“Anybody has to be really careful in a situation like this. This is a small state, and the governor or his supporters can make life uncomfortable not only for someone with a career in public life, but also in private business.”
–Arkansas Parole Board Member
Little Rock, Ark — As governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee aggressively pushed for the early release of a convicted rapist despite being warned by numerous women that the convict had sexually assaulted them or their family members, and would likely strike again. The convict went on to rape and murder at least one other woman.
Confidential Arkansas state government records, including letters from these women, obtained by the Huffington Post and revealed publicly for the first time, directly contradict the version of events now being put forward by Huckabee.
While on the campaign trail, Huckabee has claimed that he supported the 1999 release of Wayne Dumond because, at the time, he had no good reason to believe that the man represented a further threat to the public. Thanks to Huckabee’s intervention, conducted in concert with a right-wing tabloid campaign on Dumond’s behalf, Dumond was let out of prison 25 years before his sentence would have ended.
“There’s nothing any of us could ever do,” Huckabee said Sunday on CNN when asked to reflect on the horrific outcome caused by the prisoner’s release. “None of us could’ve predicted what [Dumond] could’ve done when he got out.”
Waas has the documents and witnesses (on and off the record) to show Huckabee is lying. He was influenced by Jay Cole, a Far Right Christian working to “defend our United States of America from it’s most dreaded enemy, Secular Humanism, a religion by definition, and recognized as such by the Supreme Court,” and Steve Dunleavy, the alcoholic New York Post columnist (See here for more falling down drunk stuff) who claimed that keeping convicted rapist Wayne Dumond in jail was the former President’s Biggest Crime.
joeltpatterson says
FreeRepublic.com offered a platform for many of Dumond’s supporters.
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p>FreeRepublic.com, in case you don’t know, is a Conservative News Forum. This is where Right Wing Republicans get their news, and it is rife with mis-information, as you may find in this old post Where’s the Pardon for Wayne Dumond? If you read it, you will see that while one person notes Wayne Dumond had admitted to violence in his own testimony, which conflicts with Steve Dunleavy’s report that Dumond had no criminal record, the following Freepers just brush off that contradiction, and keep thinking that somehow this maniac Dumond & the misery he caused were all Bill Clinton’s fault.
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p>Huckabee is not alone in his shame, in his panicked multiple stories and excuses to explain away the damage he’d done by advocating this man’s release.
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p>Just like Freeper HAL9000:
The Right Wing wants to steer clear of any public mention of how they were wrong, wrong, wrong–and somebody ended up dying for it.
mcrd says
Bill Clinton and his egregious conduct regarding women throughout his life.
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p>Clinton and his dubious pardons.
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p>Hillary and her creepy past. God, talk about two people who give you the creeps.
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p>Huckabee is a smarmy weasel who will go nowhere beyond Iowa.Something about people from Hope, Arkansas that are creepy.
joeltpatterson says
There’s nothing there. No links. Just nastiness.
raj says
…recall that GWBush’s wife Laura actually killed a man in an automobile accident.
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p>Repercussions? None.
jconway says
I think BMGers of all partisan stripes should avoid any direct personal partisan attacks against our political opponents. We are better than the dirty scum politics of the right wingers and rather than dredge up mud we should win on the basis of the superiority of our ideals.
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p>On that fight, any given day, the ideals of liberals are inherently more American than the theocratic tendencies of the right wing and let no one forget that.
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p>Governors make recommendations based upon the evidence they have at the time, much like Willie Horton, Wayne Drumond had a good behavioral record during his sentence and a significant minority of the parole board was recommending a parole and Huckabee merely lobbied to get the dissenters to switch sides to expedite the process. The tragedy resulted was just an unfortunate byproduct of our flawed judicial system in general and not the result of one Governors actions. Much like Deval Patrick cannot be faulted for helping out La Guer, the good ol Duke’ for helping out Willie Horton, Huckabee should be held to the same standard.
joeltpatterson says
The Parole Board ordered Wayne Dumond to leave Arkansas. This almost never happens with parolees. If You were on a parole board, what reasons would make you order a parolee to leave the state?
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p>Huckabee did not have to lobby the parole board. He could have just let the judicial system do its usual work, and Dumond would not have been paroled. It was 4-1 against parole, then Huck made it 4-1 for parole. Huckabee personally injected himself into that process (and one of the board members got re-appointed by Huck to that $75,000 position after doing what Huck wanted).
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p>Dukakis had no idea who Willie Horton was. Horton was furloughed by a program, not by Dukakis’ specific, person support. You can see the distinction, right? Deval Patrick just advocated for La Guer’s appeal for a new trial. He didn’t abuse the powers of an executive office.
raj says
The Parole Board ordered Wayne Dumond to leave Arkansas.
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p>I am sufficiently unfamiliar with post-conviction criminal procedure, but this sounds completely strange. How is a paroled prisoner supposed to report to his/her parole officer if he/she has been ordered to leave the state?
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p>It sounds like a commutation of sentence, in everything but name.
david says
The facts are actually pretty devastating to Huckabee. This was largely about Huck’s doing the bidding of the Clinton haters — who should never be underestimated in their bizarre obsession. Read the HuffPo article again, along with the supporting documentation.
jconway says
Clinton murdered mentally retarded people, Serbian and Iraqi civilians, and while Whitewater was disproven he definitely gave Monica jobs to cover it up and got bribed by Chinese government officials during the 96′ campaign. Politicians do corrupt things, and certainly I think the corruption of a politician on either side should be exposed, personally I really liked Huckabee while disagreeing with him, until this crisis and the gift scandal came to my attention.
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p>But, dont fault my for my last shred of idealism and that is the belief that a candidate can win on the strength of his ideals and not on how much mud he slings and how much sticks to him.
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p>Let Mitts people do this, IA hates negative ads and it might hurt both their candidacies. But this is something, especially after the Duke, the Clinton years, and even Deval that we should be above. The way out of the proverbial gutter is not hopping right in.
raj says
…some of us never voted for Billy.
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p>I, being from Southern roots, new that he was a snake-oil salesman the first time I heard him speak.
joeltpatterson says
By the way, where did you hear that Clinton was bribed by the Chinese in 96? I’ve been googling around on that, and the top accusation I can find comes from Frank Gaffney… who most recently was on TV claiming Iraq had WMDs. Gaffney’s nutty.
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p>Granted, just because Gaffney believes something doesn’t make it false–but well… Iraq had WMDs?
christopher says
Could someone please give me the nutshell version of what the connection is between Wayne Dumond and Bill Clinton? What makes paroling Dumond an anti-Clinton action?
david says
was a somewhat distant relative of Clinton’s, and the daughter of a big Clinton backer. Clinton haters got themselves whipped up into a hysteria about this guy actually being innocent, and his imprisonment being a Clinton scheme. Obviously, that was not the case.
joeltpatterson says
It was an assault of three men on one, and the three men had wrenches and a claw hammer, and Dumond testified against the other two men for killing the man. Dumond claimed he had refused the other two assailants’ urgings to finish him off. They got life sentences, he got immunity. Before this rape, Dumond had 3 allegations of rape, one assault and one homicide as part of his record.
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p>More here.
joeltpatterson says
She was a third or fifth cousin of Bill Clinton. This happened while he was governor, and Clinton recused himself of any decisions made about parole for Dumond. Numerous voices on Free Republic and this tabloid reporter Steve Dunleavy claimed that Clinton’s political connections in that town had railroaded Dumond for this. This was part of broader series of lies pushed by the Wall Street Journal Editorial page and Richard Mellon Scaife–lies and rumors from low-credibility people detailed pretty well in Gene Lyons’ Fools For Scandal.
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p>She’s a grown woman now, and she was very angry when Huckabee secured this man’s release, fourteen years before the sentence was up. Huckabee met with her and her family, and told them he’d made up his mind about the release.
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p>
from the Boston Globe.
christopher says
I thought the worst the Clinton-haters ever came up with were the accusations of murdering Vince Foster and managing to get Clinton impeached. I never dreamed they would get a Governor to push for the parole of someone like this to make a point. I was pretty sure this crowd had no shame before, but this puts it beyond any doubt.
tblade says
From AP:
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p>
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p>Huckabee was also the definition of compassionate conservatism back in ’92:
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p>
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p>Incredible.
yellow-dog says
There’s a real story here, unlike Romney’s judge releasing Tavares or Willie Horton himself.
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p>I just posted a nutshell under David’s post above.
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p>1. Huckabee breathed in the conspiracy theories of anti-Clinton wingnuts, people who never would have fought for the release of Dumond, if his “victim” weren’t tied to Clinton. That says something about his judgement, friends, and politics.
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p>2. Huckabee told the press that he had no idea that Dumond was dangerous. In fact, he had received several letters from other victims of Dumond. Murray Waas turned this up and published the story with documentation and on (and off)the record interviews.
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p>3. Huckabee seems to have pushed very hard for Dumond’s release. It looks like executive session was used to hide the politics behind the decision.
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p>You can read about the corrupt sheriff and Dumond’s castration in my post above.
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p>Mark
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p>
hoyapaul says
not to mention the Huckabee denies evolution and is incapable of giving a direct answer on whether or not he is a Young Earth creationist (in the last Republican debate).
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p>Let the hits keep on coming with this guy.