Presidents and the power to pardon

Former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger was pardoned before he went to trial on charges relating to the Iran-Contra affair. Weinberger denied the pardon was intended to stop him from testifying against former President George Bush.

(CNN) -- The power of U.S. presidents to grant irrevocable reprieves and pardons has raised eyebrows throughout the country's history.

In fact, one of the explanations that Bill Clinton gave in response to the outrage over his pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich is that executive clemency is inherently contentious.

"Some of the uses of the power," Clinton wrote in a February 18 op-ed piece for The New York Times, "have been extremely controversial, such as President Washington's pardons of leaders of the Whiskey Rebellion, President Harding's commutation of the sentence of Eugene Debs, President Nixon's commutation of the sentence of James Hoffa, President Ford's pardon of former President Nixon, President Carter's pardon of Vietnam War draft resisters, and President Bush's 1992 pardon of six Iran-Contra defendants, including former Defense Secretary (Caspar) Weinberger, which assured the end of that investigation."

Nearly every president has exercised the power given to the nation's chief executive under Article II of the Constitution to dole out pardons. Presidential clemency wipes the slate clean and "is granted without limit," the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled. But only a few out of thousands of presidential pardons have grabbed headlines.

President Clinton pardoned his former business partner Susan McDougal, who was imprisoned for refusing to testify against him.

Even before the current controversy, Clinton's potential use of the pardon was questioned in the 1996 campaign. During the first presidential debate, Republican challenger Bob Dole asked whether Clinton was planning to pardon anyone involved in the Whitewater investigation.

"I'll tell you this: I will not give anyone special treatment, and I will strictly adhere to the law, and that is what every president has done, as far as I know, in the past," Clinton said in response. "But whatever other presidents have done, this is something I take seriously and that's my position."

Clinton did pardon one person involved in the Whitewater scandal, Susan McDougal, his business partner in the Whitewater land venture. She was convicted of loan fraud and spent almost two years in prison for refusing to testify against Clinton before a federal grand jury impaneled by Independent Counsel Ken Starr.

Pardons issued by other presidents in the last 30 years have also raised questions about the use of the power.

On Christmas Eve 1992, former President George Bush pardoned former Defense Secretary Weinberger, former national security adviser Robert McFarlane and four other officials linked to the Iran-Contra affair.

President Nixon says farewell to his staff before leaving the White House. President Ford pardoned him one month after Nixon resigned.

The action by the outgoing president closed the book on Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh's investigation into the Iran-Contra scandal. At the time, Walsh considered Bush to be a subject of the investigation. The pardons sparked widespread criticism, including a comment from then-President-elect Clinton, who expressed concern that Bush's actions sent a signal that certain people were above the law.

Bush's first presidential pardon went to Armand Hammer, who had pleaded guilty in 1975 to laundering illicit contributions for Richard Nixon's 1972 re-election campaign. The billionaire oilman made generous donations to the Republican Party both before and immediately after the pardon was granted in 1989.

President Ronald Reagan resisted pressure to pardon his colleagues implicated in the Iran-Contra scandal. He also passed on a request to pardon Hammer.

But just a few weeks after he took office in 1981, he pardoned two FBI officials who had authorized illegal break-ins of the offices of Vietnam War protesters.

During his final days of office, Reagan issued another controversial pardon: for New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, who had conspired to make illegal contributions to Nixon.

Iva Toguri D'Aquino, an American citizen, was convicted of treason for broadcasting Japanese propaganda during World War II. President Ford pardoned her after it came to light she was being held in Japan as an "enemy alien" and was secretly working to subvert the broadcasts.

A more puzzling case is Reagan's pardon of Robert Wendell Walker, who was convicted for attempted bank robbery. It is unclear why Reagan pardoned Walker, who had been sentenced to five years of probation. The pardon would have remained obscure if not for Walker's arrest November 3, 2000. He is charged with killing his wife and dismembering her body.

On his first full day in office, in 1977, President Jimmy Carter granted blanket amnesty to thousands who unlawfully resisted the draft to avoid serving in the Vietnam War. While his action was seen as courageous by some, many veterans considered it traitorous.

The most controversial pardon in recent history was President Gerald Ford's absolution of Nixon in 1974, assuring that the former president would not face criminal charges over the Watergate scandal. The action caused an enormous backlash that many believe cost Ford the 1976 election.

Ford also pardoned Iva Toguri D'Aquino, better known as "Tokyo Rose," for her World War II propaganda broadcasts for Japan. But that pardon caused few waves compared to the storm over Nixon.