Trump Rages at Biden for Wrecking His Plans for Executions: ‘Makes No Sense’
President-elect Donald Trump reacted to President Joe Biden’s commutation of the sentences of 37 of the 40 people on federal death row with befuddlement and disbelief on Tuesday, claiming the decision “makes no sense.”
“Joe Biden just commuted the Death Sentence on 37 of the worst killers in our Country,” Trump wrote, in a Christmas Eve post on Truth Social, featuring his usual irregular capitalization.
“When you hear the acts of each, you won’t believe that he did this. Makes no sense. Relatives and friends are further devastated. They can’t believe this is happening.”
On Monday, the White House announced Biden had commuted the sentences of 37 men on federal death row to life without parole. Biden left three federal inmates to face execution: racist mass murder Dylann Roof, antisemitic mass murderer Robert Bowers and Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
The decision was explicitly designed to stifle the death-penalty-loving Trump—who oversaw a modern record 13 federal executions during his first term—before he returns to office.
“In good conscience, I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted,” said Biden, in a statement announcing his decision.
On Tuesday, Trump followed up his original post with a promise to pursue capital punishment once he’s back in power.”
“As soon as I am inaugurated, I will direct the Justice Department to vigorously pursue the death penalty to protect American families and children from violent rapists, murderers, and monsters,” Trump wrote. “We will be a Nation of Law and Order again!”
Trump’s return to office had already raised concern among human rights experts.
“It is near certain that Donald Trump will re-start the federal killing machine where he left off, and we remain concerned about the human rights of those who are still on federal and military death row,” said Paul O’Brien, Amnesty International USA’s Executive Director, in a statement.
Trump’s spokesperson Steven Cheung was even more effusive about Biden’s clemency than his boss, saying Monday that the death row inmates whose sentences were commuted are “are among the worst killers in the world,” excoriating Biden’s “abhorrent decision” as “a slap in the face to the victims, their families, and their loved ones.”
Responses from victims’ families and loved ones, however, has not been unanimous.
Heather Turner—whose mother was killed during a 2017 bank robbery in South Carolina by one of the men whose death sentences was commuted—slammed the decision, writing on Facebook: “Joe Biden’s decision is a clear gross abuse of power. He, and his supporters, have blood on their hands.”
But retired Ohio police officer Donnie Oliverio, whose partner was killed by another man whose sentence was commuted, offered a statement of support: “Putting to death the person who killed my police partner and best friend would have brought me no peace. The president has done what is right here, and what is consistent with the faith he and I share.”
Biden emphasized, in announcing his decision, that he condemns the murderers and grieves for those who suffered losses.
“But guided by my conscience and my experience as a public defender, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, vice-president, and now president, I am more convinced than ever that we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level,” he said.
His act was hailed by human rights experts.
“The death penalty is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment, and President Biden’s eleventh-hour decision before leaving office to commute these death sentences is a big moment for human rights,” said Amnesty’s O’Brien.
Tanya Greene, US program director at Human Rights Watch, said the “courageous decision recognizes the U.S. death penalty has failed to deter crime or improve public safety, risked the execution of innocent people, and runs counter to the belief in the dignity of all human life and the possibility of redemption.”
Biden’s historic commutation came little more than a week after the president granted some 1,500 pardons and commutations to Americans convicted of nonviolent crimes in the largest single-day act of clemency in modern U.S. history. It also followed his controversial pardon of his own son.
