Durbin on Commutation: "a terrible message"

On Monday, Sen. Dick Durbin sent a letter to President George W. Bush pleading for George Ryan's freedom after serving 13 months of a 6 1/2-year sentence.
He called it "compassion."
Just two years earlier, when a political insider he didn't closely know was set for prison, the Springfield Democrat argued a similar commutation was abhorrent to justice.
"When it comes to the law, there should not be two sets of rules - one for President Bush and Vice President Cheney and another for the rest of America," Durbin said after Bush commuted the 30-month prison sentence of Cheney aide Scooter Libby. "Even Paris Hilton had to go to jail. No one in this administration should be above the law."
Earlier in the summer of 2007 when talk of a Libby commutation was rampant, Durbin said, "It sends a terrible message at a time when we are demanding accountability from the generals at Walter Reed ... to suggest anyone in our government is above the law."
In commuting the sentence, Bush noted that Libby already paid a price by losing his respect and government positions. Likewise, Durbin said Monday Ryan will always have a "cloud" over him because of the conviction.
"The reputation he gained through his years of public service and professional work in the legal community is forever damaged," Bush said of Libby.
Libby was convicted by a jury on one count of obstruction of justice, two counts of perjury and one count of making false statements to federal investigators in relation to the investigation of the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame. U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald prosecuted that case as well.
Ironically, the blasting of Libby's commutation should have come as more of a surprise to voters than his support for Ryan's freedom.
Durbin has long had a very soft spot in his heart for convicted politicians who used their elected offices for personal gain at the expense of taxpayers.
Durbin said Monday he always seeks to right injustice, though he said Ryan was not the victim of injustice. He portrayed his decision to help Ryan as one that sprouted routinely as any other problem brought by a constituent -- but he couldn't identify one previous time when he wrote a letter asking a president for commutation.
It is public record that Durbin lobbied for the commutation of another high profile politician, former U.S. Rep. Mel Reynolds.
As President Bill Clinton was finishing his second term, the first term senator argued for the pardon of Reynolds, who was in jail on federal fraud charges.
Reynolds won a commutation after Durbin's lobbying. Reynolds, also convicted of having sex with a 16-year-old campaign worker, walked out of prison after serving two years of a 4 1/2-year federal sentence.
Like Ryan, Reynolds' list of crimes was long. He hid debts to obtain bank loans, laundered union contributions intended for voter registration drives, told aides to cash at least $164,000 at currency exchanges to make the money untraceable so he could pocket it.
By the time of his commutation, Reynolds had already served a five year sentence on a conviction for sexual assault, obstruction of justice and soliciting child pornography. He had a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old girl. He was 40 years old.
Lumping the sexual assault and bank fraud convictions together in his plea for mercy, Durbin told the press Reynold's six years in jail were enough in his mind.
"Six years of his life in prison," Durbin said at the time, "I think it is time to give him a chance to start his life again."
Much like with Ryan, Durbin invoked the criminal politician's wife as reason enough to open the prison doors.
"His wife has been in a homeless shelter," Durbin said of Reynold's wife at the time. "She's been on Welfare. This has torn them apart."
At the time, Durbin also praised Clinton's pardoning of U.S. Rep. Dan Rostenkowski.
Rostenkowski pled guilty to reduced charges after being accused of using Congressional funds to buy gifts for friends, trading taxpayer-funded postal stamps for cash and keeping ghost payrollers on the taxpayer's dime.
He was sentenced to serve 17 months in prison and served 15 before Clinton granted him a pardon.
Durbin rejoiced.