President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday excoriated President Joe Biden for commuting the sentences of "37 of the worst killers" and leaving victims' families and friends "further devastated."
Biden on Monday commuted the sentences for 37 out of 40 federal inmates on death row, converting them to life in prison without parole.
"Joe Biden just commuted the Death Sentence on 37 of the worst killers in our Country. When you hear the acts of each, you won't believe that he did this. Makes no sense. Relatives and friends are further devastated. They can't believe this is happening!" Trump posted Tuesday morning on Truth Social.
Trump, who will be sworn into office Jan. 20, restarted federal executions after a nearly 20-year pause during his first term in the White House from 2017 to 2021.
He has spoken frequently of expanding executions. In a speech announcing his 2024 campaign, Trump called for those "caught selling drugs to receive the death penalty for their heinous acts," and later promised to execute drug and human smugglers.
Victims' families and others affected by crimes that resulted in federal death row convictions expressed anger at the commutations.
Tim Timmerman, whose daughter, Rachel, was thrown into a Michigan lake in 1997 to keep her from testifying in a rape trial, said Biden's decision to commute the killer's sentence offered families "only pain."
"Where's the justice in just giving him a prison bed to die comfortably in?" Timmerman said on WOOD-TV.
Heather Turner, whose mother, Donna Major, was killed in a 2017 South Carolina bank robbery, called the commutation of the killer's sentence a "clear gross abuse of power" in a Facebook post.
"At no point did the president consider the victims," Turner wrote. "He, and his supporters, have blood on their hands."
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this story.
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Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.
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