Frank Gaffney, the head of the Center for Security Policy and a national security adviser to Ted Cruz, managed to combine a number of his interests into his “Secure Freedom Minute” broadcast today, warning the GOP against bipartisan efforts to reduce mass incarceration because they will result in the release of people who will likely vote Democratic and who may have converted to Islam in prison.
Gaffney criticized Democratic Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe for his executive order restoring voting rights to 200,000 people who had served time for felonies but who had previously been barred from voting for life by one of the toughest disenfranchisement policies in the country. Gaffney lamented that the expanded voting rights “could well skew the outcome in his state.”
Yet, he said, some Republicans are supporting federal criminal justice reform legislation that would help to reduce inflated mandatory minimum sentences, thus letting some people out of prison early who, he warned, might vote Democratic or become violent jihadists.
“Unfortunately, problematic as these felons’ future votes may be for the GOP of the country,” he said, “of immediate concern is the impact of their release on public safety. That is especially so since a significant portion of those getting out early will be prison converts to Islamic supremacism and its jihad. This may be a bipartisan mistake, but it’s still a mistake.”
