Of course he did.
https://www.wsj.com/...58?mod=djemwhatsnews Missouri Governor Pardons Gun-Waving St. Louis Couple
O’FALLON, Mo.— Missouri Gov. Mike Parson announced Tuesday that he made good on his promise to pardon a couple who gained notoriety for pointing guns at social justice demonstrators as they marched past the couple’s home in a luxury St. Louis enclave last year.
Mr. Parson, a Republican, on Friday pardoned Mark McCloskey, who pleaded guilty in June to misdemeanor fourth-degree assault and was fined $750, and Patricia McCloskey, who pleaded guilty to misdemeanor harassment and was fined $2,000.
“Mark McCloskey has publicly stated that if he were involved in the same situation, he would have the exact same conduct,” the McCloskeys’ lawyer Joel Schwartz said Tuesday. “He believes that the pardon vindicates that conduct.”
Mark McCloskey, who announced in May that he was running for a U.S. Senate seat in Missouri, was unapologetic after the plea hearing.
“I’d do it again,” he said from the courthouse steps in downtown St. Louis. “Any time the mob approaches me, I’ll do what I can to put them in imminent threat of physical injury because that’s what kept them from destroying my house and my family.” He echoed those comments in a statement issued Tuesday by his campaign and added: “Today we are incredibly thankful that Gov. Mike Parson righted this wrong and granted us pardons.”
Because the charges were misdemeanors, the McCloskeys didn’t face the possibility of losing their law licenses or their rights to own firearms.
Mr. Parson’s legal team has been working through a backlog of clemency requests for months.
He hasn’t yet taken action on longtime inmate Kevin Strickland, who several prosecutors now say is innocent of a 1978 Kansas City triple homicide. Parson could pardon Strickland, but he has said he’s not convinced he is innocent.
Missouri’s Democratic leader contrasted Mr. Parson’s treatment of Mr. Strickland’s case with the McCloskeys in bitter denunciations of the governor’s action.
“It is beyond disgusting that Mark and Patricia McCloskey admitted they broke the law and within weeks are rewarded with pardons, yet men like Kevin Strickland, who has spent more than 40 years in prison for crimes even prosecutors now say he didn’t commit, remain behind bars with no hope of clemency,” Missouri House Democratic Minority Leader Crystal Quade said in a statement.
Democratic state Rep. LaKeySha Bosley said, “The governor’s stunt ominously underscores that under his watch, justice belongs only to the privileged elite in this state.”
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