Have/Will Dem Candidates Pledge Not To Allow Pardons of BFEE This Time?

[MannyGoldstein]

Day after day we hear of more crimes committed by the BFEE - from sodomizing the Constitution to pretend WMD to "missing" palettes of shrink-wrapped cash in Iraq. Like any Democrat, I'm quite angry at the Congress's lack of will to do anything approximating the right thing here ("the right thing" being defined as impeachment, followed by criminal trials).

It just struck me today: Poppy Bush pardoned his entire Iran-Contra crew before leaving office. Days later, when he assumed the presidency, Clinton decided to not pursue the issue - as he said in his book, he “could have made more of them but didn’t.” In fact, there's evidence that Clinton even fought to keep new evidence of BFEE criminality from seeing the light of day, presumably so he could expect the same treatment of the 100+ folks that he himself would pardon in the last hours of his own presidency.

It's obvious that the Idiot President will pardon all of his cronies before leaving office. Has any current candidate for president mentioned how they will handle this?

[pearl]

1. They have no choice

As far as I know the pardon is absolute, and the most we can do is shame the Hell out of them.

[MannyGoldstein]

2. It's Not Just The Pardon

It's allowing the pardon to drop off the radar, no matter how heinous the crime for which justice is being denied. We should not allow criminals to go ride quietly out of town - because they'll ride back into town in a few years, unscathed, to commit another batch of felonies.

[pnwmom]

3. So what are you suggesting?

[MannyGoldstein]

4. A Pledge To Hold Full Investigations Even If Pardons Are Issued

To use the Department of Justice to investigate and disseminate the truth of the situation, and to make sure that it's splashed across the news. To produce lists of indictments, and to hold trials. Is there any reason why a person cannot be found guilty if pardoned? The pardon should only apply to punishment - it should not stymie the process of exposing crime to the light of day.

[pnwmom]

6. You can't hold a trial on the same charges for which someone

has been pardoned.

[MannyGoldstein]

7. Why?

[pnwmom]

9. That would be double jeopardy, I believe.

[Jim Sagle]

5. I vote that the Dems should yell AT THE TOP OF THEIR LUNGS about this - FOREVER!

Not a joke.

[blm]

10. Look what GOP did to Clinton for his pardons. But Clinton COULD HAVE done more

when he took office DESPITE Poppy Bush's pardons. There were still documents that he could have released and there were still outstanding matters to pursue in IranContra, BCCI, Iraqgate and CIA drugrunning story was reported in 1996 - Clinton helped protect Poppy Bush over allowing the black community to hear the truth about how they were targeted.

Clinton chose protecting Poppy Bush's secrecy and privilege over the right of American people to an open government.

The Clintons' Real Trouble with Truth

By Robert Parry
February 24, 2007



Hollywood mogul David Geffen touched a raw nerve with Hillary Clinton when he told New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd that “everybody in politics lies, but they do it with such ease, it’s troubling.”

The Clintons’ trouble with truth, however, is not just the petty political lying nor is it their quibbling over what “is is” or what “mistake” means. It’s that they have never shown any real reverence for the truth. Too often, they see it as something to be traded away for a transitory tactical advantage.

If a future historian is ever to understand what happened to the United States in this era – how the world’s greatest power so disastrously lost its way – that scholar should look back to the first Clinton-Bush transition in 1992-93, when Bill Clinton could have grasped a unique historical moment but didn’t.

Clinton was the first U.S. President to take office after the end of the Cold War. He could have ordered a long-needed historical review of what nine U.S. presidents had done, often behind opaque cloaks of government secrecy.

This review also could have assessed what damage those decades of secrecy, propaganda and deception had done to the core values of the American Republic. By revealing the truth, both the good and the bad, Clinton could have helped restore vibrancy to the democratic process by giving the voters the means to again be an informed electorate. ......(more)

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/022307.html

[catnhatnh]

8. In terms of exception,two spring to mind...

contempt of court was never pordonable and contempt of congress has never been challenged.Pardons in the advancement of a criminal enterprise was never even envisaged.In brief the scope of the offenses are so vast that in 200+ years we have never come close...expect NEW law to be written..........