Bush Has Pardoned or Commuted Sentences of 36 Drug Dealers (& Lots of Thieves), But Won't Pardon Anti-Drug U.S. Border Patrol Agents

I have commented in two previous posts (here and here) on George W. Bush’s failure thus far to pardon U.S. Border patrol Agents Ramos and Compean, now serving 10 and 11 year sentences for shooting in the buttock a fleeing Mexican drug smuggler they had intercepted just inside the U.S. border. These men were prosecuted by a man Bush himself appointed as U.S. Attorney, in a case many think has been political from the outset – the Bush Administration serving to warn against serious enforcement of our Mexican border.

On December 23, Bush announced more pardons (and in his bumbling way revoked one the very next day). Bob Unruh writes at World Net Daily (link):

President Bush today added a convicted methamphetamine dealer, a cocaine distributor and two marijuana suppliers to the list of drug operators he's pardoned while in office, bringing his total of drug suppliers who have been pardoned or had their sentences commuted to 36. He's also pardoned more than a dozen thieves, seven embezzlers, an arsonist, several mail thieves, a man who violated the Neutrality Act and eight Thanksgiving turkeys, but there's been no clemency for U.S. Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, who were convicted of shooting at a fleeing drug smuggler.

Andy Ramirez of Friends of the Border Patrol, who long has been involved in the Ramos-Compean case, said the questions just start piling up. "First and foremost is the question that has to be asked, 'Why is the president dug in so deep' on Ramos and Compean?" Ramirez said. "Look at how many members of Congress have sent him letters, and have held hearings…. You really have got to start to wonder … does this doper lead to somebody really big?" he said.

Here’s Unruth on Johnny Sutton, the Bush minion from earlier days in Texas whom Bush later appointed federal prosecutor, who searched for and found the drug smuggler in Mexico and brought him to the U. S. to testify with the promise of immunity:

U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton's office gave the smuggler, Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila, full immunity from prosecution for agreeing to serve as the government's star witness and testify against the border agents…. While Aldrete-Davila was waiting to testify against the agents, he also was involved in another drug smuggling case, but that information was withheld from jurors in the Ramos-Compean trial. Eventually, the smuggler was sentenced for the second case, but his sentence was considerably shorter than that of the agents who tried to halt his activities in the earlier episode.

More from Unruth:

Joe Loya, the father-in-law of Ramos, said he, his daughter and grandchildren were "devastated" by word that Ramos and Compean had been denied clemency on the latest list of presidential actions. "We were praying for a miracle. We just don't understand where the connection is when drug smugglers are getting pardons and commuted sentences, yet two agents who are not criminals, who were just doing their jobs, are in isolation," he told WND by telephone as he traveled to visit his son-in-law in jail on Christmas Eve.

George W. Bush, self-proclaimed “Compassionate Conservative,” has been very compassionate toward drug dealers and thieves.

Unruth has a link in his article to an online petition urging Bush to free these two men. Diana West also comments in a post at her web site titled “The Pardoner.” (link).

John M Greco