{"id":2629910,"date":"2026-07-15T07:56:02","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T11:56:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/dems-star-witness-ag-hearing-pushed-clemency-for-rapists-child-molesters-and-murderers\/"},"modified":"2026-07-15T08:00:07","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T12:00:07","slug":"dems-star-witness-ag-hearing-pushed-clemency-for-rapists-child-molesters-and-murderers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/dems-star-witness-ag-hearing-pushed-clemency-for-rapists-child-molesters-and-murderers\/","title":{"rendered":"Former DOJ Pardon Lawyer Behind Biden&#8217;s Death Row Clemency"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fdems-star-witness-ag-hearing-pushed-clemency-for-rapists-child-molesters-and-murderers%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2629910&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The article critiques the upcoming Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche\u2019s nomination, suggesting it will be a partisan spectacle aimed at discrediting him. Democrat Senator Dick Durbin plans to call Liz Oyer, a former DOJ pardon attorney known for her strong anti-Trump stance, to testify. Oyer has claimed Blanche fired her for refusing to pardon Mel Gibson, a Hollywood actor with a domestic violence conviction, on political grounds. She also criticized the Biden administration\u2019s clemency decisions,highlighting that Biden pardoned 37 out of 40 federal death row inmates,most of whom had committed heinous crimes,and reinstated the death penalty after Trump\u2019s executive order. Oyer\u2019s memos expressed opposition to federal death sentences,especially for violent offenders,and recommended clemency for notorious criminals like dylann Roof,despite acknowledging he was not a suitable candidate. The piece portrays Oyer as politically biased and aligned with Democratic efforts to weaponize the justice system against trump and his supporters, criticizing her involvement in litigation and her negative views on the current administration\u2019s clemency policies.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Expect Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats to deliver another crazed production of confirmation theater Wednesday, rolling out every political weapon in their arsenal to try to block Acting AG Todd Blanche\u2019s promotion to U.S. Attorney General. <\/p>\n<p>Old, shriveled Dick Durbin, the committee\u2019s ranking member, believes he\u2019s got an ace up his sleeve as Blanche\u2019s confirmation hearing begins Wednesday morning. He\u2019s called <a href=\"https:\/\/events.journalism.berkeley.edu\/logan-symposium\/speaker\/liz-oyer\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Liz Oyer<\/a>, the Department of Justice\u2019s former \u201cnonpolitical\u201d pardon attorney, to testify. Oyer carries a deep loathing of President Donald Trump and an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lawyeroyer.com\/p\/what-happened-to-todd-blanche\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">ax to grind against Blanche.<\/a> <\/p>\n<p>In a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/SenatorDurbin\/posts\/im-announcing-today-that-liz-oyer-and-dani-bensky-will-be-the-democratic-witness\/1592175368923388\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">statement<\/a> released Tuesday, the Illinois senator asserted that Blanche fired Oyer \u201cfor refusing to rubberstamp gun ownership rights to Mel Gibson, a convicted domestic violence abuser and friend of Donald Trump.\u201d Yes, that Mel Gibson \u2014 actor and director \u2014 who had been barred from purchasing firearms following a misdemeanor domestic violence conviction in 2011. Gibson was one of 10 people who received <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/news\/politics\/2025\/04\/30\/mel-gibson-gun-rights-restored-doj\/83353500007\/\">pardons<\/a> from the Trump administration last year for their decades-old crimes. <\/p>\n<p>Oyer was shown the door after she refused to include Gibson on the list of pardons. Blanche signed the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/news\/politics\/2025\/04\/30\/mel-gibson-gun-rights-restored-doj\/83353500007\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">firing memo<\/a> terminating the pardon attorney\u2019s job. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cI had been asked to recommend restoring the firearm rights of a famous friend of the president who had lost his right to own a gun due to a domestic violence conviction,\u201d Oyer wrote in a self-serving Rolling Stone <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/politics\/political-commentary\/trump-justice-department-fired-mel-gibson-guns-1235296311\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">op-ed<\/a>. \u201cI declined to do so based on concerns about public safety.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Oyer didn\u2019t seem to have many concerns about the victims of the 37 convicted killers on federal death row who got a get-out-of-execution card thanks to the pardon attorney\u2019s soft spot for psychopaths. The pardon attorney recommended that then-Attorney General Merrick Garland \u201cencourage\u201d President Joe Biden to \u201cuse his clemency power to reassess the 40 remaining federal death sentences through the lens of current policy and practice.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>\u201cDisparity and undue severity of sentence, which are present in many if not all of these cases, have long been recognized as grounds for clemency,\u201d Oyer wrote in a Nov. 4, 2024 memo obtained by The Federalist. \u201cIn this context, clemency could take various forms, ranging from the broadest approach of commuting all death sentences, to the narrower approach of considering clemency on a case-by-case basis.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>Clemency Bender<\/h2>\n<p>As noted in her memo, the Biden administration had received an \u201cinflux of requests\u201d to commute federal death sentences before the <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2025\/11\/05\/poll-majority-of-americans-want-prosecutions-in-biden-autopen-scandal\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">autopen president<\/a> left office less than three months later. Biden, or at least his autopen, saved 37 of the 40 convicts from a kinder death than their victims suffered. They will be wards of the state, ongoing expenses for taxpayers, until the day they die \u2014 most likely from natural causes. Unlike their victims. <\/p>\n<p>Biden, or at least his autopen, went on a clemency bender in the final days of a disastrous administration marked by a merciless, weaponized Department of Justice. The former president granted a record number of clemency requests \u2014 4,245, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/short-reads\/2025\/02\/07\/biden-granted-more-acts-of-clemency-than-any-prior-president\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">according to<\/a> a Pew Research Center analysis of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/pardon\/clemency-statistics\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">statistics from the U.S. Department of Justice<\/a>. Biden bested every president in the category, including Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who granted about 550 fewer clemency requests in his 12-plus years in the White House. <\/p>\n<p>And Biden cleaned out most of death row after reinstating the moratorium on federal capital punishment. <\/p>\n<p>In her 73-page memo, Oyer stressed that her fellow death penalty opponents feared \u201cthe possibility that executions could quickly resume when a new administration takes office.\u201d The new administration did just that. <\/p>\n<p>On his first day in office, President Donald Trump signed an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/presidential-actions\/2025\/01\/restoring-the-death-penalty-and-protecting-public-safety\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">executive order<\/a> that restored the death penalty in the name of public safety. In the order, he noted Biden\u2019s commutation free-for-all that spared the lives of\u00a0 37 of the 40 \u201cmost vile and sadistic rapists, child molesters, and murderers on Federal death row: remorseless criminals who brutalized young children, strangled and drowned their victims, and hunted strangers for sport.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>\u2018Blood on their Hands\u2019<\/h2>\n<p>But in her memo, Oyer suggested the death row inhabitants shouldn\u2019t have faced capital charges in the first place. Fine folks such as Chadrick Fulks and Brandon Basham, each convicted of murdering 19-year-old Samantha Burns after grabbing her from a mall parking lot in 2002. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cBurns\u2019 murder happened after Fulks and Basham broke out of jail and went on a multi-state crime spree. A woman from South Carolina was also killed during the spree,\u201d WSAZ in West Virginia <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wdtv.com\/2024\/12\/24\/biden-commutes-death-sentences-2-men-convicted-killing-19-year-old-marshall-student\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Then there are sweethearts like Ricordo Sanchez Junior and Daniel Troya, the dynamic duo behind the 2006 Florida Turnpike murders. They killed a mother, father, and two young children in a \u201cdrug-debt\u201d hit. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cJust four and three years old at the time, the boys died wrapped in their mother\u2019s arms,\u201d CBS 12 in Florida <a href=\"https:\/\/cbs12.com\/news\/local\/florida-prosecutors-aim-for-death-penalty-for-turnpike-killers-after-biden-gave-them-clemency-palm-beach-st-lucie-ricardo-sanchez-daniel-troya-turnpike-escobedo\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt no point did the president consider the victims,\u201d Heather Turner, daughter of a woman killed during a bank robbery, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/keith.turner.100\/\">wrote<\/a> on Facebook about Biden.\u00a0 \u201cHe, and his supporters, have blood on their hands.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>\u2018Not a Compelling Candidate for Clemency\u2019<\/h2>\n<p>Oyer made a particular pitch for clemency in the case of mass murderer <a href=\"https:\/\/deathpenaltyinfo.org\/tag\/dylann-roof\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Dylann Roof,<\/a> who in 2015 stormed into Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C. and shot and killed nine black members. <\/p>\n<figure><\/figure>\n<p>In an Oct. 30, 2024 memo obtained by The Federalist, Oyer conceded to DOJ big wigs that \u201cRoof is not a compelling candidate for clemency.\u201d But that didn\u2019t stop her from recommending it. It\u2019s complicated, she wrote. The jury sentenced Roof to death without knowing that \u201che suffers from mental health developmental disorders including autism and schizophrenia spectrum disorders.\u201d He dealt with \u201ccrippling anxiety.\u201d No doubt his heinous crimes caused crippling anxiety for some of the survivors. <\/p>\n<p>Roof was among just three federal death row inmates that didn\u2019t make Biden\u2019s clemency list. The others are Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Robert Bowers, who shot and killed 11 congregants of a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018. It remains the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S history.<\/p>\n<p>In her <a href=\"https:\/\/www.schiff.senate.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/20250407-Liz-Oyer-Hearing-Statement-4.7.25.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">testimony<\/a> before the Senate Judiciary Committee in April, Oyer groused that \u201cthe new administration showed little interest in considering our clemency recommendations.\u201d She was still bitter about Mel Gibson\u2019s gun rights being restored. <\/p>\n<h2>Weaponized Against Them<\/h2>\n<p>The \u201cnonpolitical\u201d former DOJ employee sure has gotten involved with some Trump-hating Democrats in her <a href=\"https:\/\/law.justia.com\/cases\/federal\/appellate-courts\/cafc\/26-1346\/26-1346-2026-04-21.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">lawsuit<\/a> against the DOJ. She\u2019s being represented by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.influencewatch.org\/non-profit\/democracy-forward\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Democracy Forward,<\/a> \u201ca left-of-center litigation and advocacy nonprofit created in early 2017 by high-level Democratic Party operatives,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.influencewatch.org\/non-profit\/democracy-forward\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">according to<\/a> nonprofit tracker InfluenceWatch. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe organization has been aggressive in targeting the Trump administration,\u201d InfluenceWatch wrote about the lawfare group. <\/p>\n<p>Durbin, who cheered on the Biden Justice Department targeting the Democratic Party\u2019s political enemies, said Oyer will offer \u201ccompelling testimony about the dangers of Todd Blanche weaponizing the Justice Department in service of Donald Trump, rather than the American people.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The families and friends of the victims of the death row inmates that Oyer protected must feel like Biden\u2019s DOJ was weaponized against them. <\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>      Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/trump-knew-100-percent-he-was-fighting-for-the-little-guy-former-top-trump-economic-adviser\/\" title=\"Trump Knew \u2018100 Percent... He Was \u2018Fighting for the Little Guy...: Former Top Trump Economic Adviser\">award-winning investigative reporter<\/a> and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Democrats plan aggressive tactics against Todd Blanche&#8217;s AG confirmation<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":656,"featured_media":2629911,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Screenshot-2026-07-15-at-1.37.34-AM.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[546,33651],"tags":[41272,4901,4431,51796,5894],"class_list":["post-2629910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-federalist","category-the-western-journal","tag-death-row","tag-justice","tag-legal","tag-pardon-2","tag-politics"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Screenshot-2026-07-15-at-1.37.34-AM.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2629910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/656"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2629910"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2629910\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2629914,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2629910\/revisions\/2629914"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2629911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2629910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2629910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2629910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}