He got a judge to do what he wanted. Same difference.
She refused to testify because they wanted her to lie. If she told the truth they told her they were going to (ironically) charge her with perjury.
They were threatening to prosecute her for perjury if she told the truth.
McDougal did.
Yes, except if they threaten to charge you with perjury for telling the truth, they have to prove you committed perjury. If you’re telling the truth it is usually very difficult for a prosecutor to prove this. Or she could have plead the fifth. No one has the right to
I don’t really care if there’s a difference or not. I’ve run out of interest in whether there’s any nontrivial inconsistency between my suggesting this reform now, and my failing to have done so in January 2001, six and a half years ago. It’s a pretty damned silly thing to be discussing; believe me, I wouldn’t have brought it up myself.
But I am interested in whether you think my suggestion is a good idea or not, and why.
They were going to use two witnesses they had already flipped by convicting them on unrelated tax charges and then offering to reduce their sentences if they changed their testimony. If she didn’t sign off on a written statement they provided her with (they wanted to hand her a script and just have her sign it), they were going to force their other two coerced “witnesses” to testify against her in a threatened perjury case.
Well, if you are so confident that this is true, why exactly couldn’t Susan McDougal’s law-talking guy make the same argument in court? If it’s so clear-cut? The argument that she was scared of a perjury trial just doesn’t make sense, she was already in jail on an indefinate contempt of court charge. She should have testified to what she believed was the truth and then dared Ken Starr to charge her with perjury.
Not that this has anything to do with Bush’s commutation of Libby’s sentence or anything.
Her lawyer (Mark Geragos) did scream his head off about it in public. As to why she didn’t take her chances in court – the odds were against her winning. It wasn’t about being right or wrong. They had the power, she didn’t.
Well, not a out-of-jail-free card, but a clean record at the end of it all. Ask any ex-con about the value of that.
I don’t wish to minimize what Bush did, or say what Clinton did was uniquely bad. I merely wish to state that turning the system on its ear on the basis of a controversial commutation doesn’t strike me as wise.
Harry Truman pardoned some government employees and some old Pendergast cronies on the way out the door. It hasn’t hurt his long term reputation much, nor hurt the pardon power. And yes, this too was bitterly attacked at the time.
Don’t personalize this. I was talking about a general lack of a demand for constitutional changes in the wake of the Clinton pardons, not speaking about you directly.
You’re so vain, you probably think this post is about you.
It’s funny, Moto, you seem to be doing your damnedest to make this a partisan issue, when the OP has pointed out that “his side” is the party that is most likely to be limited by it first.
Personally, I think the OP’s idea is a good one. The Presidential Pardon is, effectively, an unlimited power. Granted, it’s got its legitimate purposes… but how often has it actually been used correctly, versus how many times it’s been used as a friend-of-the-President “get out of jail free” card? At this point, there’s no accountability for the use of the pardon- limiting the times it can be used to when the President is accountable to the citizenry doesn’t seem particularly onerous to me.
I fully expect Libby to be the recipient of a nice, shiny Presidential Pardon right before Bush leaves office. I also fully expect the next President (whom I’m expecting to be Democrat) to do something similar right before he (or she) leaves office. Just because it’s always been done doesn’t mean it should continue to be done. We are a nation of equality and laws- you shouldn’t expect to be more equal under the law just because you’re a friend of the President.
Not a good idea. The president may have very good reasons to pardon people from his administration in those cases where politics entered their conviction in the first place. A Republican controlled Congress could, in a purely political maneuver, go after Democratic executive branch employees and then that same Congress would have to grant pardons. I’m with Mr. Moto on this one-- it’s not a good idea to tinker with the Constitution because one act occurred that you don’t agree with. That’s what’s generally happening hear.
I agree that the Pardon power shouldn’t be changed and I agree that Presidnts from both parties tend to abuse it, but I don’t think Susan McDougal was an example of abuse. Clinton gave some shady pardons but Susan McDougal really deserved one.
'Nuff said.
Even if we posit the second coming of Ken Starr, the fact remains that the most axe-to-grind prosecutor has to prove his charges in a court of law, before a jury if the defendant so desires. And if the defendant is someone the President might have any interest in pardoning, chances are the President’s friends can see to it that the defendant gets the best legal representation available. Unless the whole judicial system - prosecutors, judges, the whole thing - gets turned into a partisan instrument in the hands of the party not occupying the White House, this seems like a pretty low-probability concern.
Political use of pardons? A bit more likely.
The limit of Congress’ ‘going after’ people is to compel their testimony. Or to use the impeachment power to remove them from their Federal office, but that’s neither here nor there with respect to pardons.
This would have covered:
That’s eight instances I strongly disagree with, plus two more that I have no strong opinions about, but Mr. Moto apparently does.
I expect it could come up again in the coming months, if any present or former Bush Administration officials are held in contempt of Congress for their refusal to testify in the U.S. Attorney matter.
Even still, I don’t think there is a meaningful distinction between a person who worked in the administration and a person who contributed to the administration’s campaign (or a president’s relative).
If I had to change that clause in the Constitution, I’d rather that the Senate have a veto override (60 votes) on all presidential pardons rather than switching certain pardons to the legislative branch.
Yes, political pardons happen all the time, but what’s worse-- a few people pardoned for political reasons who don’t “deserve” one, or a few people not pardoned for political reasons who do “deserve” one. I can’t see Congress voting in a supermajority on anything that has a political subtext to it.
And sorry, but I wasn’t clear on the second part in that I wasn’t responding specifically to you. There seem to be a lot of people who want to tinker with the Constitution every time something happens that they don’t personally like, and the Libby commutation is striking that cord with some people, even if not with you.
The thing I’m primarily worried about is a President’s covering his own tracks with respect to crimes or abuses of power in office, by abusing his pardon authority to pardon those who might testify against him.
That’s where the distinction lies between persons who ultimately report to the President, and persons who are merely close to him in one way or another.
I can go along with this as an alternative, though.
No prob. Not that I wouldn’t like to amend the Constitution a few times myself - I think I came up with six or eight such amendments, last time we had a thread devoted to the subject.
But again, why?
Any president who uses the pardon power in this way does not escape judgment - it is merely visited upon him later by historians and his fellow countrymen who in the fullness of time may reflect on the wisdom or folly of these pardons. That can never be ducked.
And thus, years later, even Clinton’s staunchest defenders cannot defend many of the pardons. The best they can say of them is that they were an unfortunate episode in an otherwise successful presidency. Clinton critics, of course, fit the pardons into a larger pattern of misdeeds.
Either way, Clinton hasn’t escaped judgment for them. No comprehensive history of the Clinton presidency will fail to mention Marc Rich. In the same way, Bush will be linked to Scooter Libby for eternity.
The fullness of time will allow us to place these things in context. There the bitterly opposed Truman eleventh hour pardons truly become a footnote. There the Nixon pardon would be honored by the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library as a “Profile in Courage”. There the Bush pardons might well look worse. Personally, I think they look pretty bad already - Bush has pardoned very few people. I hope he’s saving a whole bunch for the eleventh hour.
History’s judgment and the demands of justice ought to be enough check on this power. Historically it has shown to be enough. I may point to an individual pardon as a mistake, but seldom can I make a case for changing the Constitution from this.
As for the matter of the eleventh hour pardons - I’d like to propose another solution that might keep them in check. There is nothing in the Constitution that prohibits an impeachment of an official who is leaving office, and while practical considerations may make that point moot, for evidence of massive corruption (and I think a case could have been made in the case of the Clinton pardons) such an impeachment and Senate prosecution could have stripped him of many of the perquisites of office due an ex-president, including his pension.
Such a reform would be perfectly constitutional. No amendments necessary. Just because it hasn’t been done for a president doesn’t mean it hasn’t been done.
Note that there are two proposals currently. My own about timing limitations, and RTFirefly’s about pardoning those in the executive branch. I would be interested in your thoughts on the first.
Note that there would be no affect upon Libby’s commutation, or even pardon so long as it happened before we get to the next election.
If it is OK with you then I will do a little insider trading and make a few million. I am fully prepared to accept the condemnation of history. Granted the parallel is uneven as that is strictly illegal while the pardons are not. However, we have established means for deterring both of these undesirable behaviors. Though you may argue that we do not catch enough white collar criminals or prosecute them heavily enough when we do, we still catch and punish them. When the President gives an eleventh hour pardon he has circumvented the basic means of redress.
Yes, history will look down on him for this and Presidents tend to be concerned with how history views them, but there is no immediate penalty for this inappropriate use of powers as the situation stands. In fact, I would make the point that even the view of history is tempered by the lack of trouble these pardons cause the president in the short-term. I suggest that a President performing those pardons while he still had time in office to be attacked by his opponents with them would be remembered in a much poorer light.
I also feel that this is in direct opposition to the intention the framers had when granting it to the President. Does anyone know when the first last-minute pardon happened?
A President who is leaving office could be impeached, but I do not believe it would be possible to impeach one who has left office. I seem to recall difficulties for Clinton in having trouble signing them fast enough to finish them. Good luck running that through Congress in time.
It could be done afterward. The cases of William Blount and William W. Belknap illustrate this - both were cases of impeachment that proceeded in the House after resignation or expulsion.
And no reason we can’t discuss numerous things at once. I’m sure we all can handle it. 
Blount doesn’t seem appropriate as it appears the Senate decided that they did not have standing once the guy was out of office. Belknap seems more appropriate though. In that case they still went after as they felt he was attempting to escape responsibility by resigning. I can see that this could serve as precedent. Very interesting points. I think the major take-away was that Clinton had the wrong name and should have seen the impeachment coming.
While I agree that there is potential here, I do not think it is of practical use. The only way I can see it being utilized is if Congress leans heavily to one party and the Presidency changes hands with both Presidents being of the other party. Even then I expect they will have far more to worry about and this late impeachment will be even more poorly regarded by the US citizenship than the actual pardons.
Of course.
Actually, the out was that Blount was a legislative officer and not a civil officer under Article II and therefore could not be impeached even if he had not been expelled.