Fox News hosts expressed concern over President Joe Biden’s decision to commute the sentence of a controversial judge involved in the notorious “kids for cash” scandal.
Michael T. Conahan, a former judge from Luzerne County, Pa., was among the 1,500 individuals who had their sentences commuted by Biden this week. Additionally, the president granted 39 pardons to non-violent offenders.
Conahan, however, has garnered the most attention due to his central role in the “kids for cash” scheme, in which he received kickbacks from private prisons in exchange for sentencing juveniles to detention.
Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro (D) criticized President Biden’s decision regarding Michael Conahan, stating this week at an event that Biden got it “absolutely wrong” in Conahan’s case. According to the White House, Conahan met specific criteria for sentence commutation due to his placement on home confinement during the COVID pandemic. Conahan, who was convicted in 2011, had been sentenced to over 17 years in prison but is now free.
Pittsburgh columnist Salena Zito appeared on Fox News Saturday morning, where she spoke with Will Cain about Michael Conahan’s crime, describing it as a “profound scandal” in Pennsylvania.
Zito highlighted some of the devastating consequences of Conahan’s actions, including the tragic suicide of a young man who was sentenced to a juvenile detention center by Conahan as part of his scheme.
“This had a devastating impact on families,” Zito said.
“Conahan‘s actions destroyed families, including mine, and my son‘s death is a tragic reminder of the consequences of his abuse of power,” Sandy Fonzo, the mother of the young man who took his own life, said in a statement in response to Biden’s action.
“So real consequences for what this individual did, to try and get money off of the lives of children,” Fox co-host Carley Shimkus said on Saturday.
“It’s beyond disgusting,” co-host Kevin Corke added. “And when she said vulgar, that really resonates with a lot of Pennsylvanians, but even if you’re not from the keystone state and you hear about this story — and there have been some stories done on this particular case on some of the major networks, you see these crime stories and they say, here’s who was so callous as to take advantage of the most vulnerable among us.”
He added: “We’re talking about children here. And to do it for money is beyond the pale.”
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President Biden got a lot of heat — including from members of his own Democratic Party — after he pardoned his son, Hunter Biden, late last month despite claiming for a year he would not do so.
Following the pardon and in a surprising legal maneuver, special counsel David Weiss filed a motion in the California federal court overseeing Hunter Biden’s tax case, urging the judge not to dismiss the charges.
The pardon, which spans from January 1, 2014, to December 1, 2024, covers Hunter Biden’s June jury-trial convictions for lying on a federal form about his drug use when purchasing a handgun. It also includes his September conviction on nine counts related to his failure to pay at least $1.4 million in taxes between 2016 and 2019.
The first son had faced a maximum of 17 years in prison for his tax offenses.
“The charges in his cases came about only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election,” Hunter Biden claimed in a statement issued along with his pardon announcement.
In a court filing in a federal district court in California, Weiss wrote, “There was none and never has been any evidence of vindictive or selective prosecution in this case.”
“The defendant [Hunter Biden] made similar baseless accusations in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware. Those claims were also rejected,” he added.
“In total, eleven different [federal] judges appointed by six different presidents, including his father, considered and rejected the defendant’s claims, including his claims for selective and vindictive prosecution.”
