As St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner continues to weigh charges against the St. Louis couple who displayed their firearms as protesters made their way through the private neighborhood where the pair live, President Donald Trump is offering to lend a hand to Mark and Patricia McCloskey. That’s according to Missouri Gov. Brad Parson, who spoke to the president earlier this week.
At a Tuesday press conference, Parsons blasted the attempt to prosecute the McCloskeys for protecting their property.
“The couple had every right to protect their property,” Governor Parson said in a Tuesday press briefing. “They have the ability to do that as private citizens like everyone else.”
Parson argues that the couple should not have to face legal ramifications for their second amendment right.
“But what they should not go through is a prosecutor attempting to take their constitutional rights away by plotting charges against them for protecting their property,” Parson said.
As for his conversation with the president, the governor said that, “He understands the situation in Missouri, he understands the situation in St. Louis and how out of control it is for a prosecutor to let violent criminals off and to not do their job and try to attack law-abiding citizens,” adding that Trump told Parson that he would do “everything he could” to help the couple.
So what can the president actually do for the McCloskeys? He doesn’t have the authority to order Gardner to drop her case, and if the couple were convicted on state-level charges, the president doesn’t have the power to pardon them or commute their sentences.
One possibility is that Trump or folks within his administration are reaching out to law enforcement to ensure that there’s some sort of police presence on the ground when protesters target the McCloskeys again. In fact, while talking with Sean Hannity on Fox News earlier this week, Mark McCloskey was asked about rumors that the president “sent in people” to protect the neighborhood. His response?
“That’s the information we have,” McCloskey responded. “I think we got help from the very top. That night, we had cooperation, I think, from the federal government, from the state government, the local police department. That night everybody stood up like champs but it came from the top down.
“I can’t express my appreciation enough for everybody involved,” he added.
St. Louis prosecutor Kim Gardner, meanwhile, accused Gov. Parson and President Trump of inserting politics into the case, according to the Washington Post.
Gardner said the facts of the case and the applicable laws are still under review and she would “apply them equally, regardless of the people involved.”
“It is unbelievable the Governor of the state of Missouri would seek advice from one of the most divisive leaders in our generation to overpower the discretion of a locally elected prosecutor,” Gardner said in a statement.
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