Talking to a friendly Bill O’Reilly on Fox last night, Mike Huckabee said he was responsible for commuting the sentence of Maurice Clemmons, the suspect in the killings of four Washington State police who was shot to death this morning.
“It’s not something that I’m happy about at this particular moment,” said the former Arkansas governor, who is taking heat for the 2000 decision from both left and right.
We took a close look at Clemmons’ route through the criminal justice system, and Huckabee’s role, in this post yesterday.
The parole board “recommended to me as governor for his commutation, which didn’t release him, it simply cut his sentence to 47 years. That would give him parole eligibility — that was the commutation, I’m responsible for that,” Huckabee told O’Reilly.
O’Reilly finishes the line of questioning with, “I’m not saying it’s your fault, I don’t think anyone watching thinks it’s your fault.”
Here’s the segment from Fox, which also hosts Huckabee’s weekend talk show:
