My Reasons for the Pardons
By WILLIAM JEFFERSON CLINTON
February 18, 2001
CHAPPAQUA, N.Y. — Because of the intense scrutiny and
criticism of the pardons of Marc Rich and his partner Pincus Green
and because legitimate concerns have been raised, I want to explain what
I did and why.
First, I want to make some general comments about pardons and
commutations of sentences. Article II of the Constitution gives the
president broad and unreviewable power to grant "Reprieves and
Pardons" for all offenses against the United States. The Supreme Court
has ruled that the pardon power is granted "[t]o the [president] . . ., and
it is granted without limit" (United States v. Klein). Justice Oliver Wendell
Holmes declared that "[a] pardon . . . is . . . the determination of the
ultimate authority that the public welfare will be better served by [the
pardon] . . ." (Biddle v. Perovich). A president may conclude a pardon
or commutation is warranted for several reasons: the desire to restore full
citizenship rights, including voting, to people who have served their
sentences and lived within the law since; a belief that a sentence was
excessive or unjust; personal circumstances that warrant compassion; or
other unique circumstances.
The exercise of executive clemency is inherently controversial. The
reason the framers of our Constitution vested this broad power in the
Executive Branch was to assure that the president would have the
freedom to do what he deemed to be the right thing, regardless of how
unpopular a decision might be. Some of the uses of the power have been
extremely controversial, such as President Washington's pardons of
leaders of the Whiskey Rebellion, President Harding's commutation of
the sentence of Eugene Debs, President Nixon's commutation of the
sentence of James Hoffa, President Ford's pardon of former President
Nixon, President Carter's pardon of Vietnam War draft resisters, and
President Bush's 1992 pardon of six Iran-contra defendants, including
former Defense Secretary Weinberger, which assured the end of that
investigation.
On Jan. 20, 2001, I granted 140 pardons and issued 36 commutations.
During my presidency, I issued a total of approximately 450 pardons and
commutations, compared to 406 issued by President Reagan during his
two terms. During his four years, President Carter issued 566 pardons
and commutations, while in the same length of time President Bush
granted 77. President Ford issued 409 during the slightly more than two
years he was president.
The vast majority of my Jan. 20 pardons and reprieves went to people
who are not well known. Some had been sentenced pursuant to
mandatory-sentencing drug laws, and I felt that they had served long
enough, given the particular circumstances of the individual cases. Many
of these were first-time nonviolent offenders with no previous criminal
records; in some cases, codefendants had received significantly shorter
sentences. At the attorney general's request, I commuted one death
sentence because the defendant's principal accuser later changed his
testimony, casting doubt on the defendant's guilt. In some cases, I
granted pardons because I felt the individuals had been unfairly treated
and punished pursuant to the Independent Counsel statute then in
existence. The remainder of the pardons and commutations were granted
for a wide variety of fact-based reasons, but the common denominator
was that the cases, like that of Patricia Hearst, seemed to me deserving
of executive clemency. Overwhelmingly, the pardons went to people who
had been convicted and served their time, so the impact of the pardon
was principally to restore the person's civil rights. Many of these,
including some of the more controversial, had vigorous bipartisan
support.
The pardons that have attracted the most criticism have been the pardons
of Marc Rich and Pincus Green, who were indicted in 1983 on charges
of racketeering and mail and wire fraud, arising out of their oil business.
Ordinarily, I would have denied pardons in this case simply because
these men did not return to the United States to face the charges against
them. However, I decided to grant the pardons in this unusual case for
the following legal and foreign policy reasons: (1) I understood that the
other oil companies that had structured transactions like those on which
Mr. Rich and Mr. Green were indicted were instead sued civilly by the
government; (2) I was informed that, in 1985, in a related case against a
trading partner of Mr. Rich and Mr. Green, the Energy Department,
which was responsible for enforcing the governing law, found that the
manner in which the Rich/Green companies had accounted for these
transactions was proper; (3) two highly regarded tax experts, Bernard
Wolfman of Harvard Law School and Martin Ginsburg of Georgetown
University Law Center, reviewed the transactions in question and
concluded that the companies "were correct in their U.S. income tax
treatment of all the items in question, and [that] there was no unreported
federal income or additional tax liability attributable to any of the
[challenged] transactions"; (4) in order to settle the government's case
against them, the two men's companies had paid approximately $200
million in fines, penalties and taxes, most of which might not even have
been warranted under the Wolfman/Ginsburg analysis that the companies
had followed the law and correctly reported their income; (5) the Justice
Department in 1989 rejected the use of racketeering statutes in tax cases
like this one, a position that The Wall Street Journal editorial page,
among others, agreed with at the time; (6) it was my understanding that
Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder's position on the pardon
application was "neutral, leaning for"; (7) the case for the pardons was
reviewed and advocated not only by my former White House counsel
Jack Quinn but also by three distinguished Republican attorneys: Leonard
Garment, a former Nixon White House official; William Bradford
Reynolds, a former high-ranking official in the Reagan Justice
Department; and Lewis Libby, now Vice President Cheney's chief of
staff; (8) finally, and importantly, many present and former high-ranking
Israeli officials of both major political parties and leaders of Jewish
communities in America and Europe urged the pardon of Mr. Rich
because of his contributions and services to Israeli charitable causes, to
the Mossad's efforts to rescue and evacuate Jews from hostile countries,
and to the peace process through sponsorship of education and health
programs in Gaza and the West Bank.
While I was troubled by the criminalization of the charges against Mr.
Rich and Mr. Green, I also wanted to assure the government's ability to
pursue any Energy Department, civil tax or other charges that might be
available and warranted. I knew the men's companies had settled their
disputes with the government, but I did not know what personal liability
the individuals might still have for Energy Department or other violations.
Therefore, I required them to waive any and all defenses, including their
statute of limitations defenses, to any civil charge the government might
bring against them. Before I granted the pardons, I received from their
lawyer a letter confirming that they "waive any and all defenses which
could be raised to the lawful imposition of civil fines or penalties in
connection with the actions and transactions alleged in the indictment
against them pending in the Southern District of New York."
I believe my pardon decision was in the best interests of justice. If the
two men were wrongly indicted in the first place, justice has been done.
On the other hand, if they do personally owe money for Energy
Department penalties, unpaid taxes or civil fines, they can now be sued
civilly, as others in their position apparently were, a result that might not
have been possible without the waiver, because civil statutes of limitations
may have run while they were out of the United States.
While I was aware of and took into account the fact that the United
States attorney for the Southern District of New York did not support
these pardons, in retrospect, the process would have been better served
had I sought her views directly. Further, I regret that Mr. Holder did not
have more time to review the case. However, I believed the essential
facts were before me, and I felt the foreign policy considerations and the
legal arguments justified moving forward.
The suggestion that I granted the pardons because Mr. Rich's former
wife, Denise, made political contributions and contributed to the Clinton
library foundation is utterly false. There was absolutely no quid pro quo.
Indeed, other friends and financial supporters sought pardons in cases
which, after careful consideration based on the information available to
me, I determined I could not grant.
In the last few months of my term, many, many people called, wrote or
came up to me asking that I grant or at least consider granting clemency
in various cases. These people included friends, family members, former
spouses of applicants, supporters, acquaintances, Republican and
Democratic members of Congress, journalists and total strangers. I
believe that the president can and should listen to such requests, although
they cannot determine his decision on the merits. There is only one
prohibition: there can be no quid pro quo. And there certainly was not in
this or any of the other pardons and commutations I granted.
I am accustomed to the rough and tumble of politics, but the accusations
made against me in this case have been particularly painful because for
eight years I worked hard to make good decisions for the American
people. I want every American to know that, while you may disagree
with this decision, I made it on the merits as I saw them, and I take full
responsibility for it.
William Jefferson Clinton was the 42nd president of the United States.
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