The Clinton Pathology

I just finished Barbara Olson's "The Final Days: The Last, Desperate Abuses of Power by the Clinton White House." This book covers in great detail the final weeks the Clintons were in the White House.

Like, Details about Hillary's gift registry that went out to who knows how many people, soliciting gifts, like furniture and china, for the Clinton's 2 new homes. Hillary even solicited for, and got, an expensive cashmere sweater. All this begging at the same time Hillary had received a controversial $8 million book advance.

In addition to the loot the Clintons acquired via the begging route they also hauled off, in the words of permanent White House staff, anything that was not nailed down. Much of what was taken was put in warehouses in Little Rock. When the Clintons were told that much of what they took was government property and should have remained in the White House some of the loot was returned. But, there has never been an accounting of what was taken and what was returned. The Clintons also offered cash for some of what they took. But there has never been a record of that money being paid to anyone.

The biggest scandal in the Clintons final days were the dozens upon dozens of dubious pardons. Clinton wasn't pardoning people who'd somehow gotten a raw deal, like a kid thrown in jail for 10 years for being caught with a marijuana cigarette. No, Clinton pardoned serious criminals. He even pardoned a long sought after fugitive, Marc Rich. The Rich pardon caused the most outrage, first off due to the nature of his crimes and second off due to the fact that his ex-wife, Denise, paid the Clinton's well over a million bucks for their Presidental Library, huge donations to Hillary's senate campaign, huge donations to the DNC, and, of course, she bought Hillary some of the items that were on Hillary's gift registry.

Hillary's brother, Hugh, sold several pardons for $400,000. When Hillary found out she was horrified and insisted her brother return the money. It is not known if he did return the money, or if Hillary scolded Bill for facilitating her brother's pardon for hire scheme. Bill's brother, Roger, who got one of the last minute pardons, was so sure he could get his big brother to do some pardoning for him, pre-sold 7 or 8 pardons to fellow drug crime convicts who Roger had met in jail. Unfortunately for Roger, this turned into one of the rare occasions where Bill did the right thing, leaving Roger in hot water with the cons who'd given him money.

Clinton pardoned several drug kingpins who the DEA had worked years to convict and put away. Bill had no explanation as to why he would pardon drug kingpins. The pardons outraged leaders in South America who had cooperated with the U.S. in fighting the Drug Lords with the president of, I think it was Columbia, saying that if it had been he who had issued such a pardon on his last day in office, the United States would have been outraged and extremely critical and accusatory.

In the words of the Wall Street Journal's Al Hunt the Clinton Pardon Scandal "leaves a stain that is bigger than anything during impeachment which, despite the effort of Clinton haters, really was about awful personal behavior. I think the damage (to Clinton's legacy) is severe. I think it's lasting. It's on Bill Clinton's legacy. It's on Hillary Clinton."

Go to Wikipedia for a short article with more detail about the Clinton Pardon Scandal. Go to this Blog for a list of who was pardoned and what their crimes were. You'll see why Jimmy Carter called this scandalous and Al Gore said he was shocked.