OPINION:
You’ve probably never heard of Caleb Bailey, but he is a political prisoner who has been locked behind bars for almost 10 years, with five more years on his sentence. His conviction and long prison sentence are a travesty and a miscarriage of justice that should be immediately rectified.
Anyone who has publicly supported President Trump should cringe when hearing the facts of his case.
In Mr. Bailey’s state of residence, Maryland, violent rapists, armed robbers and kidnappers have received shorter prison sentences. Yet Caleb Bailey is not violent. He has never in his life committed a violent act. Not once.
So why is he in prison serving a 16-year, eight-month term?
His crime: In April 2016, Mr. Bailey and his father were elected as Trump delegates to the Republican National Convention from Maryland. Maryland is, of course, one of America’s most politically liberal and Trump-hostile states.
On May 5, 2016, and just seven days after Mr. Bailey’s name appeared in local media for being chosen as a Trump delegate, Mr. Bailey’s home was raided by a squad of 42(!) heavily armed agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. They presented a search warrant and then occupied and ransacked his home for more than eight hours.
It didn’t help Mr. Bailey’s cause that he had posted Trump campaign signs in his front yard and had Trump bumper stickers.
After conducting their arguably illegal search and seizure that violated Mr. Bailey’s Fourth Amendment rights, the agents seized and hauled away in three large trucks nearly $200,000 of his private property, most of which were items not on the search warrant.
Among the many outrages of this case is that much of his life’s savings, including valuable coins, were never returned to him. They mysteriously disappeared.
Mr. Bailey was charged with illegal possession of several firearms (he was a gun collector), including 37-millimeter safety flare launchers, which used to be sold over the counter at Walmart and sporting goods stores. None of the guns was ever used in the commission of any crime.
They also found in their illegal search a stack of old DVDs containing child pornography. Mr. Bailey informed the agents that the videos had been sent to him unsolicited in the mail. There was zero evidence that he was a distributor, and an electronic expert testified that the material was dormant.
As incriminating evidence that the feds were out to get him, Mr. Bailey was handcuffed and sent to a maximum security jail in Baltimore, even though agents on the scene had told Mr. Bailey and his father that his offenses were so minor that he deserved to be sent to a “low” security jail. He was denied bail.
Before his trial, the prosecutors told Mr. Bailey’s attorney that they would ask for an outrageous sentence of life in prison unless he took a plea bargain. With this harrowing prospect of decades in prison, he took a plea deal.
The typical sentence for illegal gun ownership was zero to 10 years. The prosecutors recommended 10 years for each infraction. Again, none of these guns was ever used in the commission of a crime because Mr. Bailey never committed any crime.
Lawyers who have looked into the case say that, for a first-time offender, the typical punishment for these offenses would have been probation or less than a year in jail, not 16 years.
Mr. Bailey has already served 10 years, so even if you believe every allegation is true, he has served more than his time for his crimes. Prison officials describe his behavior while behind bars as “exemplary.” He has declared remorse for his actions.
In a letter to Mr. Trump, Tony Covington, a tough-on-crime Maryland state’s attorney, wrote that in his entire career, “I have never offered an opinion or recommendation on the commutation of someone’s sentence. I do so now because I believe that justice can best be served by granting Mr. Bailey’s [pardon] request.”
The Washington Post and others have accused Mr. Trump of abusing his pardon powers to gain freedom for his political supporters. They have the story upside down. In too many of these cases, the men and women who have been granted clemency were unjustly incarcerated by Trump-hating prosecutors and judges simply because they supported Mr. Trump. They were put behind bars because of their political beliefs.
Caleb Bailey is Exhibit A. Almost 10 years of his life have already been stolen from him, and the Trump haters want him to serve another six behind bars. That is the ultimate miscarriage of justice.
Please, Mr. President: Free Caleb Bailey.
• Stephen Moore is a co-founder of Unleash Prosperity.
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