Friday, November 16, 2007
Pardoned Felons For Hillary
Three recipients of controversial 11th-hour pardons issued by former President Bill Clinton in January 2001 have donated thousands of dollars to the presidential campaign of his wife, Democratic front-runner Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., according to campaign finance records examined by ABC News, in what some good government groups said created an appearance of impropriety.
"It's not illegal," Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, told ABC News. "But, of course, it's inappropriate and she should return the money. It does raise the appearance that this is payback.
"One can only hope that she wasn't yet aware of who made the donations," said Sloan.
[...]
One of the pardonees who has become a donor to Sen. Clinton is David Herdlinger, a former prosecutor in Springdale, Ark., who, according to press accounts at the time of his pardon pleaded guilty in 1986 to mail fraud after taking bribes to reduce or drop charges against defendants charged with drunken driving offenses.
Now a life and business coach in Georgia, Herdlinger was pardoned by President Clinton in January 2001; he donated $1,000 to Sen. Clinton's presidential campaign in August.
Insurance agent Alfredo Regalado, who gave Hillary Clinton $2,000, was pardoned by her husband for failing to "report the transportation of currency in excess of $10,000 into the United States," according to the Department of Justice.
John Deutch is a different case, having served as President Clinton's CIA director.
Pardoned by President Clinton for charges he had mishandled government secrets -- but before the Department of Justice could file the proper paperwork against him -- Deutch, now a professor at MIT, gave Sen. Clinton the maximum allowable donation, $2,300.
Neither Herdlinger nor Regalado nor Deutch could be reached for comment.
Sloan was also a Dem congressional staffer and legal counsel for Joe Wilson and the never-covert Valerie Plame. We know exactly on which side of the political fence Sloan's political allegiance falls.
I remember an old "Rockford Files" episode where Jim Rockford asked, "is there no honor among thieves anymore?"
Sure there is. They're all connected to the Clintons.
Here's an incomplete list of people Bubba pardoned or whose sentence he commuted. I'm sure the same names are on Hillary's campaign list for whom to shakedown for donations.
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