DO THE CLINTONS NOW SUPPORT JAIL TIME FOR PERJURERS?
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By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN
Published on FoxNews.com on July 6, 2007.
Former President Bill Clinton and Senator Hillary Clinton are
absolutely outraged that President Bush granted executive clemency to
Scooter Libby, recently convicted of making false statements under
oath. They obviously believe that Libby should serve his thirty month
sentence.
Does that mean that they now think that perjurers should go to jail?
Or have they simply forgotten about Bill Clinton's own plea agreement
in the last hours of his presidency - for making false statements
under oath? Some people would call that perjury.
One would have thought that Hillary and Bill Clinton wouldn't touch
the Libby executive clemency issue with a ten-foot pole - for lots of
reasons.
After all, Bill Clinton has a well-earned reputation as the king of
pardons - granting 140 of them during his last minutes in office -
with many going to terrorists, people who had paid Hillary's brothers
to arrange for pardons, contributed money or key support to Hillary's
Senate campaign, given the Clintons expensive personal gifts, and/or
made large contributions to Bill Clinton's Presidential Libra ry. One
of the pardons went to Bill's own brother, Roger, while another went
to Susan MacDougal, who kept quiet about Clinton during the Whitewater
trial.
That's really cronyism, Hillary.
Given the disgraceful Clinton record on pardons, most reasonable
people would have kept quiet - especially when Libby's offense was so
similar to Bill's own criminal conviction. But the self-righteous
former first couple couldn't resist. Once the clemency was announced,
Hillary immediately attacked President Bush, saying, "This commutation
sends the clear signal that in this administration, cronyism and
ideology trump competence and justice."
Hey, Hillary, do you understand what cronyism really means?
Cronyism is favoritism shown to friends and supporters without regard
to their qualifications. And that's what Bill Clinton's pardons were
all about. Except, as usual, the Clintons went way over the top. S o,
in addition to granting pardons to undeserving friends, Bill Clinton
also pardoned undeserving strangers who paid his family, friends,
campaign coffers, and presidential library.
Now Bill and Hillary claim that his highly controversial pardons were
"different" than the Libby clemency.
He's absolutely right ...
The big difference was that many of the Clinton pardons were patently
bought and paid for - something event he Clintons don't claim to be
the case in the Libby commutation.
Hillary's brothers were paid more than $500,000 to lobby the president
for pardons that were then granted to con artists and drug dealers.
For a fee of $400,000, Hugh Rodham successfully pushed for a pardon
for drug kingpin Carlos Anabel Vignali, convicted of shipping a half-
ton of cocaine from L.A. to Minnesota. His father was a big
contributor to the Democratic Party - he gave more than $150,000 to
the Los Angeles Democrats. Obviously, the investment was a shrewd one.
That's cronyism, Hillary. Get it?
Tony Rodham advocated a pardon for Edgar and Vanna Jo Gregory. The
Gregorys, who owned a carnival company, defrauded a federal bank. When
the pardon was publicized, Hillary stated that Tony was "not paid" by
the Gregorys for his work on the pardon. Tony repeated that line on
the Larry King Show.
After an investigation, the House Government Operations Committee
disagreed and announced that Hillary's statement was inaccurate. Now,
a federal bankruptcy court overseeing the carnival company's
bankruptcy is about to rule on whether over $100,000 paid to Tony
Rodham at the time of the pardons was a loan or payment for
"consulting."
The Gregorys contributed over $100,000 to Hillary's campaign and other
Democratic causes. These folks were well known to the Clintons - they
visited them at Camp David a nd were hired to stage two carnivals on
the White House grounds - paid for by the taxpayers.
That's cronyism, Hillary.
When the Rodham brothers' exploits were made public, Bill and Hillary
announced that they were "shocked and saddened" by the disclosure. At
the time of the pardons, the Rodham brothers were actually living in
the White House with the Clintons and had made contact with the
highest level of presidential assistants. But the Clintons claimed
that they were totally unaware of what Hugh and Tony were doing.
But, it wasn't just Hillary's family who benefited from the Clinton
cronyism. Bill's brother Roger was pardoned for his drug conviction,
and he was allegedly paid $30,000 to promote six felons - although
those pardons were never granted.
That's cronyism, Hillary.
The most outrageous Clinton pardons went to sixteen members of the
terrorist gang, the FALN, a Puerto Rican nationalist group responsible
for over 130 bombings in the U.S. - attacking the N.Y. office of the
FBI, military recruiting headquarters, and even former president Jimmy
Carter's Chicago campaign office. Six people died and dozens more were
injured as a result of FALN's actions. These terrorists never even
asked for a pardon, but because Hillary wanted to ingratiate herself
with the Hispanic population in New York during her first Senate race,
they were suddenly granted a commutation of their sentences.
Although the commutations were opposed by the FBI and the Clinton
Justice Department, Bill Clinton granted them to all 16 terrorists.
Once again, Hillary claimed to have "no involvement in or prior
knowledge of the decision." Her statement is ridiculous. Two days
before the announcement of the pardons, New York City Councilman Jose
Rivera personally presented Hillary with a packet of materials
including a letter asking her to "speak to the president and ask him
to consider granting executive clemency to the prisoners." What a
coincidence - the sentences were immediately commuted!
Hillary, that's another example of cronyism.
Joe Connor, the son of one of the innocent men killed by the FALN
terrorists at the Fraunces Tavern in Manhattan, put it this way:
"The Clinton family traded the release of terrorists for votes, votes
that were promised to be delivered by New York politicians to Hillary
for senate and Gore for president. That was clear."
That's cronyism, Hillary.
And Hillary actually has the audacity to accuse President Bush of
cronyism! This woman has no shame.
Then, of course, there was also Marc Rich, the fugitive oil broker who
renounced his American citizenship. Rich was illegally buying oil from
Iran during the American trade embargo and hid the $200 million in
trading (and over $10 0 million in profits) with Iraq using dummy
transactions in off-shore corporations.
Ironically, Scooter Libby was one of Rich's lawyers, while Rudy
Giuliani was the U.S. Attorney who brought the indictment. Amazingly,
the U.S. Attorney's Office was never contacted by the White House for
input into the pardon decision. Here's what the prosecuting attorney
had to say about the pardon:
"I cannot imagine two people that were less suited for a presidential
pardon than Marc Rich and Pincus Green[the co-defendant]. It is
inconceivable that President Clinton chose to pardon the two biggest
tax cheats in the history of the United States who had renounced their
citizenship, been fugitives for seventeen years, and who had traded
with the Iranians during the hostage crisis. While I do not know what
motivated President Clinton to pardon Rich and Green, I can state that
it is implausible that those pardons were based on his evaluation of
the meri ts of the case..." [http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/
pardonsex8.htm]
Interestingly, Rich's wife bought furniture for the Clinton's
Chappaqua home and contributed at least $450,000 to the Clinton
Library.
That's cronyism, Hillary.
Finally, there were the four New Square pardons. There, the Hasidic
defendants were convicted of pocketing $40 million of federal
scholarship money. Hillary visited the community, and on Election Day
the community supported Hillary 1400 to 12. Weeks later, on December
22, 2000, President Clinton met with the New Square leaders to discuss
a pardon. Hillary attended the meeting, but claims that she did not
speak.
Apparently, she didn't have to - the pardons were granted.
That's cronyism, Hillary!
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