Huckabee in the Situation Room–12-05-07
Here is a transcript of the interview by Wolf Blitzer of Mike Huckabee on 12-05-07. This interview deals with one topic, in particular that I want to comment on, but I will do that in another article, later this evening.
That’s my take!
Larry
BLITZER: He’s the underdog-turned-strong-competitor in the Republican presidential race, and now he’s under fire over whether he was tough enough on criminals when he was Arkansas’ governor.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BLITZER: And joining us now, the governor — the former governor of Arkansas, that is, the current Republican presidential candidate, Governor Mike Huckabee.
Thanks very much for coming in.
MIKE HUCKABEE (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: My pleasure, Wolf.
BLITZER: Let’s talk about this Wayne Dumond case, which all of a sudden has become an issue. People are making very serious accusations against you, including Lois Davidson, the mother of this young woman who was raped and killed after Wayne Dumond was released from prison.
She’s blaming you in part. And I want you to listen to what she said on the “CBS Early Show” earlier today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LOIS DAVIDSON, MOTHER OF MURDER-RAPE VICTIM: I don’t think Mr. Huckabee ought to be president. I don’t think he should be running the country.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because?
DAVIDSON: With a — because I don’t think he did enough background research on Wayne Dumond’s life, and if he didn’t do that kind of research, I don’t think he is going to be good for the country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: All right. Well, that’s a powerful statement from a woman. Our heart goes out to that woman, of course.
But we need your response.
HUCKABEE: My heart goes out to the Shields’ family. There’s no way to ever say anything that would bring some type of resolution to the understandable grief they have.
And quite frankly, I don’t blame people for being angry, whether they are angry at me or they want to be angry at the governor before me who actually commuted his sentence, which I didn’t do. Or angry at the parole board for paroling him. And if I’m the object of the anger, I understand that. I accept that.
BLITZER: Well, what — but let me ask you this…
HUCKABEE: There’s nothing bright about this situation. It’s a horrible thing.
BLITZER: Well, what responsibility do you have in this horrible tragedy that developed?
HUCKABEE: Wolf, my only official action in this was I denied his commutation. It was actual given by Jim Guy Tucker when Bill Clinton was governor back in 1992.
It was on my desk. I did consider it. I even thought that he met the criteria for parole in support of it.
I wish I hadn’t. But I didn’t parole him. And governors don’t parole people in Arkansas, nor can they stop a parole. And that’s the tragedy, I think, that this went through several years and many different people. And all of us failed. That’s the truth. All of us failed.
BLITZER: Because there’s a letter that you apparently wrote that was published in “The Arkansas Times” to Wayne Dumond in which you said to him, “My desire is that you be released from prison. I feel that parole is the best way for your reintroduction to society to take place.”
Did you write him such a letter?
HUCKABEE: I wrote it because that’s when I denied him, and a parole meant that he had to have had supervision. Had I granted his commutation, there would have been no supervision at all. I wasn’t comfortable with that.
He had an exemplary prison record, he had the recommendations, he had met all the criteria, and that’s why I think all of us are very sad. But I did not commute his sentence. And his sentence was commuted several years before I became governor. That made him parole eligible. I not only denied his commutation once, actually three or four times when he presented it in the course of the time that I had the case during my tenure as governor.
BLITZER: There was an article written back in 2002 in “The Arkansas Times” that quoted three former parole members basically as saying that you influenced them in a significant way to let this guy go. One, Charles Chastain, writing, “He made it obvious that he thought Dumond had gotten a raw deal and wanted us to take another look at it.”
Another, Ermer Pondexter, “I signed the (parole) papers because the governor wanted Dumond paroled.”
And a third, Deborah Springer-Suttlar, “For Governor Huckabee to say that he had no influence with the board is something that he knows to be untrue. He came before the board and made his views known that (Dumond) should have been paroled.”
Are they telling the truth?
HUCKABEE: Wolf, they are not. The reality is that I was invited to the board by the chairman, Leroy Brownlee (ph). He asked me to come as the new governor back in 1996.
I talked to them. The discussion came up, but it wasn’t about Dumond. The overall discussion was about my general policy toward clemency.
Those are three people out of seven that waited six years before they ever came forward and said there was pressure. And every one of them had been appointed by either Bill Clinton or Jim Guy Tucker before me.
If as a brand-new Republican governor I was able to go in and convince a board, a board that every one of whom had been appointed by Democrat governors before me, I’m a pretty persuasive guy. And the other members of that board would give you a different story.
And interestingly, these people who make these allegations not only did so six years later, but did so after I did not reappoint them to $75,000-a-year jobs, to which they had been appointed by a previous Democratic governor.
BLITZER: So the charge you’re making is they were politicizing, they were blaming you on political reasons, is that what you’re saying?
HUCKABEE: And, Wolf, that’s what is so heartbreaking about this. There are families who are truly, understandably and reasonably grief- stricken. And for people to now politicize these deaths and to try to make a political case out of it, rather than to simply understand that a system failed and that we ought to extend our grief and heartfelt sorrow to these families, I just regret that politics is reduced to that.
BLITZER: Let me ask you — we are almost out of time — one final question on this national intelligence estimate that was just released on Iran four years ago, apparently stopping its work on a nuclear weapons program.
The other night, last night, you were asked about it and reporters there thought you seemed to be oblivious, you didn’t even know what was even in this NIE even though it’s been out for about 24 hours. Had you not been aware that this new national intelligence estimate had been released?
HUCKABEE: I had been up about 20 hours at that time, and I had not even so much as had the opportunity to look at a newspaper. We were literally going from early in the morning until late that night and talking to guys like you. And so I had not had an opportunity to be briefed on it.
There are going to be times out there on the campaign trail, Wolf — you’ve been on the trail, you know — that candidates are literally driven from one event to the next. And it would have been nice had someone been able to first say here’s some things that are going on, that are taking place. That didn’t happen. It’s going to happen again.
That’s what exactly it was about yesterday. We barely came up for air yesterday in Iowa when we were there campaigning.
BLITZER: Governor Huckabee, thanks very much for spending a few moments with us. Good luck.
HUCKABEE: Thank you very much, Wolf.
