 |
Clinton delays pardon announcements until Saturday morning
January 19, 2001
Web posted at: 9:42 p.m. EST (0242 GMT)
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Clinton met into the night Friday with legal and political advisers discussing potential clemency and pardon cases, but decided to delay any announcements until Saturday morning, just hours before he leaves office.
Administration sources said Clinton was reviewing a list of more than 100 cases.
White House officials refused to say who would be pardoned. But the president has stressed that most of the people he pardons will be unknown and all have long since paid their debt to society. Clinton said his main goal is to lift restrictions on voting and employment.
High-profile people who have sought presidential pardons include:
- Webster Hubbell, longtime Clinton friend and former Justice Department official, who was convicted of fraud for over billing clients and served 18 months behind bars. He was indicted by special prosecutor Kenneth Starr as part of the Whitewater probe, but the indictment was later dismissed by the courts. A fierce Clinton loyalist, he said publicly he would never lie about the Clintons.
- Leonard Peltier, a Native American convicted of killing FBI agents Ron Williams and Jack Koler in June 1975. The agents were searching for robbery suspects on the Pine Ridge Indian reservation in South Dakota when they were killed. Peltier was convicted in 1977 and has been in prison since then. The FBI opposed pardon for Peltier, who says he is innocent.
- Susan McDougal, a former real estate business partner of the Clintons. She was sentenced in 1996 and released from prison in 1998. She was convicted of four felonies related to a fraudulent $300,000 federally backed loan that she and her husband, James McDougal, never repaid. One tenth of the loan amount was placed briefly in the name of Whitewater Development, the Arkansas real estate venture of the Clintons and the McDougals. Her attorney, Mark Geragos, said he remains hopeful that she would be pardoned, refusing to say whether he has received any indication from the White House that she would be pardoned. She spent 21 months behind bars.
- Michael Milken, who made billions for himself and others in the 1980s junk-bond business. He spent 22 months in prison and paid $1 billion in fines. Since his release from prison, he has established a foundation that rewards educators, among charitable activities.
In addition to potential pardons, the president was debating whether to make one last designation of monument status -- this one for parts of Governors Island in New York City. That decision, too, was put off until Saturday morning, according to senior administration aides.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
MORE STORIES:
Friday, January 19, 2001
ARCHIVES
|
|
![[CNN.com]](http://i.cnn.net/cnn/images/newsnet/cnnlogo.gray.gif){kind=small}
TOP STORIES![[SI.com]](http://i.cnn.net/cnn/images/main/si.logo.gif){kind=logo}
SPORTS
All Scoreboards
![[CNN Money]](http://i.cnn.net/cnn/images/main/fn.logo.newsnet.gif){kind=logo}
(