The sad (unpardonable) state of compassion in the Bush Administration

Writing in today's New York Times, George Lardner has this potent op-ed headlined "Begging Bush's Pardon." Here are a few excerpts from a piece that deserves a full read and lots of attention even while other political matters are making bigger headlines:

The first rule for handling requests for presidential pardons was set down in a report to Congress in 1887, during Grover Cleveland’s first term in office.  It said they were to be sent to the attorney general’s “pardon clerk” for “his prompt and appropriate attention.”

Just as important, according to the report, was that the petitioners were to be given a fair shake.  They were almost always convicted criminals, but that didn’t mean they were all guilty as charged or deserving of the harsh punishments that had been inflicted on them. And so, the pardon attorney in those days was under instructions to “accord to the convict all that he may be fairly entitled to have said in his favor.”  The attorney general, thus provided with “an impartial representation” of the case, was to tell the president what he thought should be done.

Today’s Justice Department seems to have nothing but contempt for those principles.  The Bush White House has seemingly never heard of them.  Thousands of petitioners for clemency have been waiting for years for a ruling, some since before Bill Clinton left office.  Thousands of others have been rejected out of hand, largely because preparing a fair report of what might be said in their favor would take too much time and cost too much money....

The sorry state of the system became apparent last month with the abrupt resignation of the pardon attorney, Roger Adams....  His departure came on the heels of a seven-month investigation of alleged mismanagement by the Justice Department’s inspector general. While Mr. Adams has disputed the findings, a heavily censored report of the investigation, provided to me on Friday under the Freedom of Information Act, found that he made “highly inappropriate” racial remarks concerning a Nigerian petitioner and threatened retaliation against employees who dared complain about other aspects of his work....

Being over-free with pardons has hardly been George W. Bush’s problem. He has granted only 142 pardons, four commutations and one remission (to I. Lewis Libby Jr., the former White House aide) since taking office seven years ago.  President Bush has denied more than 40 requests for every one granted. (President Clinton, by comparison, granted one in seven requests.)...

Oddly, it seems that the White House, in fact, wanted to say yes more often. In early 2006, several Justice Department officials insist, Harriet Miers explicitly asked the pardon attorney for more recommendations that the White House could act on favorably. Mr. Adams, according to one official present at the meeting, replied that he would need a bigger staff to handle the workload. Favorable reports do take more time, requiring F.B.I. background reports, the views of prosecutors and judges if willing to give them, and other opinions like those of prison officials.  Typically, it takes a year to 18 months at best before a positive recommendation can be sent to the White House.  Denials, however, are almost automatic if that is what the Justice Department recommends.

Still, Mr. Adams’s talk of a need for more help rings somewhat hollow. He usually had a staff of six lawyers including himself to handle pardon requests. In the late 1980s, by contrast, the pardon attorney had three lawyers besides himself to process petitions and, under President Ronald Reagan, they saw 406 requests granted, almost three times as many as the current administration. Despite the supposed constitutional restraints on the president’s war-making and lawmaking powers, widely skirted in recent years, his authority to grant pardons is complete, except in cases of impeachment.

But it looks as if it will take a new president devoted to addressing cases of what Alexander Hamilton called “unfortunate guilt” to restore it to its original vigor. Pending appointment of a permanent replacement, the acting pardon attorney is Helen Bollwerk, a former federal prosecutor who has been Mr. Adams’s deputy the last two years. Ms. Bollwerk is not likely to preside over a renaissance. She arrived in the pardons office with a duplicate of a Monopoly “Get Out of Jail” card that had a red-circle-and-slash “no” symbol over it. It’s said that this was a gag her fellow workers in the United States attorney’s office had given her, but there are thousands of pardon petitioners who aren’t laughing.

As regular readers know, I have done lots and lots of posts on the pardon power, on the Libby commutation, on the Bush record and on pardons and the 2008 campaign.  Here is an abridged list of some of these prior posts:

On the pardon power and modern politics:

• Should never granting a pardon be a point of political pride?
• Pardon politics and the 2008 campaign
• ACS issue brief on the pardon power
• Bipartisan call for commuting border agent sentences
• Another bipartisan call for President Bush to commute border agent sentences
• Latest FSR issue on "Learning from Libby"
• Presidential pot to kettle: "your clemency decision is so black"
• Clemency and Pardons category index

On the Bush clemency record:

• Bush's reasons for Libby's commutation ... will others now see similar compassion from Bush and his Justice Department?
• Reflections on "Bush the merciful"
• Few giving the President sentencing thanks
• A new batch of Bush pardons and a crack commutation
• Shouldn't the turkeys have been named Scooter and Libby?
• Scooter Libby drops appeal ... is a holiday pardon on the way?
• Latest FSR issue on "Learning from Libby"

I suspect that P.S. Ruckman at his blog Pardon Power will join me in closely following the fall-out from this significant sentencing story.  I hope that lots of others will focus on this important story, too, though I fear it will get lost in all the buzz now about Super Sunday and Super Tuesday and a super-sized federal budget.