[corp-focus] Pardon Me?

[Robert Weissman]

Pardon Me?
By Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman

Sometime within the next two days, in the last hours of his presidency,
Bill Clinton will exercise his Constitutional power to grant clemency to a
lucky group of federal convicts.

Securities fraudster Michael Milken wants to be pardoned. So do a slew of
other high profile white-collar criminals. So does convicted spy Jonathan
Pollard. Leonard Peltier, convicted of killing two federal agents, wants
his jail term commuted. Susan McDougal and others caught up in the
Whitewater scandal want Clinton to act now. And hundreds of non-violent
drug offenders -- victims of Clinton's misguided war on drugs -- want out
of prison. In Washington, rumors are flying as to who will get a pardon
and who won't.

The U.S. Constitution gives the President the power to pardon anyone for a
federal crime. Other than political retribution, there are no checks on
the President's pardon power.

If you are in jail, and you believe that the sentence was unjust, you can
petition the President to commute your sentence.

Or if you have already paid your fine, and done your time, you can
petition the President for a pardon. You would want to get a pardon
because there are a long list of civil disabilities that hang on a felony
conviction -- barred from securities industry, can't vote, hunt, get
certain licenses in many states -- that you might want to relieve yourself
of. And the President can do this for you. Ninety-five percent of all
those granted clemency since 1977 have fallen into the second category --
pardons.

For more than 100 years, the Justice Department has had a Pardon Attorney.
It's the Pardon Attorney's job to process petitions for clemency, and make
recommendations to the President. The Pardon Attorney receives close to
1,300 petitions per year. But most presidents only grant clemency to a
handful every year -- Clinton has granted only 280 in his eight years as
President.

Margaret Colgate Love, the Justice Department's Pardon Attorney from 1990
to 1997, believes that the pardon power has been underused. Love believes
that pardons can and should be used as a policy tool -- to send political
signals about what is right and wrong with our criminal justice system.

On December 22, 2000, for example, President Clinton commuted the
sentences of two women serving decades-long sentences for minor roles in
drug offenses.

"The President can and should do more," said Rev. Bernard Keels, a member
of the Coalition for Jubilee Clemency, a group of more than 700 faith
leaders who recently sent a letter to President Clinton urging him to
grant clemency to low-level, nonviolent Federal drug offenders.

We fear that in the next two days, Clinton will do the Clintonesque thing
-- protect his white-collar friends by pardoning them or commuting their
sentences, and at the same time trying to cover his tracks by commuting
the sentences of only a handful of the thousands of non-violent drug
offenders who don't have the high-powered legal talent, resources, or
connections necessary to get the President's attention.

Last year, Clinton pardoned the former powerful member of the House Ways
and Means Committee Dan Rostenkowski, convicted of crimes related to
allegations that he padded his pockets while in office. Rostenkowski and
his highly connected political friends had visited the White House a
number of times since his conviction in 1993.

The Rostenkowski pardon reminds us of similar pardons for the politically
connected and powerful in the past -- the pardons of the convicted
multinational businessman Armand Hammer and of the convicted New York
Yankee owner George Steinbrenner.

And we fear that Clinton may misuse that power again -- this time by
pardoning those he wishes to silence -- or pay back for silence -- in the
Whitewater matter. Of course, Clinton can pardon anyone he wants, for any
reason. He can even type up a pardon for himself, stick it in his pocket,
and not tell anyone about it -- until an indictment comes down.

But with pardons, like with other aspects of the criminal justice system,
you get what you pay for. And this is the season where the white collar
criminals have paid big bucks to hire slick Washington, D.C. lawyers to
work the system.

Michael Milken's lawyers thought they scored a coup last week when the New
York Times ran an article headlined "Ex-Financier Milken in Line for a
Pardon, Officials Say." The Times reported that "lawyers said that federal
prosecutors who might have criticized the pardon had not raised any
protest with the White House since news of the possibility of a pardon was
first published last month."

In fact, prosecutors had vigorously objected to the possibility of a
pardon for Milken, and two days later, the Times was forced to run an
extraordinary correction, in which the paper of record quoted a letter
from Securities and Exchange Commission Enforcement chief Richard Walker
as saying that while Milken's well-known philanthropy was commendable, "it
cannot erase his simultaneous illegal conduct, conduct that occurred after
he was convicted and after he was released from prison."

"Philanthropy cannot provide a license to violate the law," Walker wrote.

Kathleen Dean Moore, a professor of philosophy at Oregon State University,
recently advised Clinton to grant pardons that "can be justified as acts
of mercy or acts of justice -- the two greatest virtues of a ruler."

Good advice, if he takes it. We fear he won't. Watch out for more
political favoritism to the corporate and white-collar elite that has
sustained Clinton throughout his presidency.


Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime
Reporter. Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based
Multinational Monitor. They are co-authors of Corporate Predators: The
Hunt for MegaProfits and the Attack on Democracy (Monroe, Maine: Common
Courage Press, 1999).

(c) Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman