Jesse Jackson Jr. Urges President Obama to Pardon Millions of Ex-Inmates — Including Himself and his Wife
“An official declaration of TIME SERVED, for each and every eligible member of the American family, from the highest office of the land” Jackson wrote.
Jesse Jackson Jr. urged President Barack Obama Thursday to pardon millions of former prison inmates, a group that would include Jackson and his wife, former Chicago Ald. Sandi Jackson.
… “Mr. President, for those Americans who have traipsed through the criminal justice system and transcended transgression by duly serving time, the outcome should be clear,” Jackson wrote in the post. “An official declaration of TIME SERVED, for each and every eligible member of the American family, from the highest office of the land is the only response congruent with the redemption story of Christ.”
Oh please stop. I think I’m going to be sick.
“Truly, Mr. President, with a presidential pardon equally monumental to, and greater in scope than, the Emancipation Proclamation the legacy of Barack Hussein Obama II will be one of faith, hope and love,” he added.
Jackson pled guilty in 2013 to charges he illegally spent campaign fund on a variety of expensive items, like a $4,600 fedora owned by Michael Jackson and a $1,200 reversible mink parka. Jackson ultimately served over a year in jail before being released into a halfway house in 2015.
His wife, Sandi Jackson, pleaded guilty to tax fraud in 2013, a charge that stemmed from the same case. She was released from prison earlier this year. Jackson Jr.’s relationship status on Facebook is listed as “separated.”
In his post Thursday, Jackson doesn’t lobby for his own pardon, although he and his wife would be included in a blanket reprieve of former inmates.
“Pardon the many and uplift the masses,” Jackson wrote to the president.
“As a felon on the Southside of Chicago, I can attest that nothing has changed since you left,” he added. “That is, if we don’t count the increased gun violence.”
This isn’t the first time Jackson has made an appeal for a pardon. In letters sent to NBC Chicago in 2014, Jackson said he believed Obama should issue pardons to inmates who have served their sentences. In November, Jackson made a similar appeal in a separate Facebook post, the Chicago Tribune reports.
