WorldNetDaily columnist Rachel Alexander is currently its greatest champion for Steve Stockman, the former right-wing congressman sent to prison for a raft of wire fraud and money laundering charges that she has reimagined as a Deep State conspiracy. She has now found a way to work him into the coronavirus pandemic.
In her April 6 column, Alexander notes that some prisons are releasing nonviolent criminals since prisons have become hot spots for the spread of coronavirus, which brings her to complain that one particular criminal has yet to be released:
Former Republican Rep. Steve Stockman is over 60, has diabetes (considered high risk for the coronavirus), a lung condition and is wrongfully in prison due to a politically charged Justice Department under the Obama administration. He has not been released and feels like he’s under a ticking time bomb. He said that jail staff instructed the inmates to “shelter in place” for 14 days. But, “Forcing inmates to stay near each other for 14 days is like telling people on a ship the best solution is to all get everyone together in one room to stop the spread.” Stockman can’t go outside to get away from the other inmates since that’s been banned due to the shutdown. The air conditioning has been turned very cold in the hopes that it will stop the virus, but it’s probably just spreading it quicker through the ducts. He told me, “They are turning the warehouse into a hospital for prisoners. We are jokingly calling it a morgue for us.”
[…]Stockman says it’s bizarre that Iran, perhaps the most oppressive country in the world, has released 85,000 of its prisoners, while the U.S. is just letting a few types out. The prisons are mostly ignoring the directive from Barr about the sick and elderly nonviolent prisoners. There are 14 Democratic and Republican senators – including Charles Grassley and Mike Lee – the ACLU and the ACU, over 40 former DOJ officials and nine bipartisan advocacy organizations that have called for the release of elderly prisoners who are at risk. Stockman’s wife, Patti, has made a video for Trump pleading for her husband’s release. When Republicans and Democrats join together on something, it must be taken seriously.
Despite Alexander’s sleight-of-hand suggestion, those Democrats and Republicans did not “join together” on releasing Stockman from prison, only the at-risk elderly.
Meanwhile, Alexander’s conspiracy theory is not holding up well in the real world; in January, a federal appeals court upheld Stockman’s conviction, pointing out that “The evidence shows that there was only one scheme, a scheme to separate wealthy donors from their money and to spend that money at Stockman’s pleasure and direction.”