Trump: “Looking at” Pardon Request for Sailor and “Several” Others

DURING FIRST WEEK IN OFFICE, PRESIDENT CONSIDERING AT LEAST ONE MILITARY PARDON

by Sharon Rondeau

(Jan. 26, 2017) — In a pre-recorded interview from Thursday morning between Fox News’s Sean Hannity and President Donald Trump, Trump said he is currently “looking at” the request for a pardon for U.S. Navy sailor Christian Saucier, who was convicted of mishandling classified information after taking photos with his cell phone of an area of the submarine on which he was stationed.

Saucier’s mother has been an outspoken advocate for her son, who is married and has a very young child from whom he is now separated.  She has made her son’s case on Fox News on several occasions, comparing his deed and subsequent punishment to the lack of consequences for former Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton for her mishandling of classified information through a private, unauthorized server while she headed the Obama State Department between  2009 and early 2013.

Hannity also mentioned 1st Lt. Clint Lorance, who was convicted at court-martial of murdering three Afghan men on motorcycles who he believed were about to launch a terrorist attack against his unit in July 2012.

Lorance was sentenced to 20 years at Ft. Leavenworth, discharge from the Army and loss of pay while imprisoned.

Although given a much shorter sentence, Lt. Col. Terry Lakin, a former flight surgeon, spent six months in Leavenworth and was dishonorably discharged from the Army, with loss of pay and benefits, for questioning Barack Obama’s eligibility in 2010.

Lakin’s case was not mentioned by either Trump or Hannity, although Trump said he was examining “several” pardon requests which constitutionally, only the chief executive may grant.

In his final weeks, Obama issued pardons to a significant number of drug dealers, to individuals convicted of “conspiracy to embezzle” and mail fraud, and interestingly, to an individual convicted of “conspiracy to defraud the United States by knowingly and without lawful authority producing false identification documents.”

Obama’s identification documents were found to be fraudulent by a five-year criminal investigation whose findings were recently affirmed by two highly-respected forensics analysts as divulged in a December 15 press conference.

Obama’s alleged “long-form” birth certificate was released by the White House on April 27, 2011 “with the intent to deceive,” according to the probe’s chief investigator, Mike Zullo.

A petition referenced on a website established to tell Lorance’s story references a whitehouse.gov petition asking for a pardon which appears to no longer be available to the public.

On Saturday, a petition on Lakin’s behalf was launched by citizen Gary Wilmott and widely circulated, although a small number of signatures shows on the counter, suspected to be the result of technical problems given the change in administrations last Friday.