Cotton rips Biden's death row commutations as ‘politically convenient’

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) bashed President Biden’s decision to commute the sentences of 37 of 40 individuals on federal death row, calling the move “politically convenient.”

“Once again, Democrats side with depraved criminals over their victims, public order, and common decency,” Cotton said on the social platform X.

The senator added, “Democrats can’t even defend Biden’s outrageous decision as some kind of principled, across-the-board opposition to the death penalty since he didn’t commute the three most politically toxic cases. Democrats are the party of politically convenient justice.”

The three death row inmates not on the list were Robert D. Bowers, the gunman at the 2018 Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh; Dylann Roof, who opened fire in 2015 opened fire on Black parishioners at a Charleston, S.C., church; and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who is one of the two brothers who carried out the 2013 bombing of the Boston Marathon.

Cotton also joined conservative host Hugh Hewitt to discuss what he called “the commutation scandal.” Hewitt questioned on Monday if Biden had the mental competence to have made the judgement for the commutations.

“He is an addled, demented old man,” Cotton told Hewitt on the show.

The 37 prisoners given commuted sentences saw their sentences classified from execution to life without the possibility of parole.

The president took a jab at President-elect Trump in his announcement, saying, “In good conscience, I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted.”

Trump, during the 2024 campaign, called for tougher criminal sentences for drug traffickers, like the death penalty, and he said in 2018 there should be the “ultimate penalty” for drug dealers.