From: MICHAEL SPITZER 
Subject: IUFO: WP: Bush Has No Plan to Pardon Clinton, Spokesman Say
Date: 20 Dec 2000 07:10:44 -0500
To: Conspiracy Theory Research List 

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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."


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             Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT

  FROM THE DESK OF:
                     *Michael Spitzer*  
                      ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends
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