It must be galling for former Tennessee Republican House Speaker Glen Casada and his former chief of staff Cade Cothren to think they have a former Democratic president to thank for their pardons.
It will be the same for former Hixson Republican state Rep. Robin Smith if President Donald Trump pardons her as he did her co-conspirators in the four-year state House mail scandal that was concluded in September.
The White House said the president approved the pardons because the Biden Justice Department “over-prosecuted these individuals for a minor issue.”
Trump obviously saw the prosecutions as the same type of “lawfare” he said had been perpetrated against him by Biden, or at least was told that it was.
The pardons erased a three-year prison term for Casada and a two-and-a-half-year term for Cothren, who prosecutors said created a company — Phoenix Solutions — under a fictitious name to handle constituent mail for legislative members that he, Casada and Smith could solicit.