Posted on 07/03/2007 12:57:27 PM PDT by hardback
Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton drew a distinction between President Bush's decision to commute the sentence of White House aide I. Lewis ``Scooter'' Libby - which she has harshly criticized - and her husband's 140 pardons in his closing hours in office.
``I believe that presidential pardon authority is available to any president, and almost all presidents have exercised it,'' Clinton said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.
``This (the Libby decision) was clearly an effort to protect the White House. ... There isn't any doubt now, what we know is that Libby was carrying out the implicit or explicit wishes of the vice president, or maybe the president as well, in the further effort to stifle dissent.''
Libby, a former chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, had been sentenced to 30 months in prison as well as two years' probation and a $250,000 fine for perjury in connection with the leaking of CIA agent Valerie Plane's name to reporters.
Just hours after a federal appeals court rejected Libby's appeal, Bush announced his decision to commute the prison term portion of the sentence, which he labeled excessive.
As she campaigns with her husband for Iowa's leadoff precinct caucuses, Clinton has joined other Democrats in ripping Bush's decision. In the interview, she said it was ``one more example'' of the Bush administration thinking ``it is above the rule of law.''
Her husband's pardons, issued in the closing hours of his presidency, were simply routine exercise in the use of the pardon power, and none were aimed at protecting the Clinton presidency or legacy, she said.
``This particular action by the president is one more piece of evidence in their ongoing disregard for the rule of law that they think they don't have to answer to,'' she said.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
I'm sure her list is already of recordbreaking length.
How many presidents pardoned terrorists?
Yes Bill only pardons people who pay us with huge bags of cash.
Nor were they aimed at protecting the United States.
> Her husband’s pardons, issued in the closing hours of his presidency, were simply routine exercise in the use of the pardon power, and none were aimed at protecting the Clinton presidency or legacy, she said. <
Bravo Sierra! Susan McDougal was certainly hushed up, and Roger Clinton was spared having the names of his cocaine customers (one of whom I expect was Billy Boy) revealed in court. Lying $itch!
The single charge that Libby was convicted of was based on the Jury believing Tim Russert’s testimony over his. The Jury took Russert’s side because Denis Collins the Jury Foreman is a neighbor and friend of Russert.
Her husbands pardons had price tags affixed to them.
Of all the gaul...this woman is as shameless as her husband.. and that’s saying a lot!
Or girlfriend's husband.
In March 1995, U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno secured the appointment of an Independent Counsel, David Barrett to investigate allegations that Cisneros had lied to FBI investigators during background checks prior to being named Secretary of HUD. He had been asked about payments that he had made to former mistress Linda Medlar, also known as Linda Jones. The affair had been ‘public knowledge’ for a number of years - during the 1992 presidential campaign, U.S. Treasurer Catalina Vasquez Villalpando publicly referred to Cisneros and candidate Clinton as “two skirt-chasers” - but Cisneros lied about the amount of money he had paid to Medlar. The investigation continued for three and a half years.
In December, 1997, Cisneros was indicted on 18 counts of conspiracy, giving false statements and obstruction of Justice. Medlar used some of the Cisneros hush money to purchase a house and entered into a bank fraud scheme with her sister and brother-in-law to conceal the source of the money. In January, 1998, Medlar pleaded guilty to 28 charges of bank fraud, conspiracy to commit bank fraud and obstruction of justice.
In September, 1999, Cisneros negotiated a plea agreement, under which he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of lying to the FBI, and was fined $10,000. He did not receive jail-time or probation. He was pardoned by President Bill Clinton in January 2001 ( See: List of people pardoned by Bill Clinton). The independent counsel investigation continued after the pardon focusing on alleged obstruction of justice. In May 2005, Senator Dorgan (D-ND) proposed ending funding for the investigation; negotiators refused to include the provision in a bill funding military operations in Afghanistan. The funding at that point for the investigation totaled $21 million.
According to a New York Daily News report on October 3, 2005, “lawyers are fighting to suppress a potentially embarrassing final report from the probe that found Housing Secretary Henry Cisneros lied to the FBI about paying $250,000 in hush money to his ex-mistress. ... Lawyers at the Washington firm Williams and Connolly who work for Cisneros and both Clintons have argued to judges overseeing the case that allegations of illegal activity, for which no charges were filed, should be snipped before the report is made public.” [2].
Wasn’t Roger getting coke delivered to Bill’s apartment in Little Rock or something?
This is Hillaryspeak for 'the best way to quiet the SOB's is to off them'.
Translation: Libby should have bought a pardon, fair and square.
“Don’t those stupid Republicans know what a damned Pardon is sells for these days???? How DARE they Devalue the currency of the Democratic Party!!”-Hillary Clinton
Suprised the ‘smartest woman in the world’ decided to cross that minefield.
Let me guess.
“Her Husband’s” pardons good.
Bush pardons bad.
Yes, there is a difference, you obnoxious cow. No one was being paid for a presidential pardon in this case, which couldn’t be said of the pardons your worthless brothers sold at the end of the Fornicator-in-Chief’s presidency. I’ll stack Libby’s commutation up against Henry Cisneros’s full pardon any day. He should have been in prison for lying to the FBI, as I recall.
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