This just in-Senator Hilary Clinton (D-NY) expressed her “sorrow” and disappointment" that her brother had apparently gotten $400,000.00, for procuring two pardons from her husband. One of these was for a big-time drug peddler (he brought in 800 lbs of cocaine). My question: is this a foretaste of what’s to come? or were most pof the recent presidential pardons “on the level”?
It looks like pardons can be quite profitable for certain people.
What say you all?
Clinton’s pardon of Carlos Vignali certainly smells bad, given that his father was a major campaign contributor and the pardon was not recommended by the Justice Department. It does lay ground for the suspicion that Vignali’s dad effectively bought a pardon for his family. Jimmy Carter, no friend of the Republicans, has publicly called the Vignali pardon a disgrace. I believe there are good grounds for an investigation.
On the other hand, I cannot grasp what is supposed to be crooked about Hugh Rodham’s work on Vignali’s pardon. The $400,000 fee was exorbitant, certainly, but it’s not criminal just to charge a very high fee, especially when a sentence of life imprisonment is at issue. Rodham would be entitled to his fee regardless of whether Vignali was pardoned or not, so it’s not as if granting the pardon was doing any special favor to the First Lady’s brother. If some of the fee had made it into Clinton’s hands, that could be the basis for a corruption charge, but I thought Rodham had in fact returned the entire fee, so I don’t see how that could have happened. What’s the alleged criminal or unethical angle here?
Weren’t there three oddities in Hugh R.'s participation?
- He is in Florida and practices another aspect of law, doesn’t usually work on these kinds of case.
- He didn’t go through normal channels but just brought his paperwork right to the White House.
- This kind of work is supposidly done on an hourly fee for the work done and documented by the lawyer and case was either done on contingency or flat fee.
I probably don’t have all that right for I was only half listening to CNN. The report made me think back to another CNN report a day or so before. It went something like: GW has recieved 9 minutes of evening news time since Juanary 20th and Bill Clinton has recieved 52 minutes.
Last evening some question was being raised about Sen. Clinton’s finances…
These are not old soldiers who will just fade away!
Jois
Hey, didn’t you guys hear Clinton: those pardons were based on the merits of the case. 
The fact that he issued over a hundred pardons on his last day in office was just coincidental. Did you ever know Clinton to lie?
I’ve always been a Democrat, but it amazes me that we still elect these sleazebags into office, even the highest offices. We all knew Clinton’s character before he was elected the first time. News of his philandering was well broadcast. Altho he always aspired to be President, he avoided the draft. (To me, that was the biggest tipoff. I know we had a discussion about that before, and a lot of people would have liked to, or did, avoid the draft. But he wanted to be Commander-in-Chief.)
As for the missus, NYers knew about her shenanigans as the first lady, starting off with firing a staff because she wanted her friends in, and then lying about it. In fact, worse than the initial wrongdoings is the fact that both Clintons persisted in lying about the facts surrounding the events - oh! pardon me. Not lying, if you define your terms correctly. And the Clintons are entitled to their own definitions.
So, the Clintons are not to be blamed. We are.
My answer: No. At least, not based on the behavior of the new Presidency. People may not like a lot of Bush’s policies so far, but you have to admit, just about everything he’s done was hardly a surprise. Nor has there been any accusations of “under the table” behavior as there had been in the Clinton presidency.
I think the problem was that Clinton didn’t take the lesser-used powers of the Presidency seriously. I mean, when was the last time you heard so much hubbub about so many pardons at once?
Actually, I’ve been rather curious as to how Clinton’s pardons compare (spin-removed, of course) to the pardons of previous Presidents. I get the nagging suspicion that a big reason Clinton’s pardons look so bad is just more smear tactics by the Republican right, and that if the pardons were compared to those granted by Bush Sr., Reagan, and Nixon, wouldn’t look too far out of “normal.”
But hey, guess the GOP just can’t let Bubba go without getting in a few last licks…
One utterly disgusting result: Rep. Dan Burton, a cesspool in a blue suit, is made to look a stalwart, instead of just a wart.
So much of it just doesn’t make any sense, even from a cynical perspective, which I usually find clafifies Washingtonian activities to a crystalline.
Mike Millikan (sp?) has labored mightily for a pardon, backed by scads of powerful/rich muckety mucks. He has given the Dems tons of bucks. If he had the pardon, he could return to his usual trade, and give them tons more. He didn’t get one. If, indeed, pardons were for sale, where was his?
As for the Hasidic Jews/Hilary connection, again, why? Statisticly, the ultra-Orthodox tend very strongly to the political conservative. The tiny enclave where those guys live did, atypically, vote for Hilary, but thats a paltry return for the investment. (About 1400 votes) It did very little to endear Hillary to the rest of the Jewish population, who aren’t that fond of thier cranky and obstructive co-religionists.
None of this makes any damn sense!
Finally, according to studies of “Landslide” George’s tenure as Gov. of Texas, he spent approximately fifteen minutes each when deciding whether or not to sign a death warrant. Would you rather have a man too easy with a pardon or too easy with a death sentence?
And, once again, the spectacle of GOP in high dudgeon, moral outrage, etc. Whether to laugh or puke? That is the question.
some that you might find interesting are:
Nixon’s pardon of Jimmy Hoffa, there were contributions from the Teamsters for Nixon
George Bush’s pardon of the Iran Contra gate figurers (Casper et al) which came shortly after it was announced that Bush had written records that could be taken into evidence, and just before their trials were to start. It effectively halted the special prosecutor’s investigation into Iran Contragate.
And, of course, there was Ford’s Pardon of Nixon that gained a whole lotta attention.
Those are just some I can recall off the top of my head.
While I agree that some other presidents have made questionable pardons, let’s get the record straight about Caspar Weinberger - Weinberger was AGAINST Iran-contra. He fought it all the way. His charge was something like obstruction of justice, because he refused to turn over a PERSONAL diary, which contained personal details about his family, to Congress. Congress had no evidence that the diary contained anything incriminating, but it was firing out blanket subpoenas left and right, violating the privacy of all kinds of people, and Weinberger stood his ground against what he saw as an injustice.
To prove that his stance was a matter of principle, as soon as the trial was over he released it to the public anyway, and it contained absolutely nothing incriminating, because as I said Weinberger was strongly against Iran-Contra in the first place.
Weinberger has gotten a really bad rap over all of this, and he didn’t deserve it.
In the movie “Traffic”, a fictional Mexican drug czar turns out to be on the payroll of a big drug cartel.
I was feeling smug about the USA’s lower level of corruption, until I realized that our President released Carlos Vignali from prison. This convicted crack cocaine kingpin was released, without the normal Justice Department review, apparently in exchange for money given to Clinton and other politicians.
Ugh!
Clinton does show many of the features of an anti-social personality disorder. I am a professional psychologist and would diagnos him as haveing a narcissistic personality disorder with anti-social features or an anti-social personality disorder with narcissistic features.
Too bad we elect such people into office.
Wow, berdellos! Used to be professional psychologists would say stuff like they wouldn’t make a diagnosis of someone they had not met, much less analyzed. Seems like only yesterday…
Boy, science advances in leaps and bounds, huh? Has Joyce Brothers been told? She could get some real mileage out of that!
Jeez, I hope your spelling is better when you’re writing out perscriptions…
So far this thread looks more like a pit thread than a GD topic.
Here is my attempt to “direct” things a little.
Ok. Here we go.
The $400,000 was paid after the pardon was issued. It was called a “success fee” and was only paid because the pardon was issued. As of today, the money has not been returned.
The angle…
Well, since the money was deposited in an out of country bank account, you automatically get images of someone getting paid off. More to the point, some legitimate questions need to be addressed:
Is this all of the money? How do we know?
Was any of this money intended to be funneled to the Clinton’s?
Did the Clinton’s receive money as well? Possibly in other out of country accounts? (Presidential library fund?)
Did Mr. Clinton agree in advance to give a pardon to this guy if a certain amount was paid?
In my admittedly partisan view, this is an obvious case of bribery. I think the Clinton’s knew EVERYTHING about this, and were probably even the ones calling the shots. I think the Clinton’s used people to take the payments as a way to keep their hands clean. I think more money is out there.
This is shady as hell. If Clinton were just an ex-President, I would say…“let’s move on…”
However, with Hillary still in a public position of trust and power, I think this needs to be investigated.
Bunk.
- Psychologists do not refer to themselves as “professional” psychologists;
- As elucidator already pointed out, “professional” psychologists (at least competent ones) don’t diagnose at a distance (that’s what “amateur” psychologists like me and you do, berdollos); and
- Have you ever read the DSM-IV, berdollos? The one thing Clinton doesn’t suffer from is ASPD. Duh.
On to the real issue:
- As I’ve been raving in the Pit for a coupla weeks, throw all the bastards in jail if we can get the goods on them; but
- If Burton doesn’t shut his yap, he’s gonna screw up the criminal investigations; and
- [nit-pick]one thing that is not evidence of wrongdoing here is the large number of last-minute pardons. That’s par for the course with Presidents - pardons are inherently controversial, so you leave them until the end.[/nit-pick]
Sua
I agree, but what about the large number of Presidential RELATIVES getting pay[sub]offs[/sub]ments?
That HUGE number, that awesome number, that…
Two, Freedom, one of whom denies it. And who, for all you and I know, may be telling the truth.
Bit of a stretch, don’t you think.
“Well, its only a foot long, darlin’, but its as big around as a beer can…”
And just how many of YOUR relatives have gotten payoffs from people looking for pardons, 'Dator?
“But they wouldn’t want to be paying off MY relatives, I’m not the President!”
- Good.
- Exactly.
I, myself, am not too concerned over the individuals who’s pardons don’t seem to be completely on the level… I’m more concerned over the VAST NUMBERS of pardons given out at once. Perhaps most of them were issued to help hide the one or two that were a tad shady? Who knows.
In addition, this caught me as hilarious…
Well, you’re apparently an expert on such matters, 'Dator (I assume you’ve been granting pardons your whole life), so tell me… how much time SHOULD a person spend on deciding whether or not to grant a pardon? Considering each case had already gone through a trial (and likely several appeals), I think fifteen minutes would be plenty to review the major facts of the case and to see what professionals had to say about it.
I don’t like to eat breakfast. I’m just not hungry, so I hardly ever do.
But I like to eat lunch early, like at 11 a.m. Sometimes even at like 10:30 a.m.
I find that if I wait until a more “typical” lunchtime, say noon or 1, later that day I’m not hungry at around dinner time. And because I skip breakfast, it’s a good idea that I eat at dinner, doncha think?
Then usually, with just a small snack of some sort later in the evening, I’m pretty well all set, appetite-wise.
(What’s that? Oh, I’m fully aware that none of this has anything to do with Clinton’s last-day sleaze, or Hillary’s possible complicity in at least a couple of the questionable pardons.
But neither does Michael Milken not getting a pardon, or George W. Bush’s capital punishment program in Texas, or any Iran-Contra pardons, or some new troll or sock puppet pretending to be a psychologist.)
Thank you.
I thought it was the beer, until you tied it together so nicely there at the end:) I really enjoyed that post.