This Pardon Fuss Will Go Away
by William Safire
Inside the Chappaqua, New York It took a blizzard to get
people to shut up about my pardons. My everybody-did-it
defense wasn't doing the trick, and blaming the Jews for the Rich
pardon kind of backfired. So now we just have to keep
hammering away at old Bush's pardon of that wealthy commie
Armand Hammer.
Wasn't Beth Dozoretz a knockout in that blue cashmere outfit
when she took the Fifth for me? Burton dragged her before his
committee to guarantee front-page pictures because the tabloids
were getting tired of Denise Rich. I'm not worried about Denise's
immunity deal with my U.S. attorney in New York, who's a good
ol' slowpoke. Denise has a good forgettery and if they rough her
up, she'll pop for another half-million to my library. Smart of her to
hire a press agent to say she pleaded with me because Marc only
wanted a pardon so he could visit his daughter's grave.
Of course, Rich is the slimy sort who wouldn't take the chance to
come to visit his kid when she was dying. But neither his character
nor fugitive standing influenced me on the pardon. I did it on the
merits, and the main merit was that I owed Jack Quinn a favor that
would make him a quick quarter-million bucks.
That's the reality liberals now bad-mouthing me can't seem to get
through their heads. The power to pardon is the final presidential
power of patronage. It has little to do with the felon but everything
to do with repaying the loyalty of intermediaries. That's not true in
every case. I pardoned my friend Henry Cisneros - all he did was
lie to the FBI about supporting a girlfriend - so he can run for
governor of Texas. Then I pardoned her so she wouldn't give him
a hard time in the campaign. Now Henry can make his comeback
and determine how Texas votes at the next Democratic
convention. Now about those two hoods that Hugh Rodham
represented: I never gave a hoot about them. It was Hillary's
brother who got two nice chunks of patronage from me, and
what's so terrible about a lawyer charging 200 Gs apiece for new
leases on life?
Hillary panicked and to get the heat off her told him to give back
the fee, but maybe not all the return checks will be cashed. I'll
stand by her story that her brother never mentioned his pardon
contingency fee while he was living with us at the end, and I'll
cover for her on getting votes for pardoning those Hasidic crooks,
but if she ever rats on me to boost the sales of her $8 million
memoir ... I delivered for Harry and Linda Thomason, pushing for
a couple of Arkansas felons on behalf of a third party. Years ago I
tried to help Harry make a buck by sic-ing the FBI on the travel
office people; then I got my buddy who runs CBS to be nice and
pay Harry a million dollars; and now I made good his pardon
contract. All because he and Linda are my friends. Someday
they'll deliver for me on a multimillion-dollar film deal because I'm
their friend. That's what friends are for.
Pardons are for getting even with independent counsels, too. The
guys from Tyson Foods, my first big-money benefactor, and
where Hillary got her excellent commodity advice, are now clean.
They'd been convicted for giving illegal gratuities to my agriculture
secretary. There's tens of millions of dollars could come my
library's way from the Tysons and nobody could ever prove a quid
pro quo. Friends help friends, is all.
Bush is lucky - he won't need to pardon supporters convicted by
independent counsels. At Justice, Ashcroft is holding over the
bureaucrats who protected me and the DNC in the Riady
investigation. Somebody in Bush's White House has the smarts;
that same old crowd at Justice will drag a foot for Bush whenever
he gets in trouble just as they did for me. To those who ask "How
could you do it?" I reply: Because I could. If it ain't provably
criminal, it ain't all that wrong. Beth Nolan, the team player Jack
Quinn got me to appoint White House counsel, got it right: "The
president is the president."
The pardon fuss will be forgotten. I'll just hunker down and read
the life of Jimmy Walker, "Night Mayor" of New York.
Retour