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To: John Carragher who wrote (180)	12/23/2000 8:43:31 AM
From: Vendit™	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 318

Friday December 22 5:47 PM ET Clinton Pardons Former Lawmaker Rostenkowski WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Clinton (news - web sites) granted a pre-Christmas pardon on Friday to former U.S. Rep. Daniel Rostenkowski, a powerhouse in the U.S. Congress before he was sent to prison for mail fraud in 1996. Clinton gave pardons to 59 people, most of them indicted on drug, tax-evasion and fraud charges, and commuted the sentences of three others to time served. The White House said Clinton could issue further pardons before leaving office on Jan. 20. Apart from Rostenkowski, the pardons list, a Christmas tradition at the White House, did not include well-known figures like former junk bond king Michael Milken or Clinton's former Whitewater real estate partner Susan McDougal. Nor did it list Leonard Peltier, who is serving a life sentence for killing two FBI (news - web sites) agents at the Pine Ridge Indian reservation in South Dakota in 1975 but who has steadfastly maintained his innocence. FBI agents last week marched around the White House to protest against the possibility of his receiving clemency. The list did, however, include a pardon for Archibald Schaffer, an Arkansas public relations executive who became caught up in independent counsel Donald Smaltz's investigation of former Agriculture secretary Mike Espy. Espy was acquitted in 1998 of charges that he illegally took gifts from companies he was supposed to be regulating. Schaffer, director of government and media relations for poultry maker Tyson Foods, was convicted of giving Espy $2,500 worth of air tickets to attend a 1993 Arkansas party and was given a 366-day sentence under mandatory sentencing guidelines under the Meat Inspection Act, a 93-year-old federal law. The Schaffer case was the only one that prompted the White House to break its tradition of not commenting on the reasons for Clinton's granting a pardon. ``The president believes that what happened here was wrong,'' White House spokesman Jake Siewert said in a statement, noting the trial judge believed there was not enough evidence to support Schaffer's conviction and that the law required him ``to impose a sentence that was neither just nor fair.'' Clinton also commuted the sentences of Dorothy Gaines, 42, and Kemba Smith, 29, both of whom were convicted of conspiracy to distribute cocaine but, according to the Families Against Mandatory Minimums Foundation group, were incidental figures who received longer sentences than key drug ring players. ``Betrayal Of Trust'' Rostenkowski, a burly Chicago Democrat who was once the powerful chairman of the tax-writing House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee, was indicted on 17 counts of embezzling and misusing hundreds of thousands of dollars of government money in the operation of his congressional office. He initially had denied any wrongdoing, but in April 1996 pleaded guilty to two felony counts of mail fraud for which he was sentenced to 17 months in prison and ordered to pay $100,000 in fines and restitution. Rostenkowski eventually served 15 months of his sentence, most of them in a minimum-security prison camp in Wisconsin, before he returned to civilian life in October of 1997. In accepting Rostenkowski's guilty plea, U.S. District Judge Norma Holloway Johnson sternly rebuked him for a ``betrayal of trust,'' denounced his conduct as ``reprehensible'' and said he had ''violated the faith'' of his constituents, who elected him from 1959 until 1994, when he was defeated. ``You shamelessly abused your position,'' she said. Rostenkowski admitted he knew that some of his congressional staff members had performed personal or political services in violation of House of Representatives rules. He also said he knew that merchandise bought with official funds from the House Stationery Store had been given away as gifts to friends, again in violation of House rules. In return for the guilty plea, the prosecutors agreed to drop the remaining charges against him, allowing Rostenkowski to avoid trial on corruption charges that he misused his office, including skimming more than $600,000 in taxpayer funds from various congressional allowances over a 20-year period. dailynews.yahoo.com