WATCH: Biden hammered for choosing ‘depraved criminals over their victims’

Reaction on Monday turned white hot to Joe Biden’s decision to deliver clemency to dozens of convicted murderers who now will not be executed but will spend the rest of their lives behind bars, with one senator accusing the Democrat of siding with “depraved criminals.”

Fox News reported Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., didn’t pull punches.

“Once again, Democrats side with depraved criminals over their victims, public order, and common decency,” he said on social media. “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.”

Biden actually granted clemency to 37 convicts service time on federal death row.

The other end of the political spectrum was all in favor of Biden’s agenda, with Rep. Ayanna Pressley, a far-left Democrat from Massachusetts, complaining that the convicts all were the victims of racism.

“The president’s decision to commute the death sentences of 37 individuals on federal death row is a historic and groundbreaking act of compassion that will save lives, address the deep racial disparities in our criminal legal system, and send a powerful message about redemption, decency, and humanity,” she claimed.

“The death penalty is a racist, flawed, and fundamentally unjust punishment that has no place in any society.”

Actually, Biden left the death sentences standing for several select mass murderers.

Andy McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor , said the decision made by Biden actually should have been left to Congress.

He told “America’s Newsroom” Biden interfered with the constitutional congressional role in issuing punishments for federal cases, and Biden’s agenda was an “abuse of the pardon power.”

“I think it’s interesting, Julie [Banderas], that he didn’t give commutations on the death penalty to the three death penalty or death row inmates that were dealt with by the Biden Justice Department and the Obama-Biden Justice Department. So with respect to those family members and the grief and pain they’re going through, he couldn’t look them in the eye and say ‘oh, progressive principles don’t allow us to go forward with the death penalty here.’ But he wiped the slate clean on everyone else and he did it in a way that is a categorical change of the law. That’s for Congress to make, it’s an abuse of the pardon power to use it that way.”

He explained in a commentary that Congress could choose to change the law and banish the death penalty.

“If, as progressives claim, the nation has evolved beyond the death penalty, there would be an easy way to make that manifest: Congress could enact a law prohibiting the death penalty. But it hasn’t because, far from a consensus against capital punishment, the public broadly approves of it. Unable to get the constitutional or legislative change that aligns with his stated policy preference — a preference in the execution of which Biden, as he has been wont to do for a half-century, insults our intelligence — the president has abused the pardon power. He has usurped Congress’s power to make the laws, which includes the authority to prescribe punishment for federal criminal offenses.”

Among those benefitting from Biden’s actions were Thomas Steven Sanders, convicted of kidnapping and murdering a 12-year-old in Louisiana, and Richard Allen Jackson, convicted of kidnapping, rape and murder of a 22-year-old jogger in North Carolina.

Left standing were the death penalties for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, convicted of the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013 and Robert Bowers, on death row for the Tree of Life synagogue mass shooting in 2018 that left 11 people dead.

Also Dylann Roof, convicted of killing members of a Bible study at an African American church in 2015.

Biden started off his clemency campaign by giving a get-out-of-jail free card to son Hunter, who was convicted on multiple gun felonies and pleaded guilty to tax felonies. He had been facing years in jail.

Then Biden crashed the prison doors with clemency actions for another 1,500 various criminals.

The Daily Caller News Foundation also reported the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) chapter representing officers in Columbus, Ohio, “slammed President Joe Biden’s Monday decision to commute the death sentence of a man who murdered a Columbus police officer in 2005.”

The convict was Daryl Lawrence, and he was facing a sentence for the killing of Columbus Division of Police Officer Bryan Hurst during an attempted bank robbery.

The FOP called Biden’s decision an “inexcusable affront.”

“The decision to commute the sentence of Daryl Lawrence is an inexcusable affront to the memory of Officer Bryan Hurst and the law enforcement community as a whole,” said spokesman Brian Steele. “Bryan made the ultimate sacrifice, and this decision undermines the justice that was rightfully served for his murder. We owe it to Bryan and to all officers who put their lives on the line every day to continue advocating for justice.”

Fraternal Order of Police Capital City Lodge #9 Condemns Commutation of Columbus Cop Killers Federal Death Sentence pic.twitter.com/WhquchlZ0z

— FOP Capital City Lodge 9 (@capcityfop) December 23, 2024

The White House issued a statement claiming Biden has worked during his decades in politics for “ensuring a fair and effective justice system.”

“He believes that America must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level, except in cases of terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder – which is why today’s actions apply to all but those cases. When President Biden came into office, his administration imposed a moratorium on federal executions, and his actions today will prevent the next administration from carrying out the execution sentences that would not be handed down under current policy and practice.”

The statement confirmed Biden is not done yet, either.

“The president will take additional steps to provide meaningful second chances and continue to review additional pardons and commutations.”

Biden commutes sentences for nearly all federal death-row inmates in final month of presidency