Matt Bevin defends his controversial pardons in twenty-tweet-long Twitter thread
After days of silence, former Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin responded to the outcry over several controversial pardons and commutations he signed before leaving office Monday.
In twenty tweets Friday evening, the Republican governor defended his decision to issue pardons that ranged from a man convicted of beheading a woman and stuffing her in a barrel, to a man convicted of hiring a hit man to kill his business partner, to a man convicted of raping a 9-year-old, saying America was built on “support for redemption and second chances.”
“Each case had its own set of facts, evidence, lack of evidence, supporting documents, reasons and unique details, most of which the arm-chair critics are not aware of,” Bevin wrote. “Am I perfect? No...Never have been...But I did my very best, over many hours, days, weeks and years, to reach fair and just decisions ... Not one person receiving a pardon would I not welcome as a co-worker, neighbor, or to sit beside me or any member of my family in a church pew or at a public event.”
Bevin said he reviewed hundreds of applications for pardons and commutations during his four years in office and that he did not grant every application that was put in front of him. Bevin pardoned and/or commuted the sentences of 661 people in 2019, according to the Secretary of State’s office. He did not give an exact number for how many requests of pardons and commutations he reviewed.
Bevin said he reviewed every application on his own and wrote every word of justification for each pardon granted and each sentence commuted.
Bevin concluded by saying that no community is more or less safe now than it was before the pardons.
“We are blessed to be Americans, living in a land that offers the possibility of a second chance for those who have ruined their first one,” he wrote.
The thread comes following outcry from lawmakers of both parties and prosecutors across Kentucky.
Tom Handy, a former commonwealth’s attorney in Laurel and Knox County, said he had never been angrier in his life than when he found out Bevin had pardoned a man who was convicted of beheading a woman and putting her in a 55-gallon barrel. On Thursday, he said he didn’t think Bevin had read the full case.
“His arrogance to think that his God-like ability to understand things from afar... that arrogance is appalling,” Handy said.
On Friday, Senate President Robert Stivers, R-Manchester, with the backing of Senate Republicans, called on the U.S. Attorney’s Office to open an investigation into Bevin’s pardons. Stivers’ statement followed an earlier request from two Democratic lawmakers for Attorney General-elect Daniel Cameron to appoint a special counsel to investigate the pardons.
Senate Minority Leader Morgan McGarvey, D-Louisville, and Rep. Chris Harris, D-Pikeville, specifically homed in on a pardon Bevin gave to Patrick Baker, who was serving a 20-year sentence for murdering someone during an attempted robbery in Knox County. Baker’s brother and sister-in-law held a fundraiser for Bevin in 2018 to help the then-governor clear his 2015 campaign debt.
“Here you have at least the strong appearance of impropriety,” Harris said.
On Friday, Bevin defended himself against those allegations.
“The myriad statements and suggestions that financial or political considerations played a part in the decision making process, are both highly offensive and entirely false...,” Bevin wrote. “To repeat such uncorroborated rumors and lies is reprehensible.”
This story was originally published December 13, 2019 at 5:54 PM.
