-Caveat Lector- WJPBR Email News List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Peace at any cost is a Prelude to War! Bush Has No Plan to Pardon Clinton, Spokesman Says By Bill Miller and Mike Allen Washington Post Staff Writers Wednesday, December 20, 2000; Page A16 President-elect Bush has no plans to pardon President Clinton for any alleged crimes stemming from the Monica S. Lewinsky matter, Bush's spokesman said yesterday, noting that Clinton himself has said he would neither seek nor accept such clemency from the incoming president. "President Clinton said that he would neither seek nor accept a pardon, and President-elect Bush takes him at his word," Ari Fleischer, Bush's transition spokesman, said during a conference call briefing with reporters. Fleischer echoed comments Bush made months ago during the presidential campaign. Barring any changes from that stance, Fleischer's remarks mean that independent counsel Robert W. Ray will make the ultimate decision about whether to seek charges that include perjury and obstruction of justice against Clinton once the president leaves office Jan. 20. Ray has said that he intends to make an announcement "very shortly" after Clinton steps down, but he has not signaled his intentions. Clinton first said last spring that he had "no interest" in a pardon, adding, "I wouldn't ask for it. I don't think it would be necessary." He also declared at the time: "I am prepared to stand before any bar of justice I have to stand before." He returned to that theme in an interview broadcast last night on the CBS-TV newsmagazine "60 Minutes II," saying: "Since I don't believe I should be charged, I don't want that." If he is charged, Clinton said, "I'll be happy to stand and fight." Clinton's attorney, David E. Kendall, declined comment yesterday. A spokesman for Ray's office also declined to discuss the issue. The independent counsel's office, first under Kenneth W. Starr and now under Ray, has been considering possible criminal charges against Clinton that would revisit much of the material weighed by Congress during impeachment proceedings in 1998 and 1999. The Senate ultimately acquitted Clinton of perjury and obstruction-of-justice charges stemming from sworn statements he made about his relationship with Lewinsky. Ray and his prosecutors have been presenting evidence in recent months to a grand jury at the federal courthouse in Washington. Since taking over from Starr in October 1999, Ray has concluded the Whitewater probe and other matters. He has repeatedly said that he put the office on course to make a decision about whether to indict Clinton early next year. He also has said that he believes the country deserves swift closure on the issue, one way or the other. Some observers believe that Bush should pardon Clinton regardless of Clinton's wishes, saying that it would spare the nation much turmoil. The Constitution gives presidents unlimited pardon powers, and the law is unclear about whether a person must accept the pardon for it to take effect. Legal specialists said a pardon would effectively derail any criminal investigation against the recipient. President Gerald R. Ford pardoned President Richard M. Nixon in 1974, a month after Nixon's resignation in the Watergate scandal. Leon Jaworski, the Watergate special prosecutor, wrote in his memoirs that he concluded he had no legal basis to challenge Ford's action. Bush's father, President George Bush, pardoned former defense secretary Caspar W. Weinberger and five others who had either been indicted or convicted of charges in the Iran-contra affair. Scott W. Reed, a Republican strategist in Washington who managed Sen. Robert J. Dole's presidential campaign in 1996, said he believes Bush would be wise to pardon Clinton. "President-elect Bush successfully ran his campaign on changing the culture of Washington, and ending the partisan bickering and investigations," Reed said. "There's no better way to close the book on the Clinton chapter than to pardon him and have a fresh new day." Stephen Hess, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said many of the same arguments for Nixon's pardon could be made on Clinton's behalf. "To paraphrase Gerald Ford in a slightly different context, our long national nightmare would be over," Hess said. "There is much to be said for clearing the dockets, bringing in fresh air." In addition to being impeached by the House, Clinton has paid $850,000 to settle the Paula Jones sexual harassment lawsuit. A federal judge has found him in contempt and fined him $90,000 for making "false, misleading and evasive answers" in his deposition in that case. And he could face disbarment in Arkansas. Former Watergate prosecutor Philip Lacovara, who resigned in protest the day after Ford pardoned Nixon, dismissed the talk by Clinton and Bush, recalling that "the same thing was said during Watergate" by Nixon, and also by Ford, before he took office. Lacovara said he wasn't surprised that Nixon accepted the pardon despite his initial opposition to the idea, adding, "It's one thing to be statesmanlike. It's another to turn away complete protection from prosecution." *COPYRIGHT NOTICE** In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for nonprofit research and educational purposes only.[Ref. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ] Want to be on our lists? 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