from AmericanFreePress.net

Don’t Expect Bush to Pardon Traficant Before Leaving Office

By Michael Collins Piper

President George W. Bush has said repeatedly, privately, in the past, that a pardon for wrongfully imprisoned former Rep. Jim Traficant (D-Ohio) is off the table. And it now appears that Bush intends to leave office with Traficant remaining in prison until his unusually long sentence (eight years) ends in August of 2009.

Former Youngstown Mayor George M. McKelvey—a Democrat—made national news in 2004 when he endorsed Bush. He has been urging Bush to grant Traficant either a presidential pardon or a commutation of his prison sentence.

McKelvey has been asking Bush, since 2004—two years after Traficant was sent to prison—to give Traficant his freedom, but the president refuses to act. For his own part, Traficant has refused a pardon, because to accept a pardon would require that he admit to committing crimes that he says he did not commit.

In a radio interview on December 1, McKelvey pointed out that Traficant is serving a longer sentence than most people convicted on second-degree murder charges, declaring the Traficant case “the greatest injustice in the history of this state.” read