On the tail of the arrest of the Speaker of the House’s husband for drunk driving, some are recalling the time when President Biden dismissed drunk driving as unworthy of felony punishment. Biden’s comments may make Paul Pelosi feel better about putting lives at risk on the road, but it may not make the thousands of families who have lost loved ones to drunk drivers feel any better about their heartrending loss.
The comments came when Biden appeared at a January Democrat candidates forum in Des Moines, Iowa, in 2020 when the topic of illegal aliens came up.
During his answer, Biden lamented that many children of illegals sit at home unsure that their parents will return home from work because they may be snapped up by Immigration officials sometime during the day.
One example he gave is that an illegal alien might be arrested and then deported after being caught drunk driving.
But during his comments, he also insisted that he does not consider drunk driving to be a felony offense, the Washington Examiner reported at the time.
During the forum the then candidate for president said, “They [the children] go off to school wondering whether their mom comes and picks them up, is she not going to be there because an ICE agent was there to arrest her? Or she takes them to the doctor, that she’s going to not be there because she is ‘undocumented’ and an ICE agent is going to pick him up.”
He then added, “You change the culture by saying you are going to get fired. You are fired if, in fact, you do that. You only arrest for the purpose of dealing with a felony that’s committed, and I don’t count drunk driving as a felony.”
The video of Biden’s proclamation is interesting because the Democrat audience during the taping were stunned to silence when Biden dismissed the severity of drunk driving. And even the two hosts of the event seemed unsure of what to say to Biden’s rant.
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Of course, candidate Biden was completely wrong. There are many instances when drunk drivers can be charged with a felony. While it is considered a misdemeanor in early cases, it can be charged as a felony for chronic, repeat offenses, as well as when someone dies as a result of the act, according to Legal Match.
The comment, of course, is illustrative of Biden’s soft on crime stance in that Biden was attempting to characterize drunk driving as a lesser offense, not worthy of resulting in deportation. And Biden was responding to the news that a high number of arrests of illegals usually occur due to police actions during drunk driving arrests.
In 2018, for instance, about half of the 158,000 illegals “administratively arrested” by ICE had DUI charges or convictions, the Washington Examiner noted that year.
While Biden was desperately looking for ways to cut back on the amount of illegals deported by proclaiming drunk driving to be harmless enough to avoid felony charges, his dismissal of the offense is certainly welcome by Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi.
Mr. Pelosi was pulled over and taken to a Napa County police station for drunk driving after crashing his car on March 28. He was arrested and posted a $5,000 bail, but it appeared that charges were not going to be filed because “do you know who I am” seems to have won the day early in the case.
However, by June 23, he was officially charged after outraged citizens began asking why Mr. Pelosi was let loose when few other people would have been given such lenient treatment.
Whatever ends up happening to the House Speaker’s husband, Biden’s reckless dismissing of drunk driving just to serve his lenient treatment of illegal aliens is as disgusting as it comes.
In 2020, 11,654 people were killed by drunk drivers, a 14 percent increase over 2019, the U.S. Department of Transportation reported. This is no less than the devastation of thousands of American families.
America should have been outraged in 2020 when Biden originally disgorged his position on drunk driving and we should be outraged still today over his callous dismissal of this truly murderous crime.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
