As Dems Fake Concern for FBI, Dem. Sen. Celebrates Man Who Murdered 2 Agents

As the Democratic Party wrings its hands over the fact that President Donald Trump is replacing the FBI director and looking into the investigations the bureau has conducted, one of their own is celebrating a man who murdered two agents returning home thanks to a former Democratic president’s executive order.

Talk about a little bit of cognitive dissonance there.

On Tuesday, Leonard Peltier, 80, was released from a federal prison in Florida. The New York Times described him first as “a Native American rights activist” who’d been in prison for 50 years.

Why had he been there? Well, the second part of the sentence notes, in rather neutral language, that he was “held for nearly half a century for the killing of two F.B.I. agents.”

Yes, “held.” He’d been convicted of killing the agents and sentenced to two consecutive life terms. However, on his way out of office, former President Joe Biden commuted his sentence to home confinement in North Dakota among the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, which he is a member of.

His release was celebrated by, among others, Minnesota Democrat Sen. Tina Smith:

Welcome home, Leonard. It’s been a long time coming. https://t.co/3lYkcLpVfZ

— Senator Tina Smith (@SenTinaSmith) February 18, 2025

“Welcome home, Leonard. It’s been a long time coming,” she said.

Well, yes, there’s a reason it’s been a long time. In 1975, during a period of unrest on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, Peltier — a member of the activist American Indian Movement group — was involved in a shootout with FBI agents.

Peltier admitted being involved in the shootout but denied firing the bullets that killed the agents and said he acted in self-defense. Prosecutors, meanwhile, said that the shots were fired at point-blank range with an AR-15.

Two other men were involved in the shootout but were acquitted; witnesses said they saw Peltier with an AR-15 and the government argued the weapon belonged to him.

Peltier then fled and, prosecutors said, was believed to be driving a Dodge Explorer motor home that was pulled over in Oregon several months later that contained guns belonging to the two dead FBI agents. The driver of the motor home gave the state trooper a false name before fleeing and firing several shots at him; not only did the man resemble Peltier, but Peltier’s fingerprints were found on the bag with the paper bag containing the dead agents’ guns.

As the Indian Country Editor noted in a 2002 editorial, Peltier also had numerous, shifting alibis as to where he was during the shootout, none of which were true. He later admitted his involvement but insisted he didn’t kill the agents.

Despite the conviction and his lack of credibility in the matter, Peltier became a celebrated cause on the progressive left because of his involvement in the American Indian Movement. The idea that clemency would be taken seriously by a U.S. president, no matter how liberal, seemed unthinkable, however — until Joe Biden was on the way out the door.

Then, whoever was in charge of shoving the pardon, commutation, and clemency orders in front of him — one is safe in assuming that, aside from the Hunter Biden pardon, Joe was scarcely in a condition to be thinking about any single one of these actions seriously, much less the vast number that were pushed through in between the election loss and Inauguration Day — decided Peltier’s bid for home confinement was meritorious. Thus, he was released to much celebration among the types who say stuff like: “You say antifa like it’s a bad thing. It means ‘anti-fascist,’ so if you’re anti-‘anti-fascist,’ what does that make you, hmm?”

Sen. Tina Smith is apparently one of these people. So, too, is Chase Iron Eyes, a Native American civil rights lawyer quoted by the Times.

“Leonard did 50 years for us, and tomorrow we are going to welcome him as a hero in our homeland,” he said.

The Times did note that “Native Americans have not been unanimous in their support for Mr. Peltier,” linking to a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation article about the Assembly of First Nations withdrawing their support for his release last year due to the fact that he also played a role in “interrogating murdered activist Anna Mae Pictou Aquash … whom he suspected of being an informant.”

The 30-year-old woman was later found murdered by a gunshot to the head, her body abandoned at the bottom of a South Dakota bluff and discovered two months after her December 1975 killing. Two other AIM members were convicted of that slaying in 2004 and 2010.

Former FBI Director Christopher Wray — also a fairly staunch ally of the left in general and the Biden administration in particular, despite being appointed by Donald Trump after the James Comey firing — opposed the move, calling Peltier “a remorseless killer.”

And yet, to Peltier’s supporters, even this isn’t enough.

“We still have work to do,” said his chief lawyer, Jenipher Jones. “It is our proposition that any detention of Leonard is unlawful.”

The lawful detention of Leonard Peltier, as determined by a trial court and upheld through many appeals, was supposed to be two life sentences in federal prison. He’s now in home detention, and that’s already a travesty. But, as this proves, it’s never enough for the left.

And, as for their sudden respect for the work of the FBI? Just ask Sen. Tina Smith how much she cares about the bureau when she’s celebrating the odious measure that released a man Chris Wray called “a remorseless killer.” Ask her colleagues if they rebuked her for it.

You already know the answer.

Advertise with The Western Journal and reach millions of highly engaged readers, while supporting our work. Advertise Today.