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Parting Gifts

© Frank Monaldo

If you are the kind of person who enjoys waxing indignant about corrupt behavior or shamelessness, Bill Clinton is certainly the gift that keeps on giving. For most, Clinton is like the recalcitrant party guest who is oblivious to hints and insists on staying a little longer than welcome. In the case of the transition of presidential power between Clinton and George W. Bush, Clinton is more like the party guest who not only outstays his welcome, but also feels entitled to depart with a few souvenirs.

Consider the last few weeks:

• Clinton entered a deal with Special Prosecutor Robert Ray to avoid prosecution. He admitted to knowingly giving false testimony. Within hours his spin meisters were claiming that Clinton did not really admit to lying.
• Federal law prohibits executive branch officials from lobbying their agencies for one year after leaving office. When Clinton came into office in 1992, he extended this period to five years by executive order. This provided two benefits. He kept former Bush officials from lobbying and secured the moral high ground. Now at the end of his term, Clinton rescinded the order, allowing former Clinton officials to engage in the same lobbying he prohibited to ex-Bush officials.
• On George W. Bush's Inauguration Day, Clinton tried to steal reflected limelight and bask in the trappings of office a little longer by giving two televised farewell speeches, one in Washington and one in New York. He also arranged for a Saturday radio address on Inauguration Day. This behavior is the moral equivalent of grasping onto the White House door as Constitutional circumstances pulled him away.
• In his last night in office, Clinton issued a blizzard of pardons and clemencies, a third of which had never been formally reviewed by the Justice Department. The pardons included Marc Rich, a multi-millionaire who is accused of conspiracy, tax evasion and racketeering and even trading with Iran while they were holding US citizens as hostages in the late 1970s. Rather than face charges in court, Rich fled and has spent the years in luxury in Switzerland. The pardon has been criticized even by Clinton supporters, especially since it appears the pardon may have been a repayment for $1.1 million in donations to the Democratic Party by Rich's ex-wife in the United States.
• Four Hasidic Jews were convicted of cheating the federal government of $40 million. The usually conservative Hasidic vote in Rockland County, the home of the convicts, voted nearly unanimously for Hillary Clinton in her successful run for Senate, after which the pardons were issued.

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