McConnell: Bevin pardons ‘completely inappropriate’

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) criticized fellow Republican and former Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin on Friday, saying a string of controversial pardons he made shortly before leaving office were “completely inappropriate.”

“Honestly, I don’t approve. It seems to me it was completely inappropriate,” McConnell told reporters in Kentucky, according to WKYT, a local TV station. 

“I expect he had the power to do it, but looking at the examples of people who were incarcerated as a result of heinous crimes — no, I don’t approve of it,” McConnell added. 

Bevin, who lost his reelection bid, has made headlines during the past week for a string of controversial pardons he signed on his way out of office. 

The Courier-Journal reported that one of the pardons was for a man convicted of reckless homicide whose brother hosted a fundraiser for Bevin’s campaign. 

Patrick Brian Baker was convicted for the 2014 home invasion death of a man in front of his wife and three children.

In a statement to the newspaper, Bevin called the evidence against Baker “sketchy at best,” adding: “I am not convinced that justice has been served on the death of Donald Mills, nor am I convinced that the evidence has proven the involvement of Patrick Baker as a murderer.”