Wisconsin Republican casts doubt on innocence of Central Park's 'Exonerated Five'
A hearing in the House Oversight Committee took a turn on Wednesday when a Republican lawmaker attempted to use the so-called "Central Park Five" – now known as "The Exonerated Five" – as an example of a two-tiered system of justice that also applies to Donald Trump.
His comments came as part of the ongoing hearings investigating President Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden.
Ranking member Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) recalled some of the comments Donald Trump had made in the past about the five, who were wrongly convicted of raping a woman in the park in 1989. They were fully exonerated in 2002.
"When there is this horrific assault, a gang rape in Central Park, Donald Trump ran ads in The New York Times saying that the Central Park suspects should be given the death penalty. Of course, they turned out to be completely innocent of the offense," Raskin recalled.
"I think that is just to reinforce your point that there's a history of profound racism in the criminal justice system and rhetoric around it. There's something very disappointing about the colleagues' co-opting in prostituting the critique of the system as two-tiered on behalf of Donald Trump. I yield back."
Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI) hit back, "Just one other thing, with regard to what happened in Central Park years ago, uh, the mischaracterization of what happened there is, I'm sure very hurtful and harmful for the central park jogger. I wish you wouldn't have — there's more to that story, and you know very well. Thank you."
Though the convictions of Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, and Korey Wise were vacated, the lives of the teens were upended and they spent between 7 and 13 years in prison. Trump's ad in the Times called for the death penalty for the boys.
It wasn't until known rapist, Matias Reyes confessed to the attack and DNA evidence proved that he was the attacker that the accused were freed.
Salaam won a primary contest for a New York City council seat in Harlem by a landslide this month and is expected to easily win the election.
Grothman claimed that their "innocence" was "mischaracterized" by Raskin.
See the video clips below or at the link here:
Raskin:
Leave a Comment
Related Post