SUMMARY: On Tuesday, President Trump pardoned or commuted the sentences of 11 people he said had served enough time or been treated unfairly. The moves come as the President has sharply criticized the Department of Justice for its handling of the case of longtime Trump advisor Roger Stone. William Brangham talks to two former judges, Harvard Law School’s Nancy Gertner and University of Utah’s Paul Cassell.
SUMMARY: Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Judy Woodruff to discuss the week’s news, including the Trump administration’s move to impose tariffs on U.S. allies, the President’s move to pardon conservative pundit Dinesh D'Souza, reactions to Roseanne Barr’s racist tweet and Samantha Bee’s vulgar insult, plus veterans are running for Congress in record numbers.
Judy Woodruff (NewsHour): And that bring us to the analysis of Shields and Brooks. That’s syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks.
Welcome to both of you.
So, Mark, do we believe that being a veteran this year is going to help these candidates?
Mark Shields, syndicated columnist: I think it will, Judy. And I will tell you why, why I think that.
And I thought Lisa’s piece captured it, but particularly with Mr. Avery there.
We now are in an era, irrespective of how you feel about parties, of the era of self politically, the era of me. And it’s — I was thinking how out of sync this era is with John McCain. John McCain’s message in 2000, 2008 was to serve a cause greater than yourself and my cause and my country, which I have served imperfectly.
Well, I think voters crave people who do have a sense of service, whether military service, certainly, but the Peace Corps, AmeriCorps, that they have had a cause greater than themselves.
And I think we’re yearning for that in the country and I — it’s missing in our national leadership. It’s missing in the White House. And I think it’s prized by voters. I truly do.
Judy Woodruff: How do you see this?
David Brooks, New York Times: Yes.
Well, it’s always the case that voters want to know how a person’s character is formed before politics. And so strong candidates have military, maybe a business background, a faith background, something that will say, this is who made me who I am. It’s not just being a politician.
So, that’s perennial. I think this year in particular the veterans are surging, in part — I have met a bunch of them through a group called With Honor. And what strikes me is, when you meet them, is they bring that can-do attitude that they all learned in Iraq and Afghanistan or elsewhere, and they bring that to office.
I would say party identification is a smaller part of their personal identity than other people. They are running as Republicans and Democrats, but that’s not quite the same team they grew up in, which is not the case for a lot of people who have spent their lives working as staffers, and then moving up ranks.
And so they want to come to Congress and be less partisan. Whether that can actually happen is another question. Once you get here, you know, the fund-raising takes a ton of time. The party — the team spirit takes a lot out of you.
So we will see if they can actually do it. But it’s — they’re certainly all amazingly impressive people that you meet through this.
The final I will say is, so far, their win/loss record is not perfect. A bunch of them are losing too, which is what you would expect. So it’s not a lock-in, as we heard from Lisa’s piece.
Mark Shields: I will say the Democratic nominee in that race that Lisa just reported on in the 11th will almost surely be Mikie Sherrill, the former helicopter pilot.
And Amy McGrath, of course, did win Kentucky last week, a colonel, Marine Corps jet fighter pilot. And I think do think, Judy, that the reason that veterans are sort of prized is that at a time of universal draft, when four out of five senators that served, now we’re down to 7 percent of Americans who have ever worn the uniform, and just very few in the Congress.
Judy Woodruff: Well, we’re going to continue to watch and see how they do as the year goes on.
SUMMARY: President Donald Trump's pardon of former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who aggressively pursued undocumented immigrants, exacerbated an increasingly tenuous relationship with national Republicans. NewsHour Weekend Special Correspondent Jeff Greenfield joins Hari Sreenivasan from Santa Barbara, California, on what the latest rift means for the party and country.
SUMMARY: President Trump's Friday night pardon of former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio -- convicted of defying a court order to stop targeting undocumented immigrants -- drew swift criticism, even from fellow Republicans. What makes the controversial pardon so noteworthy? John Yang is joined by Brian Kalt of Michigan State University to discuss its significance.
President Obama commuted the sentences of 22 people on Tuesday, doubling the number of commutations he has granted during his administration in just one day. The decision follows a push from the Justice Department last year to grant clemency to nonviolent prisoners, many of whom had been sent to prison under the harsh sentencing laws and aggressive anti-crime policies that were originally implemented during the 1980s and 1990s.
Mark Osler, a professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law and the founder of the nation’s first law school clinic on federal commutations, said that the President’s action is not only historic, but also represents a commitment. “This is intended to be a message of hope,” Osler told ProPublica. “There are thousands of Americans who are going to read this and say that’s like my case or my father’s case. Now, the President has to follow through and take that seriously.”
In April 2014, the Justice Department announced a new initiative to fast-track clemency petitions for prisoners who, under today’s sentencing laws, would have received a substantially lower sentence for the same offense. To speed up the application process, the Justice Department introduced new criteria to help prioritize the petitions, stating that the agency would prioritize non-violent offenders who had served more than 10 years of their sentences.
Alongside the announcement of the new initiative came the removal of the Justice Department’s Pardon Attorney, Ronald Rodgers. In 2012, ProPublica and the Washington Post revealed that Rodgers had failed to disclose critical information in recommending that the White House deny the petition of Clarence Aaron, who was sentenced to three life terms for minor involvement in a drug deal.
Following our reporting, Obama granted Aaron clemency, after he spent two decades in prison.
Like Aaron, all of the individuals who were granted clemency this week were serving sentences longer than 10 years for non-violent drug crimes. The White House reported that President Obama penned letters to each of them.
“Thousands of individuals have applied for commutation, and only a fraction of these applications are approved,” the President wrote in one letter to Terry Andre Barnes, who was sentenced to more than 20 years in prison in 2005 for conspiracy to distribute cocaine.
“I am granting your application because you have demonstrated the potential to turn your life around. Now it is up to you to make the most of this opportunity.”
Margaret Love, who served as U.S. Pardon Attorney for the Justice Department from 1990 to 1997 and now represents petitioners, recognizes the need for further action. “I know that the President is committed to redressing some of the wrongs of federal sentencing,” she said, “but I think he is going to need to put a system in place for handling hundreds as opposed to dozens of cases that deserve a sentence reduction.”
