Trump pulled a list of controversial clemencies by Clinton and Obama out of his suit jacket to defend his pardon of Joe Arpaio. “Then you have dangerous criminals. President Clinton pardoned Susan Rosenberg, a member of the Weather Underground, charged as part of a bank robbery that led to a guard and two police officers being killed,”
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A reporter asked Trump a question in a joint White House press conference with Finnish President Sauli Niinisto.
President Donald Trump defended his pardoning of Joe Arpaio by comparing it to other controversial acts of clemency carried out by former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
Trump argued at a press conference that Arpaio, the former sheriff of Arizona’s Maricopa County whom he pardoned, was treated “unbelievably unfairly” by the Obama administration, before pulling out a piece of paper from his suit jacket and listing a litany of previous presidential pardons and commutations.
“And if you look at, as an example, President Clinton pardoned Marc Rich, who was charged with crimes going back decades, including illegally buying oil from Iran while it held 53 American hostages, wasn’t allowed to do that, selling to the enemies of the United States.”
“He was pardoned after his wife donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Clintons,”.
“Then you have dangerous criminals. President Clinton pardoned Susan Rosenberg, a member of the Weather Underground, charged as part of a bank robbery that led to a guard and two police officers being killed,”
“Drug dealers. President Clinton commuted the sentence of Carlos Vignali, a central player in a cocaine ring that stretched from California to Minnesota. Criminal leaker. You’ve heard the word “leaker.”
“President Obama commuted the sentence of Chelsea Manning, who leaked countless sensitive and classified documents to WikiLeaks, perhaps and others, but a horrible, horrible thing that he did. Commuted the sentence and perhaps pardoned,”
“President Obama commuted the sentence of Oscar Lopez Rivera, who was charged as part of a violent independence group from Puerto Rico, responsible for 28 Chicago-area bombings and many deaths in the 1970s and 1980s,” he said.
In comparison, Arpaio is a patriot who loves this country and protected its borders.
“And Sheriff Joe was very unfairly treated by the Obama administration, especially right before an election — an election that he would have won, and he was elected many times. So I stand by my pardon of Sheriff Joe, and I think the people of Arizona, who really know him best, would agree with me.”