{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=499586D2-39FB-485D-A787-22B0D9F5373F", "McConnell On Push To Commute Mass Murderers: \u201cNo Legacy A President Should Seek\u201d", "2024-12-18", "2024", "2024-12", "Republican", "Senate", "KY", "Mitch McConnell", "M000355", "www.mcconnell.senate.gov", "mcconnell", "https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases", "scraper", "\u2018Let\u2019s be clear what commuting these sentences would mean. It would mean that the laws passed by Congress and applied by our judges and juries have no value. It would mean that progressive politics is more important to the President than the lives taken by these murderers. It would mean that society\u2019s most forceful condemnation of white supremacy and antisemitism must give way to legal mumbo jumbo.\u2019\n\nWASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delivered the following remarks today on the Senate floor regarding President Biden\u2019s pardons:\n\n\u201cPresident Biden\u2019s decision earlier this month to pardon his son may well have set a unique and unfortunate precedent. But abuse of the presidential pardon doesn\u2019t stop there.\n\n\u201cLast week, the President went on to commute 1,500 sentences. And the way liberal activists see it, he should have done even more.\n\n\u201cMore than twenty liberal retired judges \u2013 including the Boston radical who recommended the disgraced pro-crime U.S. Attorney Rachael Rollins \u2013 have now urged the President to turn his eye to federal death sentences.\n\n\u201cThey claim that the federal death penalty is \u2018rife with fundamental problems\u2019 including race discrimination and poor representation of defendants.\n\n\u201cBut this is not just some theoretical recommendation about systemic injustice.\n\n\u201cIf the President heeded these former judges\u2019 call, it would mean commuting the death sentences of the mass murderer who slaughtered black churchgoers at Mother Emanuel in Charleston\u2026\n\n\u201c\u2026and the perpetrator of the massacre at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh.\n\n\u201cAre these men the victims of systemic racism? Did they have inadequate counsel? Of course not. They are mass murderers, guilty beyond any doubt whatsoever.\n\n\u201cLet\u2019s be clear what commuting these sentences would mean. It would mean that the laws passed by Congress and applied by our judges and juries have no value.\n\n\u201cIt would mean that progressive politics is more important to the President than the lives taken by these murderers. It would mean that society\u2019s most forceful condemnation of white supremacy and antisemitism must give way to legal mumbo jumbo.\n\n\u201cThe irony of claims of systemic racism causing the President to spare Dylann Roof is ludicrous to the point of tragedy.\n\n\u201cThis is no legacy a president should seek.\u201d\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T19:07:19Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=499586D2-39FB-485D-A787-22B0D9F5373F"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.5501291491091251, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}