Matt Bevin, Formerly Our Nation’s Trumpiest Governor, Has Created a Real Mess for Himself

“Am I perfect? No…”

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Matt Bevin, former Republican governor of Kentucky, exited office less than a week ago after narrowly losing his reelection bid to Democrat Andy Beshear only to land himself in the middle of a new controversy. On his way out of the governor’s mansion, the Republican issued at least 419 commutations and 161 pardons. According to the Louisville Courier-Journal, “The beneficiaries include one offender convicted of raping a child, another who hired a hit man to kill his business partner and a third who killed his parents.” Some of those pardoned reportedly have ties to Bevin’s political donors. One man pardoned for homicide is from a family that raised $21,500 to relieve Bevin’s campaign debt from his 2015 campaign.

Bevin took to Twitter on Friday to defend himself in a 20-part thread: 

Bevin is now facing condemnation from members of his own party. On Friday, Kentucky Senate President Robert Stivers called for a federal investigation. “From what we know of former Governor Bevin’s extreme pardons and commutations, the Senate Republican Majority condemns his actions as a travesty and perversion of justice,” Stivers said. US Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called the pardons “completely inappropriate. I expect he has the power to do it, but looking at the examples of people who were incarcerated as the result of heinous crimes, no, I don’t approve of them.”

In a profile this fall, my colleague Patrick Caldwell wrote that Bevin’s reelection, in theory, should’ve been a cinch. But apparently the Trumpiest governor in the country, couldn’t get out of his own way:

Bevin’s unpopularity appears to be less about Kentuckians rejecting his conservative agenda than voters growing tired of their governor’s unfiltered, Trumpian persona and penchant for generating headlines with ill-advised remarks. “Many Kentuckians see their governor as the personification of the state,” says Al Cross, the longtime dean of the state’s political press at the Louisville Courier-Journal and now a journalism professor at the University of Kentucky. “And this is a state that often comes in for ridicule. Socioeconomically and demographically, culturally, we get looked down on by people on the coasts. And often get made fun of. And Kentuckians are sensitive to that. They don’t want their governor to be a jerk.”

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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