PostPosted: Thu Dec 21, 2006 8:32 pm Post subject: FEDS: IF AGENTS want pardons, they must ask them selves Reply with quote Edit/Delete this post
http://www.dailybulletin.com/ci_4881231


BEYOND BORDERS
Agents told to ask for pardon themselves
By Sara A. Carter, Staff Writer
Article Launched: 12/21/2006 03:55:58 PM PST

In the first official response of any kind to several congressional letters sent on behalf of two former Border Patrol agents, the U.S. Department of Justice today recomended that the agents personally petition for a presidential pardon.

The Justice Department letter was one highlight of a midafternoon rally in Santa Ana for former agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean. At the rally, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-46th District) demanded that President Bush review the agents case and either pardon them or commute their sentences.

Losing everything
The agents each were sentenced in October to more than a decade in prison for the non-fatal shooting of drug smuggler during a pursuit on the Texas-Mexico border in April 2005. Both men were fired from the Border Patrol following their convictions. Their case has garnered national attention, including two online petitions seeking a presidential pardon, one of which has 156,000 signatures, including 20,000 comments from Californians.

This is a definitive moment for President Bush's character, Rohrabacher said. We are not attacking the president. We are pleading with him to please give these people a holiday pardon. Compean, his wife Patty, and their three children attended today s press conference. Compean thanked people across the nation for their support since his case was made public.

The Justice Department letter acknowledges receipt of a Dec. 6 letter to the president from the congressman and several of his colleagues, then outlines what steps the agents should follow to pursue a presidential pardon.

As to the issue you raise of a Presidential pardon, should Messrs. Ramos and Compean wish to petition for clemency, they may contact the Office of the Pardon Attorney at the Department of Justice for further information on eligibility and procedures.

The letter is a watershed of sorts for the agents, who have had several different sets of congressmen send letters on their behalf to the president, with no response of any kind.
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HIT THE LINK, there appear to be two VIDEOS to watch also