-Caveat Lector- http://opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=65000775 REVIEW & OUTLOOK Yes, Pardon Milken. An independent-counsel target also deserves Presidential mercy. Wednesday, December 13, 2000 12:01 a.m. EST As Bill Clinton's term winds down, pardons are in the air. The New York Times reported last week that the President is considering pardons for a number of people, including junk-bond king Michael Milken and Clinton scandal figures Webster Hubbell, Susan McDougal and Archie Schaffer. In terms of the purpose of Presidential pardons, Michael Milken's would be the most appropriate. Presidential pardons often involve figures whose crime and controversy are as much political as legal. Mr. Milken, for those with long memories, somehow came to personify the "greed decade" of the 1980s, an almost quaint notion in retrospect. At Drexel Burnham Lambert, Mr. Milken invented the high-yield junk bond, today a common instrument of finance but back then considered the plague by corporate elites. As described by economic historian Glenn Yago: "In essence, junk bonds gave many smaller companies access to capital, and hence to many of the privileges, once enjoyed exclusively by our nation's largest corporations. Junk bonds became an important agent of social and economic change." No doubt historians someday will set the record straight on Mr. Milken's contribution to the explosive economic growth experienced by the U.S. in the past 20 years. For now, he remains the most famous figure who became engulfed in the controversial securities prosecutions undertaken by then-U.S. attorney Rudolph Giuliani, based on information supplied by such economically immaterial figures as Ivan Boesky, Dennis Levine and Martin Siegel. Ultimately Mr. Milken pleaded guilty to six felonies, including parking stock. Less widely absorbed is the fact that virtually all the initial Giuliani securities convictions, such as Princeton/Newport and GAF, were overturned by the Second Circuit. The reversals, however, postdated the bankruptcy of Drexel Burnham and Mr. Milken's time in prison. Mr. Milken's philanthropic and charitable contributions are well-chronicled, but it is interesting to note that the case for a pardon has been carried to Mr. Clinton by a Democratic mega-contributor named Ron Burkle. The Los Angeles Times described Mr. Burkle as "the closest thing to a Los Angeles Horatio Alger," a onetime supermarket box boy who became a supermarket billionaire--with the aid of Mr. Milken's financing. The Milken conviction carried in its wake a lifetime ban from the securities business. It is conceivable that a pardon might allow the removal of that ban, which in turn might release what most piques our curiosity--exactly what sort of financial innovations have been tumbling through Mr. Milken's restless brain through the dot-com era. As to the Hubbell-McDougal pardons, we reserve the right to see any such action as a continuation of the conspiracy to obstruct justice. That said, we would like to support a pardon for Mr. Schaffer. A former executive with Arkansas poultry king Tyson Foods, Mr. Schaffer found himself in the crosshairs of independent counsel Donald Smaltz's probe into former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy. Mr. Espy was accused of accepting illegal gratuities. Mr. Schaffer was convicted in 1998 of violating the Meat Inspection Act by attempting to influence Mr. Espy with gifts of free air travel, sports tickets, and other gratuities. He was sentenced to one year in prison. Mr. Espy was acquitted of all charges. Don Tyson, the chairman of Tyson Foods, was granted immunity from prosecution in exchange for cooperation and a guilty plea by his corporation to one count of providing an illegal gratuity. Mr. Smaltz collected 15 other convictions and $11 million in fines with some tough and creative prosecutions. Mr. Schaffer's prison sentence, mandated under federal law, strikes us as excessive. In a rare display of unanimity, Arkansas's entire delegation to Washington, half Republican and half Democrat, has asked the President to pardon Mr. Schaffer, a longtime Democratic Party activist. So has the state's Republican Governor, Mike Huckabee. In November, he wrote Mr. Clinton saying he was taking "the initiative in asking for this pardon because I fully realize the political uproar some people would attempt to create if it were viewed as a case of you granting a favor to a political ally. As a Republican, I am making this request in the interest of justice." Donald Smaltz saw to it that justice was done. Now Mr. Schaffer deserves an act of Presidential mercy. ================================================================= Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT FROM THE DESK OF: *Michael Spitzer* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends ================================================================= <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds�is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. 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