Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bill who wrote (728)	7/8/1999 4:47:00 PM
From: jttmab	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

In 1971, Richard Nixon commuted the sentence of James R. Hoffa, former president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. The commutation was in many respects controversial. In 1960, the Justice Department, under the Eisenhower administration, withdrew an indictment against Hoffa because he supported Nixon during the presidential election.(58) After Nixon's defeat by John F. Kennedy, the Justice Department reactivated the indictment and Hoffa served time for convictions of mail fraud and jury tampering. Absent presidential action, Hoffa's parole application would have been considered in June 1972 and--even if denied--he would automatically have been released by November 1975.(59) Instead, his sentence was commuted to six-and-one-half years with the provision he refrain from "direct or indirect management of any labor organization." If the provision of the commutation was violated, Hoffa was to return to prison to complete his sentences.(60) Hoffa argued, in District Court, the noninvolvement condition was illegal, but lost. His case was then appealed to the Court of Appeal for the District of Columbia where it was argued, then removed from the calendar as a result of Hoffa's disappearance. Nixon, of course, found himself on the other end of the clemency power just three years later. Gerald Ford told congressional confirmation committees "the American people would not stand for a [Nixon] pardon" and that he did not intend to grant one.(61) Within one month of assuming the presidency, however, Ford granted "a full, and free and absolute pardon" to Nixon "for all offenses against the United States [committed] or taken part in during the period from January 20, 1969 through August 9, 1974."(62) John Orman and Dorothy Rudoni conclude Ford "closed the decision-making process to dissenters, secretly developed his own response, and then took unilateral, non-reciprocal, discretionary action without adequately assessing the costs of his action on the criminal justice system."(63) Within one week of the pardon, Ford's public "approval rating" plummeted in the polls from 71 to 50 percent.(64) The pardon "haunted Ford throughout the remainder of his presidency and, in all likelihood, doomed his chances for election to that office."(65) George Bush's decision to pardon former Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger and five other former Reagan administration officials on Christmas Eve 1992 was certainly the most controversial act of clemency since Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon.(66) A New York Times-CBS poll, taken during the Reagan administration, found 64 percent of the public were opposed to a pretrial pardon of the officials charged with conspiring to defraud the United States by illegally providing Nicaraguan rebels with profits from the sale of weapons to Iran.(67) Six years and thirty-five million dollars after the commencement of the independent counsel, Bush delivered six Christmas Eve pardons.(68) Close to 60 percent of the respondents in a December 1992 Gallup poll disapproved of Bush's action and 49 percent were willing to state their belief the pardons were issued by Bush "in order to protect himself from legal difficulties or embarrassment resulting from his own role in Iran-Contra."(69) from: cspresidency.org