🚀 go-pugleaf

On 2007-07-11 21:24:49 -0400, Phil <dogglebe@yahoooo.com> said:

> On Wed, 11 Jul 2007 17:41:27 -0400, Slim <slim@pickins.com> wrote:
> 
>> On 2007-07-10 18:25:32 -0400, Phil <dogglebe@yahoooo.com> said:
>> 
>>> On Tue, 10 Jul 2007 16:08:29 -0500, karlkrandall@sbcglobal.net wrote:
>>> 
>>>> On Tue, 10 Jul 2007 16:39:17 -0400, Phil <dogglebe@yahoooo.com> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> On Tue, 10 Jul 2007 15:06:21 -0500, David Agnew
>>>>> <DavidAgnew@nospam.nul> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Only Republicans would impeach a President for lying about a blowjob
>>>>> 
>>>>> Clinton was impeached for perjury, not a blow job.  If he was honest
>>>>> about it (like he should've been), he wouldn't have been impeached.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Maybe you forgot, He wasn't convicted.
>>> 
>>> Doesn't mean he didn't do it.
>> 
>> Scooter did the crime, was convicted and your hero lets him walk.
> 
> Let me know when you want to talk about those whom Clinton pardoned
> Mike, okay?

Lets go right to the worst pardon of all time...given by POPPYBUSH.

Bush Pardons 6 in Iran Affair, Aborting a Weinberger Trial; Prosecutor 
Assails 'Cover-Up'

Lawrence E. Walsh's Statement on the Pardons
ix years after the arms-for-hostages scandal began to cast a shadow 
that would darken two Administrations, President Bush today granted 
full pardons to six former officials in Ronald Reagan's Administration, 
including former Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger.

Mr. Weinberger was scheduled to stand trial on Jan. 5 on charges that 
he lied to Congress about his knowledge of the arms sales to Iran and 
efforts by other countries to help underwrite the Nicaraguan rebels, a 
case that was expected to focus on Mr. Weinberger's private notes that 
contain references to Mr. Bush's endorsement of the secret shipments to 
Iran.

In one remaining facet of the inquiry, the independent prosecutor, 
Lawrence E. Walsh, plans to review a 1986 campaign diary kept by Mr. 
Bush. Mr. Walsh has characterized the President's failure to turn over 
the diary until now as misconduct.

Decapitated Walsh Efforts

But in a single stroke, Mr. Bush swept away one conviction, three 
guilty pleas and two pending cases, virtually decapitating what was 
left of Mr. Walsh's effort, which began in 1986. Mr. Bush's decision 
was announced by the White House in a printed statement after the 
President left for Camp David, where he will spend the Christmas 
holiday.

Mr. Walsh bitterly condemned the President's action, charging that "the 
Iran-contra cover-up, which has continued for more than six years, has 
now been completed."

Mr. Walsh directed his heaviest fire at Mr. Bush over the pardon of Mr. 
Weinberger, whose trial would have given the prosecutor a last chance 
to explore the role in the affair of senior Reagan officials, including 
Mr. Bush's actions as Vice President.

'Evidence of Conspiracy'

Mr. Walsh hinted that Mr. Bush's pardon of Mr. Weinberger and the 
President's own role in the affair could be related. For the first 
time, he

charged that Mr. Weinberger's notes about the secret decision to sell 
arms to Iran, a central piece of evidence in the case against the 
former Pentagon chief, included "evidence of a conspiracy among the 
highest ranking Reagan Administration officials to lie to Congress and 
the American public."

The prosecutor charged that Mr. Weinberger's efforts to hide his notes 
may have "forestalled impeachment proceedings against President Reagan" 
and formed part of a pattern of "deception and obstruction." On Dec. 
11, Mr. Walsh said he discovered "misconduct" in Mr. Bush's failure to 
turn over what the prosecutor said were the President's own "highly 
relevant contemporaneous notes, despite repeated requests for such 
documents."

The notes, in the form of a campaign diary that Mr. Bush compiled after 
the elections in November 1986, are in the process of being turned over 
to Mr. Walsh, who said, "In light of President Bush's own misconduct, 
we are gravely concerned about his decision to pardon others who lied 
to Congress and obstructed official investigations."

In an interview on the "McNeil-Lehrer Newshour" tonight, Mr. Walsh said 
for the first time that Mr. Bush was a subject of his investigation. 
The term "subject," as it has been used by Mr. Walsh's prosecutors, is 
broadly defined as someone involved in events under scrutiny, but who 
falls short of being a target, or a person likely to be charged with a 
crime. In the inquiry into the entire Iran-contra affair, a number of 
Government officials have been identified as subjects who were never 
charged with wrongdoing.

What Charges Are Unlikely

The prosecutor said he would take appropriate action in Mr. Bush's 
case, implying he might contemplate future legal action against the 
President for withholding relevant documents. But prosecutors have said 
in the past that charging a President or former President with 
wrongdoing would be highly unlikely without overwhelming evidence of a 
serious crime.

C. Boyden Gray, the White House counsel, said today that Mr. Bush had 
voluntarily supplied the disputed material to Mr. Walsh, asserting that 
the notes contained no new information about the affair. Mr. Gray said 
Mr. Bush wanted make the notes public, but did not say when.

President-elect Bill Clinton, at a news conference in Little Rock, 
Ark., to announce his remaining Cabinet selections, said he wanted to 
learn more about the pardons, adding, "I am concerned by any action 
that sends a signal that if you work for the Government, you're beyond 
the law, or that not telling the truth to Congress under oath is 
somehow less serious than not telling the truth to some other body 
under oath."

Mr. Bush, in a statement accompanying the pardon, seemed to anticipate 
his critics, acknowledging that his decision might be interpreted as an 
effort to "prevent full disclosure of some new key fact to the American 
people." He said, "That is not true."

Asserting that "no impartial person has seriously suggested that my own 
role in this matter is legally questionable," the President sought to 
position himself on the side of greater openness. Mr. Bush said he had 
asked Mr. Walsh to provide him with a copy of his testimony to the 
prosecutor, which he would make public.

Lobbying by Ex-Reagan Aides

Today's action followed intensive lobbying by former Reagan aides to 
pardon Mr. Weinberger and a series of meetings in recent days at the 
White House, culminating with the President's decision this morning. 
Republicans, long angered by the prosecution, were incensed by the new 
indictment of Mr. Weinberger four days before the election. The 
indictment said Mr. Weinberger's notes contradicted Mr. Bush's 
assertions that he had only a fragmentary knowledge of the arms 
secretly sold to Iran in 1985 and 1986 in exchange for American 
hostages in Lebanon.

Mr. Weinberger was also charged with testifying falsely to Congress 
that he did not recall whether Saudi Arabia had ever contributed to the 
contras. Prosecutors said his notes showed that he had known of the 
Saudi contributions.

Records made public over the years included no evidence that Mr. Bush 
knew about he secret efforts to arm the Nicaraguan rebels, but they did 
suggest he knew of Iran operation almost from its inception in 1985 and 
took part in crucial meetings where the arms sales were openly 
discussed as an arms-for-hostages swap. The Reagan Administration's 
public policy was never to bargain for the freedom of hostages.

Mr. Bush said today that the Walsh prosecution reflected "a profoundly 
troubling development in the political and legal climate of our 
country: the criminalization of policy differences."

Question of Politics

He added: "These differences should have been addressed in the 
political arena without the Damocles sword of criminality hanging over 
the heads of some of the combatants. The proper target is the 
President, not his subordinates; the proper forum is the voting booth, 
not the courtroom."

In his comments, Mr. Bush said he was trying to "put bitterness behind 
us," asserting that each of the men he was pardoning had a long record 
of public service and had already paid a heavy price for their 
involvement in the affair in damaged careers, hurt families and 
depleted savings.

The Iran-contra affair, the worst scandal of Mr. Reagan's Presidency, 
came into the open in the fall of 1986 with the disclosure of two 
intertwined secret operations: the arms sales to Teheran, and the 
diversion of profits from those sales to help finance a covert weapons 
supply network to the contras, set up in 1985, after Congress barred 
direct aid to the rebels.

Besides Mr. Weinberger, the President pardoned Robert C. McFarlane, the 
former national security adviser, and Elliott Abrams, the former 
assistant Secretary of State for Central America. Both officials had 
pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of withholding information from 
Congress about support for the contras.

Others Who Are Pardoned

The President also pardoned Clair E. George, the former head of the 
Central Intelligence Agency's clandestine services, who was convicted 
earlier this month, at his second trial, of two felony charges of 
perjury and misleading Congress about both the contras and the Iran 
initiative -- crimes for which he faced up to five years in prison and 
$250,000 in fines.

Two other intelligence officials were granted clemency, Duane R. 
Clarridge, the former head of the C.I.A.'s European division, who was 
awaiting trial on charges that he misled Congressional investigators 
about a missile shipment to Iran in 1985.

The other was Alan D. Fiers Jr., once a rising star with the agency, 
who had pleaded guilty in 1991 to withholding information about the 
contras from Congress and who later decided to cooperate with the 
prosecution, becoming Mr. George's chief accuser at both his trials.

Mr. Bush described Mr. Weinberger as a "true American patriot" and he 
said clemency was granted both to spare him torment and cost of lengthy 
legal proceedings as well as out of a concern for the health of Mr. 
Weinberger, who is 75 year old.

Mr. Weinberger, who was asked at a news conference today whether his 
notes contained any entries that might be embarrassing to Mr. Bush, 
replied: "No, certainly not. There's nothing in those notes that in any 
way contradicts what President Bush said, or what President Reagan 
said."

But not since President Gerald R. Ford granted clemency to former 
President Richard M. Nixon for possible crimes in Watergate has a 
Presidential pardon so pointedly raised the issue of whether the 
President was trying to shield officials for political purposes. Mr. 
Walsh invoked Watergate tonight in an interview on the ABC News program 
"Nightline," likening today's pardons to President Richard M. Nixon's 
dismissal of the Watergate special prosecutor, Archibald Cox, in 1973. 
Mr. Walsh said Mr. Bush had "succeeded in a sort of Saturday Night 
Massacre."

Democratic lawmakers assailed the decision. Senator George J. Mitchell 
of Maine, the Democratic leader, called the action a mistake. "It is 
not as the President stated today a matter of criminalizing policy 
differences," he said. "If members of the executive branch lie to the 
Congress, obstruct justice and otherwise break the law, how can policy 
differences be fairly and legally resolved in a democracy."

The main supporters of the pardon were Vice President Quayle, the 
Senate Republican leader, Bob Dole, and Mr. Gray, one senior 
Administration official said today. The decision, discussed in private, 
seemed to coalesce in the last three weeks although Mr. Bush was said 
to believe that Mr. Weinberger had been unfairly charged ever since the 
former Reagan Cabinet officer was first indicted in June.

Throughout the deliberations, Mr. Bush consulted with Attorney General 
William P. Barr and Brent Scowcroft, the national security adviser, who 
had sat on a Presidential review panel that examined the affair in 
early 1987.

In lengthy Oval Office meetings in the last week, Mr. Bush and his 
advisers, none of whom offered a sharp dissent, discussed how to 
balance their desire to grant a pardon with their realization that such 
an act would almost certainly provoke hostility.

In the end, Mr. Bush's advisers decided he could surmount his critics 
by expressing, as did in his statement, his willingness to make public 
additional documents about the affair, like his statement to the 
prosecutors and Mr. Weinberger's notes.

Independent Counsel's Statement on the Pardons
By REUTERS

Following is a statement by the independent counsel, Lawrence E. Walsh, 
regarding pardons granted today by President Bush.

President Bush's pardon of Caspar Weinberger and other Iran-contra 
defendants undermines the principle that no man is above the law. It 
demonstrates that powerful people with powerful allies can commit 
serious crimes in high office -- deliberately abusing the public trust 
without consequence.

Weinberger, who faced four felony charges, deserved to be tried by a 
jury of citizens. Although it is the President's prerogative to grant 
pardons, it is every American's right that the criminal justice system 
be administered fairly, regardless of a person's rank and connections.

The Iran-contra cover-up, which has continued for more than six years, 
has now been completed with the pardon of Caspar Weinberger. We will 
make a full report on our findings to Congress and the public 
describing the details and extent of this cover-up.

Weinberger's early and deliberate decision to conceal and withhold 
extensive contemporaneous notes of the Iran-contra matter radically 
altered the official investigations and possibly forestalled timely 
impeachment proceedings against President Reagan and other officials. 
Weinberger's notes contain evidence of a conspiracy among the 
highest-ranking Reagan Administration officials to lie to Congress and 
the American public. Because the notes were withheld from investigators 
for years, many of the leads were impossible to follow, key witnesses 
had purportedly forgotten what was said and done, and statutes of 
limitation had expired.

Weinberger's concealment of notes is part of a disturbing pattern of 
deception and obstruction that permeated the highest levels of the 
Reagan and Bush Administrations. This office was informed only within 
the past two weeks, on December 11, 1992, that President Bush had 
failed to produce to investigators his own highly relevant 
contemporaneous notes, despite repeated requests for such documents. 
The production of these notes is still ongoing and will lead to 
appropriate action. In light of President Bush's own misconduct, we are 
gravely concerned about his decision to pardon others who lied to 
Congress and obstructed official investigations.

-- 
"Naturally the common people don't want war: Neither in Russia, nor in 
England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after 
all, IT IS THE LEADERS of the country who determine the policy and it 
is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a 
democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist 
dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to 
the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is TELL 
THEM THEY ARE BEING ATTACKED, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of 
patriotism and exposing the country to danger. IT WORKS THE SAME IN ANY 
COUNTRY."
�
--Goering at the Nuremberg Trials