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Pardon Time At The White House

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

December 22, 2000 / 1:49 PM EST / CBS

President Clinton has pardoned Dan Rostenkowski, the former chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee who was brought down by a corruption scandal.

President Clinton announced the decision Friday, along with 58 other pardons, including two women whose drug sentences have attracted considerable attention.

In 1996, Rostenkowski, an Illinois Democrat, pleaded guilty in federal court to two counts of mail fraud and was sentenced to 17 months in prison and $100,000 in fines.

That sentence was the final act of a legal and political drama that began two years earlier when prosecutors probed the misuse of taxpayer funds.

Long among the most powerful figures in Washington, prosecutors alleged Rostenkowski used public funds to pay employees who did little or no work, and to buy personal gifts.

He's Still The Boss

President Clinton's making the most of the time he has left in office.

A president doesn't have to go to Congress for every last thing he wants to get done, although it does help to build consensus and can be useful to a president who needs to trade political favors to get his agenda through stormy waters.

Consensus building is no longer the issue for the outbound Mr. Clinton, who's issued a flurry of executive orders in the past few weeks to implement rules and start programs he believes are important.

A number of federal agencies have also made high profile announcements of proposals they hope will become final in the year to come.

Among the highlights of the Clinton administration's lame duck whirlwind of activity:

Word of Rostenkowski's pardon came as surprise — his name was not among those floating about town in recent weeks as the Clinton presidency draws to an end.

As CBS News Correspondent Jim Stewart reports, Justice Department officials were absolutely outraged with the pardon of crimes that that included paying people who did little or no work and using taxpayer funds to mow the lawn of his vacation home.

Justice officials had been fighting the decision for days, with one calling Rostenkowski "a corrupt politician," and describing the president's action as "just another politician's view of the world."

President Clinton issued 58 other pardons Friday, including one for Arkansas chicken company executive Archie Schaffer III, who became ensnared in the corruption investigation of former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy.

The pardons are the first of several acts of presidential clemency that President Clinton has been weighing over the holidays. Others under consideration are said to include Whitewater figure Susan McDougal, former Wall Street financier Michael Milken and American Indian activist Leonard Peltier.

Schaffer, the chief spokesman for Tyson Foods, was convicted by a jury under a 1907 law of trying to influence agricultural policy by arranging for Espy to attend a Tyson birthday party in Arkansas in 1993.

Both Republicans and Democrats in his home state had urged President Clinton to pardon Schaffer, arguing the spokesman was convicted under an obscure law by an independent counsel seeking to build a case against Espy. Espy was eventually acquitted.

Even the federal judge who oversaw the case said he believed Schaffer was innocent and twice tried to acquit him, only to be reversed by an appeals court.

U.S. District Judge James Robertson reluctantly sentenced Schaffer to a year and one day in prison and a $5,000 fine, the minimum that he said was allowed under the Meat Inspection Act. The extra prison day would have made Schaffer eligible for good-behavior credits that could free him nearly two months early, the judge said.

In addition to the pleas that Schaffer be pardoned, supporters of the former Tysons executive wrote nearly 100 letters to Robertson asking the judge to show leniency. Schaffer, the nephew of former Arkansas governor and U.S. Sen. Dale Bumpers, D-Ark., served in Bumpers' administrations and led a business group studying educational reforms during President Clinton's tenure as governor of Arkansas.

Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Sen. Tim Hutchinson, both Republicans, were among those who appealed to President Clinton to pardon Schaffer.

"I think Archie is deserving and that he's gone through a lot," Hutchison said. "I'm pleased with the president's decision. He's gone through trial after trial and appeals."

The sentencing was one of the final items in Independent Counsel Donald Smaltz's six-year, $23 million investigation of Espy. Jurors acquitted Espy in December 1998.

The other prdons issued Friday were for Kemba Smith, 28, of Richmond, Va., and Dorothy Gaines, 42, of Mobile, Ala.

Both women have been serving long jail terms for drug crimes, Smith for helping a boyfriend who was the ringleader, and Gaines for a low-level role in a drug ring whose leaders got much more lenient sentences.

The two women have been the focus of a national campaign by both women's groups and opponents of mandatory minimum prison sentences.

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