Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) has a message for President Donald Trump after his latest round of pardons.
In the opening of a statement he released Wednesday evening, Sasse said Trump issued pardons to “another tranche of felons like Manafort and Stone who flagrantly and repeatedly violated the law and harmed Americans.”
He slammed Trump in one line, “This is rotten to the core.”
@BenSasse on the pardons. “This is rotten to the core.” pic.twitter.com/fOT0UQ70Qk
— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) December 24, 2020
In total, Trump granted 15 pardons and, in part or in full, commutations of sentences for five people, as IJR previously reported.
Some of his pardons included those who were involved in the Russia probe, namely George Papadopolous.
Papadopolous is a former aide to the Trump campaign who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI in 2017.
“Today’s pardon helps correct the wrong that Mueller’s team inflicted on so many people,” the White House said.
Trump also pardoned real estate developer and the father of Jared Kushner, Charles Kushner, as IJR previously reported.
Sasse is not the only one to have harshly criticized the president following the announcements of his pardons.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) blasted Trump during Tuesday night’s MSNBC interview.
“Hearing these stories, he is literally trying to burn the house of justice down on his way out the door. He’s saying ‘screw you’ to the FBI, ‘screw you’ to the line prosecutors. These are the hardest cases to make against sitting Congressmen. They did this, they put them away for good reason,” she said.
Klobuchar added, “And all these cases, they’re so disparate, they don’t really have an organizing principle.”
She went on to argue, “But what they have in common is what [New York Times reporter] Mike Schmidt pointed out earlier in your show and that is that 88% of these pardons are somehow related to Donald Trump or his political goals. And it is corruption through and through.”