NRCC’s Weak Case
In the March 13 special House election in Pennsylvania, a pair of Republican Party TV ads attack Democratic candidate Conor Lamb as a weak prosecutor who can’t be trusted. But the GOP’s evidence is flimsy and misleading.
Both ads fault Lamb, a former federal prosecutor, for negotiating guilty pleas in return for sentences that were less than the maximum punishment that might have been imposed upon conviction on all charges. That’s like criticizing him for doing his job — 97 percent of all federal criminal cases that were settled by trial or plea ended in guilty pleas in 2014, according to the most recent figures from the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
