Word: pardon
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...appointed Mary Jo White the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, the first woman to hold what is widely considered the nation's most prestigious post for prosecutors. Eight years later, after months of grandstanding at congressional hearings and scattered inquiries into Clinton's last-minute pardon spree, Attorney General John Ashcroft has given White the green light to investigate any of the 177 eleventh-hour pardons and commutations. The Justice Department characterized Ashcroft's decision, which could involve cases lying outside White's jurisdiction, as a "routine effort to consolidate cases...
...Colleagues say White was "furious" when she learned that Clinton had pardoned Rich; despite her office's obvious interest in Rich's case, White says the President never consulted her. And while no one knows what might have happened had the President made a pre-pardon phone call to White's office, his lapse in professional etiquette could eventually prove costly...
...neutered himself. By last week Clinton's near silence on why he pardoned fugitive tax swindler Marc Rich and assorted other highflyers and lowlifes was getting a little spooky. It was time to tap on the lid of the trunk and see if Houdini was still alive in there. Now he got help from the Old Guard, the magician's assistants who had stuck by him through thick and thin and thick. Here came faithful fund raiser Beth Dozoretz, who we learn was cleared by the Secret Service to visit the White House 76 times in the past two years...
...like her pal Denise Rich before her, Dozoretz pleaded the Fifth Amendment, and with that, the pardon scandal was moving out of the familiar theatrics of the Congress to the deadly quiet, far more serious precincts of the Southern District of New York, where prosecutor Mary Jo White was reported to be in contact with Denise Rich about finding out what she knew...
That Clinton ignored their advice and proceeded so recklessly looked damaging on its face, but the faithful trio actually did Clinton some good. They noted that pardon requests were pouring in from every direction in the final days, not just from relatives and benefactors and potential blackmailers. "We had requests from members of Congress on both sides of the aisle and both houses, we had requests from movie stars, newscasters, former Presidents, former First Ladies," Nolan said. They agreed that Clinton had exercised dreadful judgment but that it was his right. "The President is the President," Nolan said...