-Caveat Lector-
<http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/09/opinion/09FRI1.html>
February 9, 2001
EDITORIAL
The Pardons Look More Sordid
The hearing yesterday before the House Committee on Government
Reform made it clearer than ever that President Clinton's
decision to pardon Marc Rich, the fugitive commodities trader,
was an inexcusable abuse of the president's absolute clemency
power. The hearings produced information � unproven but
disturbing � suggesting that Mr. Clinton may have discussed the
pardon with a Democratic fund-raiser and was aware of objections
to the pardon by White House lawyers. More Congressional
inquiries lie ahead. Based on the testimony yesterday they are
warranted, but Congress should avoid the temptation for endless
inquiry and reach an expeditious account of the interplay between
fund-raising and the pardons.
Whatever the outcome, Congress ought to remember that these
abuses by a particularly insensitive chief executive are not a
good reason to change the Constitution to curtail the president's
powers to grant pardons. The Rich case itself suggests that
future such abuses can best be avoided by pursuing meaningful
campaign finance reform and by tightening government ethics
rules.
Campaign finance reform, while not rendering bad presidential
judgments obsolete, would help address the root problem involved
in this and so many of the Clinton administration's other
scandals � unequal access to the White House. Like those of
Michael Milken and others championed by wealthy Democratic
contributors, Marc Rich's pardon application was sent directly to
the White House and did not go through the usual Justice
Department channels. His former wife, Denise Rich, who invoked
her right not to incriminate herself in declining to testify
yesterday, wrote Mr. Clinton on behalf of the pardon application.
She also wrote big checks to the party, to Hillary Rodham
Clinton's Senate campaign and to the Clinton presidential
library. Strategic campaign donations were also made by other
pardon seekers.
The involvement in this case of Jack Quinn, the former White
House counsel, was equally unseemly, placing Mr. Clinton in a
terrible predicament. Mr. Quinn's feeble defense of the pardon's
merits has only fanned the outrage in recent weeks. His argument
that Mr. Rich was improperly charged with crimes in an
essentially civil matter should have been made in a court of law
two decades ago. The White House is not an alternative judicial
venue for fugitives.
A more scrupulous attorney would have recognized and avoided the
inherent conflict between his loyalty to the president
(essentially his former client), on the one hand, and his
obligation to Mr. Rich on the other. The most charitable way to
characterize Mr. Clinton's behavior in the case is to accept that
he also failed to recognize the conflict and assumed his former
lawyer was still in the business of providing him with
straightforward analysis on a legal matter, which he clearly did
not.
Mr. Quinn testified that he had advised Eric Holder, then the
deputy attorney general, that he was approaching the White House
on Mr. Rich's behalf, but that is no substitute for following the
rules other clemency seekers, who may not have donated a million
dollars or may not have hired the president's former lawyer, must
follow. For his part, Mr. Holder had no good explanation for his
failure to learn more about the merits of the Rich case from
prosecutors in New York before declaring his neutrality on the
issue. He simply said he did not pursue the matter because he
thought Mr. Rich's case was such a long shot on the merits.
Mr. Quinn violated the spirit of executive orders barring senior
White House aides from lobbying the government for five years
after leaving office, and clearly helped grease the pardon. As
Representative Christopher Shays, Republican of Connecticut,
said: "This is not a pardon problem as much as it is a
revolving-door problem."
Even at a time of heightened cynicism in Washington, it was
breathtaking to hear Mr. Quinn testify that he knew he did not
violate the Clinton administration's lobbying rules because he
wrote them and provided an exemption for communications
"regarding a judicial proceeding." This is a standard exception
to ethics rules that allows former government attorneys to oppose
the government in court, because that does not entail influencing
former colleagues. For a former White House counsel to rely on
this exception to press the president for a pardon takes an
unusual ethical insensitivity.
Mr. Clinton's irresponsibility was also breathtaking, and has
added millions of Democrats to the rolls of those who regard him
with bitter disappointment. The best way for Congress and the
Bush administration to prevent such outrages in the future is not
by tinkering with the Constitution but by following Justice
Department guidelines on pardons, tightening ethical rules and
passing campaign finance reform.
=================================================================
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
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