Investigative reporter Murray Waas has dropped a bombshell into the campaign of Republican presidential wannabe Mike Huckabee.
Waas reveals that then-Arkansas Governor Huckabee aggressively pushed for the early release of convicted rapist Wayne Dumond despite being warned by numerous women that the convict had sexually assaulted them or their family members, and would likely strike again.
Dumond went on to rape and murder at least one other woman.
In 1996, as a newly elected governor who had received strong support from the Christian right, Huckabee was under intense pressure from conservative activists to pardon Dumond or commute his sentence. They claimed that Dumond’s travails were due to the fact that the high school cheerleader he had raped was a distant cousin of Bill Clinton, and the daughter of a major Clinton campaign contributor.
Huckabee has denied knowing of the warnings, which Waas says he kept secret because they would be politically damaging.
And how!
More here on the Waas report and here for a more nuanced view of the Dumond case.
Footnote: Willie Horton was furloughed from a Massachusetts prison on weekends while serving a life sentence for murder without the possibility of parole. This provided him the opportunity to commit armed robbery and rape, and was the basis of a damaging George H. W. Bush campaign ad in 1988 against Democratic nominee and Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis, who had supported the program.