[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 25]
[House]
[Pages 34144-34145]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1500
                    BORDER AGENTS CAMPION AND RAMOS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Sarbanes). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. POE. Mr. Speaker, at this time of the year, it is common for 
whatever President is in power to review requests for pardons and for 
commutations of sentence. And yesterday, the President exercised his 
constitutional authority and pardoned numerous individuals, at least 29 
of them, and I have all of their names here. I count seven drug dealers 
that were pardoned, one individual for receiving kickbacks in defense 
procurements contracts, and he commuted one sentence of an individual 
that was aiding and abetting the distribution of cocaine.
  I want to make it clear; the President has the absolute power under 
the Constitution to pardon anybody he wishes or commute the sentence. 
And I want to read part of the Constitution, a pocketbook Constitution 
that many of us here carry that says, ``The President shall have the 
power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United 
States.''
  You notice, Mr. Speaker, it doesn't give any conditions, except he 
can't pardon someone who has been impeached. It doesn't require that a 
committee decide who is to be pardoned. It doesn't require that the 
Justice Department do anything or be even involved in the process. It 
gives the power of pardon and commutation to the President; and he has 
that right to pardon anyone he wishes, and I uphold his right to do so.
  But in jail today in the Federal penitentiary somewhere across our 
United States are two individuals who I think should be pardoned, or at 
least their sentences should be commuted. And numerous people on the 
House, on both sides, have asked the President to look at these cases 
and pardon these two individuals, especially in light of their 
appellate court hearing that took place just a few weeks ago in the 
Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, Louisiana. Of course, 
those two people are Border Agents Ramos and Campion, who I feel like 
were unjustly convicted by an overzealous prosecution, a comment that 
was made by one of the Federal judges on appeal, ``overzealous 
prosecution.''

[[Page 34145]]

  But be that as it may, and it seems to me that they have been 
imprisoned a year now, most of that time they have been serving 
solitary confinement. For what crime? Well, because they supposedly 
violated the civil rights of a drug smuggler bringing drugs in from 
Mexico worth about $1 million. And the United States Government, rather 
than prosecute the drug dealer, prosecuted the Border Agents because 
they didn't follow policy, protocol, filling out appropriate forms 
after this shooting took place. But they go make a deal with the drug 
dealer. They make a deal with the devil, and they get testimony from 
the drug dealer in their trial. Talking about the Federal prosecution 
made a deal with him.
  But, you see, that whole case kind of has some bad things that 
happened. We had learned, several of us, that while the drug dealer, 
granted immunity, that means they are not going to prosecute him, to 
testify, and before the trial took place, he brought in another load of 
drugs from Mexico to the United States worth about $700,000.
  The U.S. Attorney's Office, in a carefully worded propaganda piece, 
denied that that ever occurred. But since we saw, and I have seen the 
DEA report, we knew a second drug deal took place. And now, finally, 
after this took place and many of us knew about it, the Federal 
Government has decided to prosecute the drug dealer on that second 
case; conspiracy to import drugs into the United States, and charging a 
new indictment with three offenses, conspiracy to commit crimes against 
the United States.
  So the Federal Government makes a deal with the drug dealer. He 
brings in drugs after the deal is made. Now he is in jail. And it seems 
to me, justice would demand that these two Border Agents be released at 
least until this appeal is over with. But I think they should have 
their sentences commuted or even they should be pardoned by the 
President.
  But I say all that to say the bureaucrats say, Oh, these two Border 
Agents haven't followed protocol. They haven't applied the right way, 
they haven't filled out the right forms for a pardon and a commutation 
of sentence. Well, the Constitution that I just read doesn't require 
forms to be filled out for people in prison to get a pardon. I don't 
remember Mr. Scooter Libby filling out some kind of form to get a 
pardon. He didn't even ever go to jail. He just got a Get Out of Jail 
Free card. He was pardoned. The President had the absolute right to do 
that. I don't quarrel with that. President Nixon got an absolute pardon 
by President Ford. He didn't fill out any forms to get that pardon.
  So, Mr. Speaker, I recommend and urge the President to commute the 
sentences of these two Border Agents. And he can do it on his own. He 
doesn't need permission from some bureaucracy, and I hope he does so 
and does so quickly.
  And that's just the way it is.

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