Clinton Wars Relived
Pardons and Attorney 'Scandals' Remind of Clinton White House
By AmandaBCarpenter Posted in Archived — Comments (2) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
After House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D.-Mich.) scheduled a Thursday hearing on “The Appropriate Use of Presidential Pardoning Power” Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Tex.) sent a letter to former President Bill Clinton that asked him to come testify at it.
"Former President Clinton is no stranger to controversial pardons, most notably the pardon of Marc Rich on his last day in office," said Smith in a press release about his letter. "I can think of no better person to address this issue."
In the release, Smith noted that “President Clinton granted pardons or commuted the sentences of nearly 500people, including fugitive financier Marc Rich, whose wife donated $450 thousand to the Clinton Library. Other pardons included a person accused of cocaine trafficking and a former Democratic committee chairman indicted on political corruption charges.
Conyers didn’t find any humor in Smith’s idea to bring Clinton to the Hill. Conyers immediately put out an response statement that said, “It seems some are more interested in accountability for the Clinton administration than for this current administration....Now many Republicans who thought perjury was impeachable, think it’s pardonable for the rich and the powerful.”
Sen. Hillary Clinton (D.-N.Y.) has stayed mum on presidential pardon authority, but she has bashed President Bush for the eight U.S. attorneys he fired. She told the AP that the firings were indicative of a “long record of trying to upset the traditional separation of powers.”
Her husband fired all 93 U.S. attorneys immediately after taking office in 1993. Hillary told the AP in the same interview that doing so is “a traditional prerogative of an incoming President.” She argued that President Bush’s U.S. attorney firings are different because he dismissed them in the middle of his term while they were involved in political cases.
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Clinton Wars Relived 2 Comments (0 topical, 2 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
careful Tubby, the makeup may run of your prematurely aged face.
Yes, the "firing in middle of the term scandal" there to match up with the no-underlying-crime scandal, a combination sure to arouse the beasts in the jungle and set journalism schools ablaze in the fury that belongs to wronged saints and ethical giants.
We better settle down to a long eighteen months of nonstop non-scandals and a lot of crowing from people who wouldn't see a Democratic scandal if it sat on their nose, and wouldn't care even if they did see it.
Congratulations to Rep. Smith, you do have to remind liberals of what they are, who better to remind them with than Bill "we luv ya" Clinton.
"a man's admiration for absolute government is proportinate to the contempt he feels for those around him". Tocqueville
Only the most naive would think it's coincidence that the NY Times would run an op-ed by a Clinton administration lawyer about a special prosecutor into the US Attorney 'scandal'. Nobody should think of this as anything more than the Clintons' attempt to turn nothing into something for political cover.