Clemency for Scooter Libby versus politicized Clinton pardons; Hamilton Jordan

Many commentators have noted the irony of the Clintons criticizing President Bush' clemency for Scooter Libby. But few have really dredged up the Clinton pardons from 2001. Those pardons received almost universal condemnation, even from some in the MSM/DNC. [The Clintons really left them with no choice.] Almost no one defended the Clintons at that time. The Clinton pardon scandal was that ugly, obvious and clumsy.

The Clintons' criticism of President Bush is so hypocritical that it merits a revisit to that Clinton pardon scandal. Below is a column that Hamilton Jordan (President Carter's chief of staff) wrote in the Wall Street Journal shortly after the odor from the Clinton pardon mess overwhelmed the public airwaves. I had no blog at that time, so I did not save the URL and I cannot hyperlink it. But I have the contents, which I reproduce in full here.

The point of the story is an explanation of how the pardon power is supposed to work, and how foul the Clinton pardons look in comparison to administrations that follow the rules.



Read it all. I will print more articles from the immediate aftermath of the Clinton pardon scandal soon.

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The First Grifters
Clinton saw the pardon power as just another perk of the office.

by HAMILTON JORDAN
Tuesday, February 20, 2001 12:01 a.m. EST

It is difficult for the average citizen to comprehend how outrageous Bill Clinton's pardons are to those of us who have worked in the White House.

Let me describe the attitude and processes that were in place for pardons in the Carter administration and for all recent presidents up until Mr. Clinton. The constitutional power of a president to pardon is unique and sacred, meant to give the chief executive the ability to correct injustices. But while the president's right to grant a pardon is unequivocal, certain procedures have evolved over time that are honored and passed along from president to president.

In the Carter administration, a request for presidential pardon would have required the following:
* A formal, written analysis of the case by the Justice Department.
* A description of the crime and a history of the trial.
* The written statements and recommendations of the prosecuting team that won the conviction.
* A listing of the substantive argument for and against the pardon and a statement of any extenuating circumstances that justify the review of the case.

* The formal and written recommendations of the Justice Department (usually the attorney general in high-profile cases like Patricia Hearst or Marc Rich) and of the White House counsel.

This package of written information would be presented to the president for his study and review, and it would be normal for the White House counsel or the attorney general to be directly involved in the case.

Yet it appears there was no effort to formally collect opinions from the key parties in the Marc Rich case. Indeed, the 11th-hour presentation of the request to Mr. Clinton was made by Mr. Rich's attorney, Jack Quinn, who happens to be a former Clinton White House counsel. We do not know how, when or even if the Justice Department and then-White House counsel Beth Nolan formally weighed in with written information.

Mr. Quinn and Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder testified before a congressional committee that they had "conversations" on the Marc Rich pardon application. But these discussions were no substitute for the time-honored tradition of a formal evaluation. These conversations also did not satisfy the president's need to receive recommendations from independent, knowledgeable authorities in the Justice Department. Indeed, Mr. Holder acknowledged that based on what he has recently learned about the Rich case, he would today recommend against the pardon.

We do know that Mr. Clinton found time to confer with his political advisers, party fund-raisers, Denise Rich, her friends, and even foreign leaders about the pardon. In fact, in an op-ed piece published Sunday in the New York Times, the former president points to a combination of legal and foreign policy considerations--particularly pressure from Israel--as the main reasons for the Rich pardon. It's therefore extremely curious that he never bothered to pick up the phone and call Attorney General Janet Reno or Mr. Holder or the prosecuting attorney to get their advice and perspective. Nor did he seek input from his foreign policy advisers. He was either uninterested in their opinion or not interested in hearing what they surely would have told him.

I could not imagine walking into the Oval Office and raising the subject of a pardon with President Carter. Nor could I imagine other chiefs of staff in this modern era--e.g., Dick Cheney, Howard Baker, Jim Baker or Leon Panetta--discussing with their president the political pros and cons of a pardon for a fugitive who had renounced his citizenship and fled the country to escape prosecution on tax fraud and racketeering charges.

If I'd have had the nerve to walk into the Oval Office to discuss a pardon with Mr. Carter, I would have been peppered with questions:

"Hamilton, why on earth are you bringing this to me?"
"What does (Attorney General) Griffin Bell think?"
"Why isn't Lloyd Cutler (the White House counsel) here?"
"What is the case history and rationale for this pardon?"
"What are the extenuating circumstances that merit my overturning the judgment of a jury and our court system?"
"Do the former prosecutors favor a pardon, and if so, why?"
After a series of my answering "I don't know," President Carter would have surely given me one of his famous icy stares and admonished me, "Pardons are serious legal business and not your business, Hamilton. Don't ever come in here again to talk to me about a pardon."

If I had summoned the courage to say, "But Mr. President, this pardon is for someone who contributed generously to our campaign and has even promised to contribute to the Carter Presidential Library," he would have thrown me out of the Oval Office and probably fired me on the spot.

It is incredible that the ethical atmosphere of the Clinton White House had sunk to a level whereby the constitutional power of a president to issue a pardon was discussed among Mr. Clinton and his White House staff as just one more perk of office. It was treated in the same vein as: "Who is going to be regional HUD director?" or "Which campaign contributors are staying in the Lincoln Bedroom tonight or flying on Air Force One?"

It is a great mystery how this gifted politician could have had such an enormous lapse of judgment. I attribute it to the fact that the Clintons are terribly self-absorbed. As well, I believe they developed a feeling of invincibility and even arrogance after his impeachment trial, when the Clintons confused their short-term victory with the sense of national exhaustion and disgust that followed the scandal.

If a president can get caught having sex in the Oval Office with an intern and committing perjury about it to a federal grand jury, and still get away with it, what could possibly stop him? Bill Clinton--whose every decision was guided by public opinion polls--interpreted his high job-approval ratings following his impeachment at least as a vote of confidence and more likely as some form of national forgiveness.

Instead of leaving him for his public betrayal, Hillary Clinton exploited her public image of a wronged but loyal spouse to create a new persona for herself and win election to the Senate.

The Clintons are not a couple but a business partnership, not based on love or even greed but on shared ambitions. Everywhere they go, they leave a trail of disappointed, disillusioned friends and staff members to clean up after them. The Clintons' only loyalty is to their own ambitions.

They belong to no place. Arkansas was just a starting point for Bill Clinton and a place Hillary had to tolerate while nurturing national ambitions. It was their home for a quarter-century, the birthplace of their only child and their political base, but they left the state behind in favor of New York City, a place that can match the scale of their own egos, appetites and ambitions.

They have never looked back. One talking head recently called the Clintons "political drifters," but Webster's defines drifters as people who move around "aimlessly." There was never anything aimless about the Clintons' wanderings: Little Rock, Yale, Oxford, Little Rock, Washington, Chappaqua and now New York City. Every move was calculated, part of their grand scheme to claw their way to the very top.

When one considers pardons for political friends and donors, gifts to the White House taken by the Clintons for their personal use, and the attempt to lease extravagant penthouse offices for the former president with taxpayer money, a better word comes to mind: grifters.

Grifters was a term used in the Great Depression to describe fast-talking con artists who roamed the countryside, profiting at the expense of the poor and the uneducated, always one step ahead of the law, moving on before they were held accountable for their schemes and half-truths.

No longer able to dominate the national news with moving speeches or policy initiatives, the First Grifters have been unable to move beyond the Marc Rich pardon, White House gifts and other events related to their noisy and ungraceful departure from office. Robbed of the frills of high office, we can now examine these last-minute pardons--and the Clintons--for what they are.

Mr. Jordan was White House chief of staff in the Carter administration. He is author of a memoir, "No Such Thing as a Bad Day" (Longstreet Press, 2000).

What exactly did Lewis "Scooter" Libby do?

Memory is such a useful thing. In general, the MSM/DNC opposes memory because (1) MSM/DNC needs to change the story [whatever the "story" is about] to suit its present day needs and (2) MSM/DNC has much to hide in any given situation.

more dangerous than a muslim doctor?








In the Libby case, I found the following item from March, 2007:

Juror notes in the CIA leak case suggest some jury room confusion about what exactly former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby is accused of doing.

. . . .

In their questions, which were released Tuesday morning, jurors seemed confused about what Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was alleging. Were prosecutors saying Libby knew that Plame worked for the CIA by the time of his FBI interview, jurors asked, or does the government believe Libby's account of the Cooper conversation was untrue?

This story was released on the day the verdict was announced. As I wrote in March, the jury heard the entire trial without understanding what Libby was accused of.

But MSM/DNC outlets today dutifully report politicians' comments that Libby received clemency despite no doubt existing as to his guilt. But only a simple examination reveals that the jury was confused for good reason. Libby's detractors cannot tell you what exactly he did or why he was prosecuted (other than vague generalities relating to the Bush-Hitler-Halliburton-Diebold conspiracy).

MSM/DNC sources can say nothing about Libby that would not actually apply to Armmitage, Novak, Fitzgerald, Plame, Woodward and Wilson.

The same people who want Libby to serve jail time for some imagined offense want desparately to close Guantanamo and release the terrorists housed therein. By now, they will also start advocating increased immigration rights for muslim doctors.

Scooter Libby convicted by jury that did not know what he was accused of

This article [from yesterday morning] has gotten lost in the Libby spin:

Juror notes in the CIA leak case suggest some jury room confusion about what exactly former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby is accused of doing.

. . . .

In their questions, which were released Tuesday morning, jurors seemed confused about what Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was alleging. Were prosecutors saying Libby knew that Plame worked for the CIA by the time of his FBI interview, jurors asked, or does the government believe Libby's account of the Cooper conversation was untrue?

The jurors listened to the entire trial without knowing what the prosecutors had accused Libby of. This confusion was reported yesterday - the day that the verdict was announced - day ten (10) of deliberations.

This is a case where the prosecutors convicted a man for no reason other than political considerations. Wilson/Plame can now point to something concrete that came of the scandal that they invented and flogged over a period of three years.

As Ann Coulter wrote last month:

So why is there a trial [in the Libby case]? Because there is no penalty for using the threat of imprisonment as a political weapon against conservatives. Ask Tom DeLay or Rush Limbaugh.

If Libby were a Democrat, we would know the sexual proclivities of everyone in Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's office, Judith Miller would be portrayed as a "stalker," Tim Russert's cat would be dead, and the public would know about every toupee at MSNBC.

Republicans don't have to kill cats to bestir themselves to defend their own from rank partisan persecution. But it never happens.

People who attack conservatives never have to worry about their own dirty laundry coming out. All they have to worry about is whether People magazine will use a good picture of them in its "Sexiest Man Alive" issue.

emphasis added.

Defend Lewis Libby

I don't really know exactly what crime Lewis Libby is supposed to have committed (unless you count the crime of working for an administration that sits between the MSM/DNC and total domination of the federal government).

I know that even the MSM/DNC has stopped claiming that the administration was trying to "out" a spy.

Even the Washington Post has belatedly placed the blame for this mess squarely where it belongs - on Joe Wilson.

Ann Coulter's most recent column has hit the nail on the head by identifying the real reason for the Libby prosecution. The left's strategy is to use the courts to intimidate and destroy its opponents. The MSM/DNC is a totalitarian movement, like communism or fascism. The movement's goal is power. When the MSM/DNC advocates environmental or racial or gay or other issues, that advocacy and those issues are nothing but a means to power. Every issue that the MSM/DNC advocates results in MORE governmental power, not less.

So why is there a trial [in the Libby case]? Because there is no penalty for using the threat of imprisonment as a political weapon against conservatives. Ask Tom DeLay or Rush Limbaugh.

If Libby were a Democrat, we would know the sexual proclivities of everyone in Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's office, Judith Miller would be portrayed as a "stalker," Tim Russert's cat would be dead, and the public would know about every toupee at MSNBC.

Republicans don't have to kill cats to bestir themselves to defend their own from rank partisan persecution. But it never happens.

People who attack conservatives never have to worry about their own dirty laundry coming out. All they have to worry about is whether People magazine will use a good picture of them in its "Sexiest Man Alive" issue.

emphasis added

Prosecutions are nothing more than another political weapon used by the MSM/DNC to persecute conservatives and broaden MSM/DNC power.

Ann proposes one solution that is long overdue:

You want to protect the borders, cut taxes, fight Islamic fascists and put up Ten Commandments monuments? Get her name. Find out about Patrick Fitzgerald [the prosecutor] what we'd know if he were Ken Starr. If you won't defend your own champions, conservatives, then don't sit back and wonder why so few people want to be your champions.

Repost of quote of the day - Plame/Wilson/Washington Post

In light of the ongoing Scooter Libby trial, I am reposting the "quote of the day" from September 1, 2006 [Washington Post]

Nevertheless, it now appears that the person most responsible for the end of Ms. Plame's CIA career is Mr. Wilson. Mr. Wilson chose to go public with an explosive charge, claiming -- falsely, as it turned out -- that he had debunked reports of Iraqi uranium-shopping in Niger and that his report had circulated to senior administration officials. He ought to have expected that both those officials and journalists such as Mr. Novak would ask why a retired ambassador would have been sent on such a mission and that the answer would point to his wife. He diverted responsibility from himself and his false charges by claiming that President Bush's closest aides had engaged in an illegal conspiracy. It's unfortunate that so many people took him seriously.

Washington Post - September 1, 2006

The point of the quote is that the entire basis for the prosecution and the original investigation is false. Remember this when you hear meaningless details about who said what to whom and when.

Quote of the day - Washington Post (Plame, Wilson, etc.)

Nevertheless, it now appears that the person most responsible for the end of Ms. Plame's CIA career is Mr. Wilson. Mr. Wilson chose to go public with an explosive charge, claiming -- falsely, as it turned out -- that he had debunked reports of Iraqi uranium-shopping in Niger and that his report had circulated to senior administration officials. He ought to have expected that both those officials and journalists such as Mr. Novak would ask why a retired ambassador would have been sent on such a mission and that the answer would point to his wife. He diverted responsibility from himself and his false charges by claiming that President Bush's closest aides had engaged in an illegal conspiracy. It's unfortunate that so many people took him seriously.

Washington Post - September 1, 2006

MSM Lie # 49 - New York Times misrepresents Robert Novak's war views

Click here for the complete list of MSM lies of 2005.

In its continuing effort to achieve illegitimate mileage from the Libby indictment (what was that all about again?), the MSM/DNC has misrepresented Robert Novak's views on the war.

Novak's opposition to the war in Iraq is well known. Novak has become isolated from other conservatives because of these views. Yet the New York Times (registration required) refers to Robert Novak as a "conservative hawk" who sought to punish Joseph Wilson for Wilson's opposition to the war. In the Times' world of make-believe, Novak and the administration work together to silence critics of American foreign policy. NewsBusters has more details.

The Times needs to make Wilson into a martyr (in order to discredit our efforts at self-defense in the war on terror). It is easier for the Times to accomplish that goal if pro-war motives can be imputed to Novak. The Times has its story and it is sticking to it. The Times will not let truth get in the way.

Quote of the day - Patrick Fitzgerald

This indictment is not about the war. This indictment's not about the propriety of the war. And people who believe fervently in the war effort, people who oppose it, people who have mixed feelings about it should not look to this indictment for any resolution of how they feel or any vindication of how they feel....The indictment will not seek to prove that the war was justified or unjustified. This is stripped of that debate, and this is focused on a narrow transaction. And I think anyone who's concerned about the war and has feelings for or against shouldn't look to this criminal process for any answers or resolution of that.

Patrick Fitzgerald

Libby v. Berger v. Daphiney Caganap

So I understand that the prosecutor in the Plame/Flame case rejected a plea deal because he wants "serious jail time" for Scooter Libby. As Joseph Farah asks:

Where was he [the prosecutor] when former National Security Adviser Sandy Berger was caught red-handed stealing highly classified documents from the National Archives, destroying some and then lying about it to investigators?

As you recall, Sandy Berger will do no jail time for his role in helping to cover up Clinton's national security failures.

In other news, Daphiney Caganap will probably serve no jail time either. If you don't know who that is, here is a summary courtesy of Debbie Schlussel:

In San Ysidro (near San Diego), as head of the INS' intelligence unit and anti-smuggling operations, Caganap helped cover-up an illegal immigrant and drug smuggling operation, allowing it to continue for years--in exchange for $30,000 in money, services, and gifts (including a new hot tub). She also lied to the FBI about it. Caganap was indicted for all of that.

But instead of serving 36 years in prison (as the law allows), she will serve no jail time.

Who among this list has done the most to harm national security?

Sandy Berger

Daphiney Caganap

Scooter Libby

Sandy Berger helped the 9/11 commission whitewash the mistakes of the Clinton administration. Daphiney Caganap helped illegal aliens, possibly including more al Qaeda operatives, slip into this country. Scooter Libby . . . . . what did he do again?

Which of these three faces the greatest possibility of jail time? Remember this the next time you see people jumping out of burning buildings.

Dhimmitude roundup

While the MSM/DNC focuses almost exclusively on twisting the Libby indictment into an accusation that the administration somehow outed a spy, Islam continues its advance into the decaying Western world on many fronts with the MSM/DNC's tacit approval:

1) Sami Al-Arian - long ignored prior to 9/11 by all but Debbie Schlussel - now may escape a conviction in federal court.

2) Three days of Islamic riots in Paris have received little attention.

3) Australian police have been instructed to treat Islamic wife beaters more leniently than regular wife beaters.

4) Prince Charles intends to tell President Bush that we are not tolerant enough of Muslims.

5) The Indonesians show us where tolerance leads; and, finally,

6) Al Qaeda's influence has been growing in South America for more than one year.

We won't always have the luxury of ignoring Islamic expansion. If these trends continue, Islamic terror and colonization will be a fact of life confronting all Americans regardless of whether the MSM/DNC recognizes it.

Libby indictment vs. Hsia conviction

Check out this NewsBusters post for a comparison of the coverage that the MSM/DNC has provided for the Libby/Plame/Flame affair vs. the MSM/DNC coverage of the conviction of a Gore operative in the Chinese fundraising scandal of the 1990's.

1) Guess which story received less (actually almost no) coverage?

2) Guest which story means something to the future of the United States?

hint: The answer to both questions has something to do with this picture:

Quotes of the day - re: Libby indictment

In the end, Fitzgerald accused Libby of lying about his conversations with reporters, not outing a spy.

AP



We have not made any allegation that Libby knowingly/intentionally outed a covert agent.

Patrick Fitzgerald

Joseph Wilson should be tried for treason.

Most of us don't seem to understand what the whole CIA Plame/Flame case is about. I don't think we can ever fully understand it if we look at it in the context of this trumped up prosecution. If we try to understand whether Rove/Libby/etc. is "guilty" of something, we will miss the whole point. The focus should be on Wilson and his wife Valerie Plame.

It is pretty well established that Joseph Wilson lied when he claimed to have investigated the possibility of Saddam Hussein seeking to purchase uranium from Niger. He downplayed the possibility of Hussein obtaining uranium so that we would relax our efforts in the war. That is treason. Powerline summed it up here:

So, to sum up: the Senate Intelligence Committee's report shows that: 1) Wilson lied in the New York Times about what he told the CIA after he returned from Niger. In fact, far from debunking the concern that Iraq may have tried to buy uranium from Niger, Wilson reported that Niger's former Prime Minister told him that Iraq had made just such an overture in 1999. 2) Wilson lied when he leaked a report to the Washington Post about documents he had not even seen. 3) Wilson lied when he said that his wife Valerie "had nothing to do with" his being chosen to go to Niger.

We know that Wilson's wife Plame was instrumental in enabling Wilson to be in a position to promote these lies. These lies endangered the United States and tended to inhibit our efforts to defend ourselves in the face of growing danger. These lies gave aid and comfort to the enemy who sought to build WMD's and use them against the United States.

Axis Sally was imprisoned for less. At least Axis Sally had the decency to leave the country before advancing enemy propaganda. She didn't do it from within the CIA.

But instead of Joseph Wilson and Plame, the MSM/DNC has turned its wrath upon the individuals who may have sought to discredit Wilson and Plame.

I don't know if Karl Rove or Scooter Libby tried to reveal the identity of Valerie Plame in order to discredit Joseph Wilson (or whatever the left claims they did). But I do know that that is the least that should have been done to Wilson and Plame. Rove and Libby should have gone before the press with a picture of Valerie Plame and announced that a traitor worked for the CIA. They should have shouted her name from the rooftops.

That they did not do this tells us much of the times in which we live and the danger we face. Those who seek to weaken America in the face of the enemy are celebrated and defended by the MSM/DNC. Those who oppose treason are castigated and vilified by the MSM/DNC.

Ayn Rand's character Ragnar Danneskjold uttered one of my favorite quotes in "Atlas Shrugged" - "When robbery is done in open daylight by sanction of the law, as it is done today, then any act of honor or restitution has to be hidden underground."

The same is true of treason. When treason is committed openly and celebrated by the MSM/DNC, then acts of patriotism have to be hidden underground. Patriotism will never again exist openly in the daylight as long as we are afraid to expose traitors.

Rather than trot out a weak defense with talking point readers like Kay Bailey Hutchinson, we should point out that Plame and Wilson belong on the gallows and that Rove and the administration should no longer be afraid to bring justice to that pair.

Leslie Stahl is stuck on stupid

In February, I wrote of the MSM/DNC's never ending fascination with Watergate and the left's need to rehash that episode at every opportunity:

The MSM/DNC needs Watergate. If Watergate did not occur, MSM/DNC would have had to invent it. [Come to think of it, isn't that how the Bush national guard story got started?] Recent elections (both at home and abroad) have left very little for MSM/DNC to celebrate. So it rehashes past victories and revels in the glory days. Watergate and Vietnam. These two events will be served, re-served, salivated over, chewed on, swallowed and digested over and over again in the pages of the MSM/DNC newspapers ad nauseam until the rest of us throw up our hands and let the MSM/DNC run the government again.

A few months after this post, the "Deep Throat" story broke and the Watergate feeding frenzy was on again.

It appears that Leslie Stahl is one of many MSM/DNC mouthpieces that just can't let it go. She appeared on Comedy Central to announce that the Plame/Flame affair could turn in to another Watergate.

In the past 30 plus years during Republican administrations, there hasn't been a single event that the MSM/DNC didn't predict would be the next Watergate. [But Bill Clinton's sale of nuclear technology to China was nothing like Watergate.]

Read the transcript at NewsBusters. Stahl seems unable to react to or play along with the host's jokes or wit. Stahl's stiffness is almost as funny as Stephen Colbert's quips.


This is not Leslie Stahl, but it is a better picture than the other ones I found on Google.

MSM lie #36 - Seattle Times mischaracterizes Senate report.

Click here for the entire list.

I am sure there is much dishonesty on the part of MSM/DNC in the Rove/Plame affair. The continued use of the phrase "covert" in reference to Valarie Plame (in the face of mounting evidence that she was well known) is one example. The continued efforts to ignore the actual statements by the Time reporter and the efforts to avoid asking what Judith Miller really knows and why she would stay in prison rather than reveal it are other examples. [And yes, it does take effort to avoid asking those questions.]

But the only concrete lie I could find in my limited research time has been provided by the Seattle Times, as they mischaracterize a Senate report in a way that can only be characterized as intentional. Wilson is discredited as a result of his attempts to mislead the Senate and the country regarding the growing danger of nuclear proliferation - particularly Hussein's attempts to procure uranium. Any attempt to whitewash that fact is a lie.