President Clinton's slippery goodbye

Rest assured, you who worried that William Jefferson Clinton might go gentle into that good night. Only days after Clinton himself secured a grant of immunity from Special Prosecutor Robert Ray, he lifted 176 Americans out of their own legal troubles, issuing 140 presidential pardons and 36 commutations of sentence in one of his final acts of office. I would like to report that Clinton acted justly and mercifully, correcting the mistakes and excesses of an imperfect legal system and tempering the rigid application of the law with a touch of human mercy. Instead, I must report Clinton's decision to pardon Marc Rich, who escaped to Switzerland in 1983 after being charged with the largest tax evasion scheme in United States history. Rich has never stood trial. His wife has donated over $300,000 to Democratic Party causes over the last two years. Draw your own conclusions. And what of the fact that 10 of the 176 pardons went to Arkansas residents, when not even one in every one hundred Americans is from Arkansas? But the icing on the cake is Clinton's decision to pardon virtually every member of his administration who was in trouble with the law. Henry Cisneros, formerly the head of Housing and Urban Development, had lied to the FBI about how much money he had given his mistress. He and his mistress were pardoned. Richard Riley Jr., son of former Education Secretary Richard Riley Sr., had conspired to sell cocaine and marijuana. He was pardoned. And five members of former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy's staff, who had been variously involved in the receipt of bribes from major agribusiness firms, were also pardoned. Ah, to think that Alexander Hamilton truly believed "dread of being accused of weakness or connivance" would make the president think twice before pardoning his friends. Of course, this is not the first time a departing president -- immune to political consequences -- has pardoned those who have served him well. On Christmas Eve 1992, President Bush issued pardons to six men who had been involved in the Iran-contra affair, including former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger. Back then, President-elect Clinton told the media, "I am concerned by any action that sends a signal that if you work for the government you're above the law." Me, too. Notwithstanding, at least three good reasons remain to keep the pardoning power in the hands of the president. Grants of clemency were initially the prerogative of monarchs; just as God showed mercy, so did these kings. And, in the eyes of the founding fathers, so should America's chief executive. The majority of the people on Clinton's list received post-sentence pardons, granted to individuals who have served their full sentence and led productive, law-abiding lives for at least five years. "You're not saying that these people didn't commit the offense," Clinton told reporters in Chappaqua, N.Y. "You're saying they paid, they paid in full, and they've been out long enough after their sentence to show they're good citizens, so they ought to have a chance to get full citizenship." While the recipients of these pardons will retain their criminal records, they will again be able to vote, carry a gun, adopt a child or sell alcohol. Pardons also serve to correct the real deficiencies and cracks in any legal system. Clinton commuted David Ronald Chandler's federal death sentence for a drug-related murder; the prosecution's main witness has since testified that he himself committed the killing. The president also granted varying degrees of clemency to several individuals serving absurd prison terms under the harsh provisions of mandatory sentencing law. Finally, the founding fathers believed that the president could also use the pardon as a tool of national reconciliation. As Hamilton wrote in Federalist 74, "In seasons of insurrection or rebellion, there are often critical moments, when a well-timed offer of pardon to the insurgents or rebels may restore the tranquility of the commonwealth." The first presidential pardon, of two Whiskey Rebellion leaders by George Washington, served precisely this purpose. So did Andrew Johnson's pardon of Confederate soldiers in the wake of the Civil War, and Jimmy Carter's blanket pardon of Vietnam-era draft evaders in the late 1970s. If there is a way to preserve these real and important benefits while curbing the certainty that an outgoing president will abuse his power, it has yet to be found. Until it is, the words of Emmanuel Kant will continue to ring true. The pardoning power, wrote the 18th-century German philosopher, "is the most slippery of all the rights of the sovereign."

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