Congressman Who Defends Rove’s Refusal To Testify Calls On President Clinton To Testify

[babylonsister]

:wtf:

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/03/27/lamar-clinton/

Congressman Who Defends Rove’s Refusal To Testify Calls On President Clinton To Testify

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), the ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee, says it’s perfectly acceptable for Karl Rove and other top White House aides to refuse testifying over the U.S. Attorney scandal.

Smith didn’t show up to last week’s hearing when the Judiciary Committee authorized subpoenas against Rove and others. He called the session “political grandstanding” and said he would not help “provide votes for political subpoenas.”

Smith’s principled aversion to political grandstanding and belief in executive privilege was again on display yesterday, when he wrote a public letter to President Clinton asking him to testify about presidential pardons. An excerpt:

Dear President Clinton,

The House Committee on the Judiciary’s Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security will hold a hearing on Thursday, March 29, 2007, at 10:00 a.m. in room 2141 of the Rayburn House Office Building on the appropriate use of the presidential pardon authority. I would like to inquire as to your availability to testify at this hearing. <…>

You are no stranger to controversial pardons, most notably the pardon of Marc Rich on your last day in office. I can think of no better person than you to speak on this issue. I believe your experience with exercising the pardon authority and defending it from intrusion by Congress would be invaluable to Members of the Subcommittee and I hope you are available to join us for this important hearing.

So, calling on Karl Rove to testify about a scandal involving possible illegal actions after evidence shows Rove and his deputies played a direct role is “political grandstanding.” This letter to Clinton isn’t.

For what it’s worth, President Clinton’s spokesman says Clinton is traveling on Thursday and won’t be available to attend the hearings.

[gratuitous]

1. If Mr. Smith wants to know about controversial pardons

Perhaps he should invite the first President Bush to come to his little hearing and hold forth on the lame duck pardons Bush issued to his pals in the dead of night on Christmas Eve 1992. Why did Bush pardon Cap Weinberger just two weeks before his trial began? Did it have anything to do with the expected development of evidence that might have shown that Bush was not as "out of the loop" as he claimed on Iran/contra?

Interested, compelling questions, if you want my opinion, Mr. Smith. Too bad you can't issue subpoenas anymore. Maybe you could ask one of your Democratic colleagues on the Subcommittee to subpoena Mr. Bush?

[KansDem]

2. GOP = "Gang Of hyPocrites"

No one ever said Republicans were known for their integrity...except Republicans.

[Catherine Vincent]

3. Give me a fricking break!

[Norquist Nemesis]

4. I guess Poppy turned him down in lieu of a tee time or something

Bush I's pardoning of people like Casper Weinberger would have been much more informative to the issue, but we can't have that type of questioning going on now can we.

[peacetalksforall]

5. How does this strange person, Lamar Smith, reconcile the fact that

the Marc Rich pardon was requested by Rich's lawyer - I. Scooter Libby, who is now a felon - to phrase it bluntly?

[onenote]

8. Libby was Rich's lawyer, but was there ever confirmation that he requested pardon?

Libby denied having requested the pardon for Rich. Now, I don't necessarily believe ol' Scooter, but I'm wondering whether there was ever any evidence produced to confirm or refute this point. Was any written documentation confirming libby's role?

[peacetalksforall]

9. I don't know. I was positive I heard that Libby led the plea. I'll try

to go back and check it. Was it all led by Rich's ex-wife?. I don't see how a pardon could be presented without the legalese that goes along with it. If Libby was his lawyer, then who prepared the request? I'm still going with my memory, but it's a good question.

[peacetalksforall]

12. Rich's lawyer at the time of the pardon was Jack Quinn - what a

story about it in this article: (below)

Barak of Israel also appealed to Pres. Clinton.

I didn't follow it all, but just read that one of the things Rich got in to trouble for was arms trading with Iran.

The Republicans went after Clinton and his staff with unbelievable hate in post-pardon hearings. I just love the fact that our VP who deals arms with Iran and who exposed the CIA's work for investigating arms traffickers with Iran may also need a pardon - or could be in the position of granting pardons.

Hypocrites extraordinarie.

"The latest "friend" to take advantage of Clinton's naiveté is Jack Quinn. As a former White House counsel, a man privy to personal and presidential secrets, Quinn had Clinton's trust. When he arrived to ask his former client for a favor on behalf a current client, Clinton did not suspect that Quinn might be abusing their relationship. As a result, Quinn royally fleeced him. Abusing his rare access, he acted not as a Clinton loyalist but as a Washington hired gun. He got what he wanted and left Clinton holding the bag.

Quinn was quite shrewd in the way he did his work. In letters and direct discussion, he presented Clinton with one side of the Rich case, highlighting the arguments that he knew would appeal to the president. He played on Clinton's own sense of victimization by telling him that Rich was a victim not just of prosecutorial excess but of the special prosecutorial excess of Rudy Giuliani. Quinn misled Clinton into believing that Rich was not technically a fugitive from justice. He orchestrated pleas for sympathy from Rich's ex-wife and daughter as well as from other public figures he thought Clinton would respond to. Meanwhile, Quinn did his best to prevent the president from getting the other side of the story. He used his knowledge of how the White House worked to make sure that the pardon office at the Justice Department didn't get involved until the 11th hour.

Today, Clinton is said to feel deeply betrayed by Quinn. To which one can only respond, why did you trust him? There's an old expression that says you can't bullshit a bullshitter. But sometimes the opposite is true: Someone who isn't trustworthy neglects to mistrust others. This seems to be the case with Clinton. Manipulative but not cynical, he assumes that other gregarious sweet-talkers mean no harm. Faced with someone who wants him to do something, he assumes the best of motives, not the worst. And that leaves the door wide open for a lushly connected influence peddler like Jack Quinn."

http://www.solariactionnetwork.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2954&highlight=marc+rich

Now I have to investigate this web site - looks interesting:

http://www.solari.com/

[bluedog]

6. he's a nasty, nasty man..

***does he hold bush to these comments?
December 10, 1998




THE IMPEACHMENT HEARINGS
Opening Statements: Lamar Smith (R-Texas)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

More Transcripts From the Hearings

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When someone is elected president, they receive the greatest gift possible from the American people, their trust. To violate that trust is to raise questions about fitness for office. My constituents often remind me that if anyone else in a position of authority -- for example, a business executive, a military officer of a professional educator -- had acted as the evidence indicates the president did, their career would be over. The rules under which President Nixon would have been tried for impeachment had he not resigned contain this statement: "The office of the president is such that it calls for a higher level of conduct than the average citizen in the United States."


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/stories/smithtext121098.htm

[rodeodance]

14. I do not think Bush and trust go in the same sentence.

[Catherine Vincent]

7. I can imagine Clinton's reply!

[ddeclue]

10. All Smith can do is "invite" not "subpoena"..HA HA...

and he wouldn't want to tangle with the big dog anyways...especially as a member of the minority...did he not see what happened to Inhoffe last week?

Doug D.

[cascadiance]

11. So does this mean that he would help us put in place a constitutional ammendment limiting pardons?

Hmm....

[rodeodance]

13. tell me what the connection is between Rove testifying and Clinton past pardon??