President Joe Biden (right) is facing pressure to pardon former Baltimore prosecutor Marilyn Mosby.
“Put an end to this modern-day witch hunt and immediately pardon Marilyn Mosby,” said civil rights attorney Ben Crump.
Mosby, Baltimore’s former top prosecutor, is awaiting sentencing for her federal mortgage fraud conviction.
One of the powers that comes from the presidency is the power to pardon those convicted of a crime.
Infamously, former President Gerald Ford pardoned his predecessor former President Richard Nixon for his actions during the Watergate scandal.
President Ford said that he did so to heal a divided nation.
Likewise, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) recently created controversy when he said that President Joe Biden should pardon his immediate predecessor to show that he is a bigger man than former President Donald Trump.
But what about President Biden pardoning Mosby, 44, as Crump challenged him to do?
Baltimore’s former state attorney from 2015 to 2022 could receive a 40-year prison sentence after her conviction earlier this year.
Sentencing will probably occur next week.
Black America Web reported, “Civil rights attorney Ben Crump said a full pardon application for Mosby was submitted on Tuesday and, like others advocating for her pardon, suggested that the former State Attorney for Baltimore was the victim of retaliatory efforts by political adversaries who resented her work holding the police accountable for their criminal actions in the Freddie Gray case.”
In a statement, Crump said, “The persecution of Black female progressive prosecutors is indicative of a disturbing trend that should have ended with the last administration. But yet, here we are. Marilyn Mosby will be sentenced later this month and is facing a staggering 40 years in federal prison. Not only were the charges in this case completely trumped up, as Marilyn was accused of using money from her own retirement account, but this entire case is driven by a political agenda. President Biden, we implore you to not follow in the treacherous steps of your predecessor.”
Many other prominent figures like Bakari Sellers, Angela Rye and Harry Daniels have joined approximately 50 attorneys in endorsing a presidential pardon for the former Baltimore prosecutor.
Attorney Elie Mystal, who also writes a column for The Nation, said that Mosby’s case is “special” and that she is the victim of a “wrongful prosecution.”
Mystal wrote, “I would not necessarily endorse Mosby’s prosecutorial record, or really any prosecutor’s record, but I can support the efforts to see her pardoned, nonetheless. That’s because I can spot a wrongful prosecution when I see one. Mosby is on the receiving end of a malicious political prosecution over the kind of infraction that normally goes unpunished. The Department of Justice—the same one that has not prosecuted Trump for any of his financial crimes and slow-walked charging him in connection with the White domestic terrorist attack on the Capitol—was all over Mosby for fraudulently accessing her own retirement money. The federal prosecutor leading the investigation into Mosby’s finances is a man named Leo Wise. Wise and Mosby had run-ins before, over Wise’s selective investigations into members of the Congressional Black Caucus and what the NAACP calls his ‘refusal to seek a just outcome for those wrongfully convicted—people of color.’ Many people might know Wise as one of the lead investigators in the DOJ’s case against Hunter Biden.”
Mystal added that any case that Wise touches is “suspect.”
Writer Dayvon Lane of Afro wrote that, “Federal prosecution and conviction of Marilyn Mosby is an act of the law enforcement establishment punishing her for taking stances against their racist policy positions on criminal justice issues.”
More than a dozen civil rights organizations, like the NAACP, also penned an open letter to Biden, urging him to pardon Mosby.
The letter states, “Ms. Mosby’s focus on accountability and racial equity raised the ire of highly placed officials including the U.S. Attorney General and other law enforcement officials…Mosby [in 2020] vowed to prosecute any federal agents who engaged in unlawful actions against Baltimore citizens. Two months later, Attorney Mosby learned she was under federal investigation, a move widely perceived as retaliation for her courageous stance in protecting her constituents’ constitutional rights.”
The letter continues, “We expect that political persecutions and malicious prosecutions pursued during the Trump Administration would not continue in the Biden Administration. Ms. Mosby’s case is not the only one—it is the latest and one of the most egregious cases. This matter should be corrected because it is a miscarriage of justice and an example of the last administration’s misuse of authority.”
Mosby got indicted on four counts back in 2022 because of allegations surrounding a withdrawal from her retirement account in 2020.
The indictment stated that Mosby “willfully and knowingly” lied about experiencing “adverse financial consequences stemming from the Coronavirus.”
Furthermore, the indictment states that Mosby lied on a loan application because she was in arrears to the IRS.
Mosby took out $40,000 from her retirement because she was having financial difficulties because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
That year, Mosby received a $10,000 pay raise that bumped her salary to $248,000.
After she withdrew $36,000, Mosby used the money for a down payment on a second home in Florida, to lower the interest rate on the property.
Mosby, who was seeking reelection at the time, was charged months before election day.
While Biden is in the middle of competitive battle for the White House, many Mosby supporters are urging him to act on this case while he still has the chance.
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