The State Department unleashed a blistering response to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz after he doubled down on his pardon of a convicted Laotian child rapist — one who Secretary of State Marco Rubio swiftly deported anyway.
The Minnesota Board of Pardons, comprised of Walz, state Attorney General Keith Ellison and state Chief Justice Natalie Hudson, granted clemency to Laotian national Tou Lue Vang, 42, on June 10. Vang was scheduled to be deported from the United States before the pardon.
State Department Assistant Secretary Dylan Johnson didn’t mince words.
“Governor Walz’s pardon of a convicted foreign sex offender was a grave and unconscionable betrayal of the very people he is supposed to defend.”
Vang was convicted for repeatedly raping a 10-year-old girl between 2002 and 2004. After his arrest, he told authorities “it is a cultural thing… to marry and have sex with girls as young as 12.”
Rubio revoked Vang’s visa earlier this month, and he was deported back to Laos.
At a Tuesday press conference, Walz offered a strange defense of the clemency move — arguing that deporting a convicted child rapist somehow didn’t make America safer.
“Did that make us any safer?” Walz asked. “Did that make the children that are left behind any more stable? Did it improve the idea that we can’t all be judged by our worst day?”
Walz did admit that Vang’s crimes were “horrific.”
But that admission didn’t stop Johnson from unloading again.
“Walz sides with foreign criminals. Secretary Rubio sides with the American people. Walz wants open borders. This administration ended the era of mass migration. Walz endangered the American people. Secretary Rubio protected them.”
When Rubio announced last week that the State Department had bypassed Walz’s pardon and deported Vang, he blasted the Minnesota governor for shielding a predator in the first place.
“Americans should never have to live in fear that foreign sex predators — shielded from deportation by their own elected officials — could endanger them or their children,” Rubio said.
“That’s why I terminated his legal status in the United States. Vang has now been removed from our country and will never pose a threat to any American ever again.”
At the time of Vang’s pardon, the Department of Homeland Security feared that the move would shield the criminal illegal alien from deportation.
“Governor Tim Walz’s decision to pardon an illegal alien convicted child rapist so he can remain in our country is disgusting,” DHS Acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis said at the time.
“These are the criminal illegal aliens he and his Minnesota sanctuary politicians are protecting.”
The charges remain allegations. The case has not been proven in court.
