After presiding over a Senate hearing today, Senator Feinstein has decided to ask President Bush to commute the sentences of former U.S. Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, an aide for the California Democrat told WND.

Feinstein will have a letter delivered to the White House tomorrow, said spokesman Scott Gerber.

Following the Senate judiciary committee's examination of the controversial prosecution, according to Gerber, the senator said "it became very clear the sentences did not match the crime."

The letter also will be signed by Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas.

Ramos and Compean are serving 11- and 12-year prison sentences, respectively, after a jury convicted them of violating federal gun laws and covering up the shooting of a drug smuggler as he fled back to Mexico after driving across the border with 742 pounds of marijuana. U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton's office gave the smuggler, Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila, immunity to serve as the government's star witness and testify against the border agents.

Feinstein concluded the hearing today with a vow to look further into why prosecutors charged the men under section 924(c) of the U.S. code, which requires a 10-year sentence for using or carrying a firearm in the commission of a crime of violence.

Feinstein, during questioning of Sutton, argued the statute did not apply to Ramos and Compean in their pursuit of a drug smuggler at the Mexican border, because there was no underlying crime.

Gerber told WND that Feinstein has concluded the use of 924(c) was "prosecutorial overreach."

Revival of interest

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-California

"I think it has a lot to do with an attitude in this administration that refuses to admit any mistakes and protects its own clique but nobody else," he said.

The congressman will examine alleged involvement of the Mexican government in the decision to prosecute the agents and others, including Texas Deputy Sheriff Gilmer Hernandez. Sutton's Western District of Texas office also prosecuted Hernandez, who was convicted of violating the civil rights of two illegal aliens injured from shell fragments that struck them as the officer shot at the tires of a van in which they escaped from a routine traffic stop. The van driver had tried to run over Hernandez.

Rohrabacher said Sutton also has refused to provide information concerning a special visa, or transit pass, given to Aldrete-Davila in the immunity deal, allowing him to travel back and forth across the border. The congressman wants to know if the pass was used in an alleged second attempt by Aldrete-Davila to smuggle marijuana into the U.S., eight months after the February 2005 incident at the center of the case.

"It really looked like the issue would die, and we now have at least a fighting chance," he said. "But nothing will happen until the American people rise up in a righteous rage to save these guys."

Petitioning the White House

Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif."The men and women of the Border Patrol are certainly not above the laws they are empowered to enforce," Hunter said. "But they must also know that when they must apply the necessary and appropriate level of force, their government will not work aggressively to ensure they are punished while lawlessness is rewarded."

"This is not the case of the United States saying, we are not going to support people who go after drug dealers. Of course we are. We think it's incumbent to go after drug dealers, and we also think that it's vitally important to make sure that we provide border security so our people are secure," Snow said. "

Thank you for being a concerned Patriot,

Steve