Presidential pardon for Clinton?
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=21335

© 2001 WorldNetDaily.com

Shortly after President William Jefferson Clinton
leaves office, Independent Counsel Robert Ray
is expected to make a decision on whether he
should be indicted for possible crimes that were
uncovered during the investigation of the
Monica Lewinsky scandal. Pressure already is
being applied by influential Democrats and
Republicans alike to encourage his successor to
issue a blanket pardon for any and all misdeeds
Clinton may have committed in order to spare
the nation the expense and embarrassment of a
trial.

However, before President-elect George W.
Bush can consider whether such an act is
justified, he and the citizens of this nation need
to know the nature of the crimes that may have
been committed.

The political “spin” is that the charges under
consideration all concern Mr. Clinton’s
relationship with former White House intern
Monica Lewinsky. Therefore, they are only of a
sexual nature, and sex, even sex with an intern
entrusted to the people’s house, is somehow
none of our business. Since illicit sex is a private
matter, even perjury is justified if it is meant to
spare one’s family the painful discovery.

While I do not share this conclusion, what if it is
not “just about sex,” or, more accurately, the
molestation of an intern?

In his closing remarks to the House Judiciary
Committee, David Schippers, the Democrat who
served as chief investigative counsel for the
Clinton impeachment, said this:

We uncovered (since the time the Inquiry
of Impeachment was passed) more
incidents involving probable direct and
deliberate obstruction of justice, witness
tampering, perjury and abuse of power.
We were however, informed both by the
Department of Justice and by the Office of
Independent Counsel that to bring forth
publicly that evidence at this time would
seriously compromise pending criminal
investigations that are nearing completion.

Please note that Mr. Schippers did not say that
these incidents involved only Monica Lewinsky.
In fact, the implication in Mr. Schipper’s
remarks was that these incidents were separate
and apart from the Lewinsky matter.

Presently, there are many people in this country
who feel used, bewildered and betrayed
because of personal information they hold
about crimes allegedly committed by Mr.
Clinton, information they willingly shared with
both investigators working with the
independent counsel and with the Judiciary
Committee at great personal expense, that they
feel has been ignored or swept under the White
House rug. Equally bewildered are those who
have had sensitive information that they held on
Mr. Clinton pried out of them by aggressive
investigators, who, having achieved access to
their secrets, seemed to have lost interest in
pursing these matters, after having left their
targets exposed.

Among the disillusioned is Dr. Paul Fick, a
clinical psychologist from Laguna Nigel, Calif.
Dr. Fick is an expert in treating individuals with
compulsive disorders. In 1994, he felt
compelled to go to Arkansas in order to gain
insight into the president’s behavior.

In his book, "The Dysfunctional President," Dr.
Fick set out his theories as to why Bill Clinton
exhibited a strong tendency to lie, was
indecisive and often denied personal
responsibly for his actions. In the course of his
investigation into what Fick maintains is a
psychological disorder, he interviewed more
than 80 Clinton friends and former associates. At
the time, some of the information he uncovered
in Arkansas was deeper and far more damaging
than he was prepared to handle.

As a result, the book that was released in 1995
only skimmed the surface, partly because Fick
did not want to take the focus off of his clinical
revelations, and partly because he did not want
to betray confidences or put at risk the
individuals who had confided in him.

However, one of the most shocking revelations
in his book came from Bert German Dickey III,
who, for many years, had been involved with
both Clinton and the Democratic party in
Arkansas but had become disillusioned with
Mr. Clinton’s lying and disrespect for the law.
Dickey maintained that Clinton, who always
was looking ahead to the next election, put a
price on the various government commissions
in his state of anywhere from $1,500 to $50,000,
although, in the end, commission posts often
went to the man or woman who came up with
the largest campaign donation. Since the law
limits individual contributions, the cash was
funneled to Democrat Party faithful, who put
the money in their own private accounts and
wrote checks back to Clinton. According to Fick,
Dickey admitted to doing this himself on at
least one occasion.

Dickey detailed for Fick how the cash from the
sale of seats on the Fish and Game, Highway
and other commissions also was funneled to
those who were influential in the black
community in east Arkansas in order to
guarantee a certain number of votes. “You have
to pay your drivers and the preachers to get in
the black church, and it’s X number of dollars a
vote. And that’s how you got the so-called street
money to get out and grease the skids, and
that’s what we would do.”

After his book was published, Dr. Fick and
Dickey were interviewed by FBI agents working
for Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr,
together and separately. When Dickey was
reluctant to give out information involving
some of his friends, Fick said, “They showed
him copies of his own checks and told him, ‘You
have a much bigger problem.’” The FBI already
had documented some of the information
contained in the Fick book and, by applying
pressure, obviously obtained a lot more. What
happened to this information?

Fick turned over copies of the documentation he
had on Clinton to the independent counsel and
later to investigators for the U.S. House of
Representatives Judiciary Committee because,
as he put it, “It was the right thing to do.”

From Fick’s perspective, the plot thickened
when Clinton was subpoenaed to testify in the
trials of Herbie Branscum and Robert Hill who
were indicted on charges of bank fraud related
to Clinton’s campaign funding. Clinton had
appointed Brascum to the Arkansas Highway
Commission. When Clinton was questioned for
the trial on videotape he was asked, “When you
were governor of Arkansas did you ever put a
price on or sell a state commission?” The
president answered emphatically that he had
not.

If Fick’s accusations are true, then Clinton
perjured himself in a case that was not about
sex, it was about government corruption. FBI
personnel in charge of the independent
counsel’s investigation in Arkansas had this
information, but for some reason, sat on it.

In December of 1998, Fick got a call from the
House Judiciary Committee and was asked to
come in for a meeting. Two days before
Schippers made his closing argument, Fick gave
his information to Schipper’s chief investigator
and two attorneys. When Fick laid everything
out in chronological order, he said one of the
attorneys commented, “I don’t see how he can
get out of this.”

However, when Fick was told that this was the
first time these investigators had seen this
information, he was stunned, because he had
faxed it to every Republican member of the
Judiciary Committee.

Prior to the 1996 election, Fick contacted former
FBI Director William Sessions, who was so
surprised by his information that he called
Kenneth Starr. At the time Fick was told that this
information was just too political to bring out
before the election. It would have to wait, and
so Fick waited.

When nothing happened, Fick then sat down
with staff members of key congressmen and
senators including Sens. Fred Thompson,
R-Tenn., John McCain, R-Ariz., and Bush
Attorney General-designate John Ashcroft and
provided each of these men with copies of his
documents. In addition, former Congressman
William Dannemeyer, R-Calif., personally took
this information to House Judiciary Chairman
Henry Hyde.

Prior to the confirmation hearing for
Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater, Fick
said he provided Sen. McCain, who chaired the
hearing, information that Slater had bought his
highway commission seat in Arkansas. It was
ignored.

Fick also said he has provided information to
Jeff Gerth of the New York Times, Peter Yost of
the Associated Press and Lou Kilzer, the
Pulitzer Prize winning investigative reporter,
formerly with the Denver Post. Fick claims that
Kilzer found three sources to confirm his
information, including one in the White House
who wouldn’t go on record. Nevertheless, he
said that when the Post was set to publish the
story it was scrubbed after someone at the paper
had a conversation with White House Counsel
Mark Fabriani. Fick said he was told that the
White House had “unkind things” to say about
his former employer psychiatrist David Viscott
and that Clinton operatives were looking into
ways to discredit him. That was not a surprise.

What was surprising to Fick is that Schippers
and his staff ultimately could not find enough
selfless men and women in Congress and other
positions of responsibility who were willing to
rise “above party and faction” in order to
reestablish “justice, decency, honor and truth as
the standard by which even the highest office in
the land must be evaluated.”

There is every reason to believe that the pattern
of corruption that appears to have existed in
Arkansas when Clinton was governor might
have continued after the Clintons moved to
Washington, D.C. Schippers has called the
House inquiries into Chinagate, Filegate and
Travelgate “infantile.”

At the very least, the American people need to
know what, if anything, the Chinese got in
return for the money reportedly given to the
Democratic National Committee and the Clinton
Defense Fund and whether it had any impact on
our national security.

There is little reason to suspect that anyone in
Congress will have the guts to pursue this
matter. Likewise, there is little reason to believe
that the current independent counsel will have
the stomach to lay out the perjury charge Fick
believes he helped to uncover. However, if any
of these things should come to pass, it is likely
that George W. Bush will take the avenue of
least resistance and pardon Mr. Clinton from all
his past sins.

When Richard Nixon resigned rather than face
impeachment, the country was divided on
whether or not he should be indicted. One
month after taking office, his successor, Gerald
R. Ford, pardoned him for all federal crimes he
may have committed in order to “reconcile
divisions in our country and heal the wounds
that had festered too long.”

In retrospect, it may have been the worst
decision ever made by one of our heads-of-state.
For, if that is the pattern we use for dealing with
the misdeeds of all future presidents, our
system of government, with its checks and
balances, is, for all practical purposes, lost.


Jane Chastain is a WorldNetDaily columnist.
jchastain@worldnetdaily.com
================================================================
Clinton Mentally Ill
http://www.apfn.org/apfn/clintonmental.htm

William Jefferson & Hillary Clinton
http://www.apfn.org/apfn/clintons.htm

SNOW JOB: THE CIA, COCAINE, AND BILL CLINTON
Part 2: The Money Trail
http://www.apfn.org/apfn/snowjob1.htm

CLINTON KNEW TARGET WAS CIVILIAN
http://www.apfn.org/apfn/london.htm

etc....on and on!

Jane Chastain