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Mike Huckabee is a shady politician with a history of offending the Nation of Israel. In the mid-2010s, Huckabee compared abortion and the Iran Nuclear Deal to the Holocaust. Huckabee refused to apologize for the Iran comments which included stating the agreement “will take Israelis and march them to the door of the oven.” In 2018, Huckabee accepted $50,000 to visit Qatar and praised the country in a tweet without disclosing the payment. Huckabee’s time as Governor also faced scrutiny for his grant of clemency to a criminal who later murdered four police officers. |
2014: Mike Huckabee Compared Abortion To The Holocaust. According to an opinion piece by Luke Brinker in Salon, “Huckabee then suggested that abortion was an even worse atrocity than the Holocaust. ‘If you felt something incredibly powerful at Auschwitz and Birkenau over the 11 million killed worldwide and the 1.5 million killed on those grounds, cannot we feel something extraordinary about 55 million murdered in our own country in the wombs of their mothers?’ he said.” [Luke Brinker - Salon, 11/25/14]
2015: Mike Huckabee Refused To Apologize After Stating Iran Nuclear Deal “Will Take Israelis And March Them To The Door Of The Oven.” According to POLITICO, "Mike Huckabee refused to apologize for saying over the weekend that President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran 'will take the Israelis and march them to the door of the oven.' 'I will not apologize and I will not recant,' Huckabee said during an appearance on Fox’s 'The Five' on Monday. 'The last time the world did not take seriously threats that someone was going to kill massive amounts of Jews, we ended up seeing 6 million Jews murdered,' Huckabee said." [POLITICO, 7/27/15]
2018: Mike Huckabee Received $50,000 To Visit Qatar And Praised The Country In A Tweet After Without Disclosing The Payment. According to Mother Jones, "In January, Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor and one-time presidential candidate, took a trip to Qatar. Upon his return, Huckabee, whose daughter is White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, praised the small Persian Gulf state in a tweet.Huckabee did not note that he had recently been paid $50,000 by a lobbyist for Qatar. On Friday, Joseph Allaham, a former owner of kosher steakhouses in New York, retroactively registered with the Justice Department as a foreign agent for Qatar. In the paperwork disclosing his activity on behalf of the Qatari government, Allaham noted that he had paid $50,000 on November 23, 2017, to Blue Diamond Horizons, a Florida corporation run by Huckabee. The filing stated that Huckabee received this money as an 'honorarium for visit.' And the $50,000 payment, according to the disclosure, came from the $1.45 million Qatar had paid Allaham in part for 'community engagement' to benefit Qatar—actions that included making 'charitable contributions and arranging meetings in the United States and visits to Qatar.'" [Mother Jones, 6/19/18]
Mike Huckabee Received 14 Ethics Complaints During His Tenure As Governor. According to POLITICO, "But his career has also been colored by 14 ethics complaints and a volley of questions about his integrity, ranging from his management of campaign cash to his use of a nonprofit organization to subsidize his income to his destruction of state computer files on his way out of the governor’s office. Some of the ethics complaints deal with fairly penny ante stuff, and most were dismissed. They did, however, yield five admonitions and $1,000 in fines from Arkansas’ Ethics Commission and, perhaps more significantly, a pattern that strategists for two competing GOP campaigns privately predict could become fodder for attacks playing on the culture-of-corruption theme Democrats used to pound Republicans in the 2006 midterm elections." [POLITICO, 11/21/07]
2007: Mike Huckabee Spent $13,000 In State Money To Destroy Computer Hard Drives In Governor’s Office. According to POLITICO, "Before leaving office Jan. 9, Huckabee spent $13,000 in state funds to destroy the hard drives of nearly 100 computers in the governor’s office. He pointed out that he had backed up the data and argued that the hard drive destruction was standard practice to prevent the dissemination of sensitive information related to employees or constituents. Critics suggested he was hiding something. But the ethics commission dismissed complaints alleging violations of record management rules." [POLITICO, 11/21/07]
Mike Huckabee Accepted At Least $130,000 In Gifts As Governor
Mike Huckabee Accepted At Least $130,000 In Gifts As Governor Of Arkansas. According to POLITICO, "According to Huckabee’s disclosure reports, he accepted more than 300 gifts worth at least $130,000, ranging from $3,700 cowboy boots to a $600 chainsaw and $250 worth of dental care. Plenty of politicians accept gifts of all sorts, but Huckabee had problems with Arkansas gift rules that bar public officials from accepting rewards for official action and require them to report the value and source of gifts." [POLITICO, 11/21/07]
2009: Mike Huckabee Granted Clemency To Maurice Clemmons Despite Opposition From Prosecutors. According to Pioneer Press, "Nine years ago, then-Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee granted clemency to Clemmons, commuting his lengthy prison sentence over the protests of prosecutors." [Pioneer Press, 11/29/09]
1990: Maurice Clemmons Sentenced To 60 Years For Burglary And Theft. According to Pioneer Press, "In 1990, Clemmons, then 18, was sentenced in Arkansas to 60 years in prison for burglary and theft of property, according to a news account in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette." [Pioneer Press, 2009-11-29]
2009: Maurice Clemmons Murdered Four Police Officers. According to The Seattle Times, "But when Maurice moved to the Northwest, he brought with him the demons of his Arkansas past. A week ago, he shot and killed four Lakewood police officers, a crime that has shattered families and generated such tension between Washington and Arkansas that both states’ governors talked at length Thursday to lower the heat. All four officers were parents; nine kids have lost a father or mother." [The Seattle Times, 12/6/09]
Mike Huckabee Granted Over 1,000 Pardons During His Time As Governor
1996-2007: Huckabee Granted Over 1,000 Pardons as Arkansas Governor. According to the New York Times, "Mr. Huckabee, who rode a brand of prairie populism to finish second in the Republican presidential primaries in 2008, granted more than 1,000 pardons or clemency requests as governor." [New York Times, 11/30/09]
2008: Mike Huckabee Supported Amending Constitution For “God's Standards.” According to an opinion piece by Cavan Sieczkowski in HuffPost, "In 2008, Huckabee pushed to 'amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards so it lines up with some contemporary view.'" [Cavan Sieczkowski - HuffPost, 10/31/12]
2012: Mike Huckabee Blamed Sandy Hook Mass Shooting On Lack Of Religion In Schools. According to Baptist Standard, "Former presidential candidate turned talk-show host Mike Huckabee stood by controversial comments blaming the deadly Dec. 14 shootings in Connecticut on the lack of religion in public schools. Mike Huckabee The day 27 people, including 20 children, died in a mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., Fox News host Neil Cavuto asked the former Arkansas governor, an ordained Southern Baptist minister and former pastor, to respond to the inevitable question, 'How could God let this happen?' 'Well, you know, it’s an interesting thing,' Huckabee said. 'We ask why there’s violence in our schools, but we’ve systematically removed God from our schools. Should we be so surprised that schools would become a place of carnage?'" [Baptist Standard, 12/18/12]
Mike Huckabee Lobbied State Lawmakers To Turn Privatize Public Beach In Front Of His Mansion.
According to Mother Jones, "Not long after his failed 2008 presidential bid, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee bought a beachfront plot in the Florida Panhandle and built a three-story, 10,000-square-foot mansion, with six bedrooms, seven-and-a-half bathrooms, and a pool. [...] There was just one problem: Huckabee built his dream house on a public beach, a spot where some of the more than 4 million spring breakers and tourists who come to Walton County each year had been parking their lawn chairs and fishing poles since time immemorial. That meant the Fox News contributor had to share much of the 115-foot-long spit of sand in front of his $6 million house with those who helped pay for it—the people who watch his TV show. And he didn’t like it one bit. [...] So Huckabee turned to politics, lobbying the state legislature, whose members were more pliable than federal judges. Huckabee and Blue Diamond Horizons, a company registered to Huckabee that has no website or public presence, each donated $1,000 to a commission candidate who had privately offered to oppose public use of the beach. After the candidate won, he came out in support of public beach access. With the help of a high-powered lobbyist, beachfront property owners persuaded Rep. Katie Edwards-Walpole, a Democrat from South Florida, to cosponsor HR 631, a law gutting the ability of local governments to pass ordinances granting public access to privately owned beaches." [Mother Jones,
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