fraud case in the country.

The third case mentioned involved Jimmy Dimora, a former county commissioner in Cleveland involved in a pay-to-play scheme.

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Fox News Digital reached out to West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, who is now an independent, but still caucuses with Democrats.

West Virginia previously found itself in the news during presidential pardon season, when former President Clinton issued his widely-rebuked pardon of then-fugitive financier Marc Rich.

Rich had been accused of tax evasion and circumventing sanctions on Iran and apartheid South Africa.

However, Rich also had a stake in an aluminum manufacturer on the Ohio River when it was accused of locking out 1,500 workers and hiring scabs amid allegations such a move was illegal because the plant allegedly conducted a lockout.

Members of the West Virginia union reportedly picketed in Switzerland in front of Rich’s office. 

Clinton’s pardons of Rich and business partner Pincus Green earned him a federal investigation initially led by New York prosecutor Mary Jo White. 

When White’s tenure ended in 2002, she was replaced by a young federal prosecutor whose name would resurface in another Clinton controversy many years later: James Comey.