Billy Jeff’s Pardons

July 6, 2007

It’s almost funny, reading and hearing Democrat indignation about President Bush’s commutation of Scooter Libby’s 30-month jail sentence. Bush left intact the $250,000 fine, the probation and the overall conviction against him; he just kept Libby from having to go to jail. The appeals case continues.

Where were today’s outraged Democrats when Bill Clinton pardoned hundreds of felons, many of them cronies, friends and even relatives of his, in the waning weeks of his presidency?

On November 21, 2000, Clinton pardoned 11 convicts. They had been convicted of bribing union officials, making false statements to a government agency, and dealing cocaine. Clinton did this while the nation was embroiled in and distracted by the Florida fiasco that would eventually end in the Supreme Court.

On December 22, 2000, just a fortnight after the Bush v Gore decision guaranteed that Al Gore would not become president, Clinton issued another round of questionable pardons. At this point, Clinton had just a month left on his presidency. He pardoned 59 people and granted clemency to 3 others. These people had been convicted in Arkansas while Clinton himself was governor of that state, others had been convicted on drug distribution and on wire fraud charges, and Clinton even pardoned long-time Chicago Democrat Congressman Dan Rostenkowski, who had been convicted in 1996 of mail fraud and who had been accused of using public money to pay people on his payroll who did little or no work. Rostenkowski had already served his 17-month sentence; the pardon was no less than a political slap at the jury who had convicted and the judge who had sentenced Rostenkowski.

But Clinton’s most egregious misuse of the presidential pardon power came on January 20, 2001–the final day of his presidency. He pardoned 140 and granted clemency to 36. Among those pardoned or granted clemency:

* Carlos A. Vignali had his sentence for cocaine trafficking commuted, after serving 6 of 15 years in federal prison.
* Almon Glenn Braswell was pardoned of his mail fraud and perjury convictions, even while a federal investigation was underway regarding additional money laundering and tax evasion charges.[12] Braswell and Carlos Vignali each paid approximately $200,000 to Hillary Clinton’s brother, Hugh Rodham, to represent their respective cases for clemency. Hugh Rodham returned the payments after they were disclosed to the public.[citation needed] Braswell would later invoke the Fifth Amendment at a Senate Committee hearing in 2001, when questioned about allegations of his having systematically defrauded senior citizens of millions of dollars.[13]
* Marc Rich, a fugitive, was pardoned of tax evasion, after clemency pleas from Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak, among many other international luminaries. Denise Rich, Marc’s former wife, was a close friend of the Clintons and had made substantial donations to both Clinton’s library and Hillary’s Senate campaign. According to Paul Volcker’s independent investigation of Iraqi Oil-for-Food kickback schemes, Marc Rich was a middleman for several suspect Iraqi oil deals involving over 4 million barrels of oil.[14]
* Susan McDougal, who had already completed her sentence, was pardoned for her role in the Whitewater scandal; McDougal had served 18 months on contempt charges for refusing to testify about Clinton’s role.
* Dan Rostenkowski, a former Democratic Congressman convicted in the Congressional Post Office Scandal. Rostenkowski had served his entire sentence.
* Melvin J. Reynolds, a Democratic Congressman from Illinois, who was convicted of bank fraud, 12 counts of sexual assault, obstruction of justice, and solicitation of child pornography had his sentence commuted on the bank fraud charged and was allowed to serve the final months under the auspices of a half way house. He had served his entire sentence on child sex abuse charges before the commutation of the later convictions.
* Roger Clinton, the president’s half-brother, on drug charges after having served the entire sentence more than a decade before. Roger Clinton would be charged with drunk driving and disorderly conduct in an unrelated incident within a year of the pardon.[15] He was also briefly alleged to have been utilized in lobbying for the Braswell pardon, among others.

A sex offender, a corrupt congressman, an Oil-For-Food financier, cronies and his own half-brother the drug dealer. What a list.

Posted by Hillary · Filed Under 2008, Bill Clinton, Crime, Hillary Clinton, Scandals

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