Free Republic

There is no need to tiptoe gingerly around this topic: Maurice Clemmons, who was shot and killed as authorities tried to apprehend him for the shooting deaths of four Washington police officers - is former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's Willie Horton. Horton, you might recall, is the convicted killer who raped a woman while wrongly released as part of a prison furlough program supported by former Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis - thus helping to torpedo the 1988 Democratic presidential nominee's bid for the White House. The Clemmons' story likewise should kill any chance of Huckabee winning, should he run in...

Top brass flew to Baghdad with publicity-shy empowerment businessman Mzilikazi Wa Afrika, Jessica Bezuidenhout and Andre Jurgens Two of the ANC's most powerful officials travelled to Iraq with a controversial Johannesburg businessman just weeks before he landed a R1.2-billion state oil deal. Sandi Majali is one of about 270 people around the world who have been named in an alleged sanctions-busting scam involving oil from former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime. The names appeared in Iraqi State Oil Marketing Organisation documents found after the fall of Saddam. Majali, 41, who heads the media-shy empowerment company Imvume Resources, has for the...

Republicans have delayed for one week a committee vote on Eric Holder Jr.'s nomination to be attorney general, giving them extra time to pore over Holder's long record and force him to answer questions in writing about policies he would pursue at the Department of Justice. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., ranking GOP member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, requested the delay on behalf of the eight other GOP members. They met this morning, Specter said, and "there was a unanimous view that there has been insufficient time to question Mr. Holder." Under committee rules, the request for a delay was...

Re: Eric Holder, Obama's pick for Attorney General! From David Horowitz's FrontPageMag.com/DiscoverTheNetworks.org:PROFILE: ERIC HOLDER (note that this is just an excerpt on one issue. The linked piece addresses all of Holder's record) Holder and the Pardon of FALN Terrorists: Holder was also intimately involved in President Clinton's August 11, 1999 pardon of 16 members of the FALN, acronym for the Armed Forces of National Liberation—a violent terrorist organization (as designated by the FBI) that was active in the U.S. from the mid-1970s through the early 1980s. The FALN was a Marxist-Leninist group whose overriding mission was to secure Puerto Rico's...

Obama pick faces questions over bombers' clemencyBy PETE YOST Associated Press Writer Originally published Wednesday, January 14, 2009 at 2:05 PM WASHINGTON — New York police detective Anthony S. Senft's life changed forever when a bomb set by Puerto Rican separatists exploded, blowing him 15 feet in the air and blinding him in one eye. Now, he's angry that Eric Holder, who played a key role in awarding clemency to the bombers, is in line to be attorney general. Holder, as President Bill Clinton's deputy attorney general, worked closely with the Justice Department's pardon attorney to raise the possibility of...

November 25, 2008, 9:45 a.m. Opposed to Holder without ApologyThe shameful pardons are disqualifying. By Andrew C. McCarthy I’ll concede this much to Lanny Davis: Last Friday night, during our Hannity & Colmes debate over President-Elect Barack Obama’s selection of Eric Holder to be the next Attorney General, Davis said (or I should say, screeched) that I’d soon be apologizing, and he’s right. I am sorry that our discussion degenerated into a screaming match. That’s wince-making television that doesn’t edify anyone. So I do apologize to anyone who had to endure that segment. But Davis’s hysterical suggestion that I...

HEAR THE WITNESS ON YOUTUBE - did Marc Rich bribe Bill Clinton with a $250 million pardon fund? As discussed yesterday, I have a scan of the sworn declaration and will soon have the original. The Senate must ask questions in the confirmation hearings of Eric Holder and Hillary Clinton. NOTE: as explained in the video, the witness had made a typo in the amount of the pardon (bribe?) fund. It was $250 mil, not $225 mil. It has been corrected on the subsequent declaration presented below. For those unfamiliar with the tragedy in her life, Denise lost her...

"It's like Keystone Cops."

If you're going to promise "new politics," it would probably be wise to eschew the same old Beltway cronies and insiders who have served presidential nominees of yore. And if you're going to attack political opponents for playing "textbook Washington games," it would probably be best not to play them yourself. If you do, you'll end up tongue-tied in front of the cameras, hung by your own holier-than-thou rhetoric and faced once again with the decision to throw another bad choice under the bus. Yes, Barack Obama, we're talking about you. Again. It's getting mighty crowded under that bus, isn't...

...The acts of clemency benefited the stepson of a staff member, murderers who worked at the governor's mansion, a rock star and inmates who received good words from their pastors. "It seems to be true at least anecdotally that if a minister is involved, (Huckabee) seems likely to grant clemency," prosecutor Robert Herzfeld said in 2004 after successfully battling the then-governor over the release of a killer... Some inmates who benefited from some sort of personal connection: _James Maxwell, who killed a pastor of the Church of God in Arkansas. Maxwell worked at the Governor's Mansion when Huckabee announced his...

A public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption says it has obtained more than 30 photos taken at the White House in December of 2000 that link Hillary Clinton (D-New York) to some controversial pardons made by her husband the president. Judicial Watch says it obtained the 34 photos from the Clinton Presidential Library. The photos show Mrs. Clinton and then-President Bill Clinton with Grand Rabbi David Twersky and other community leaders at the White House. The meeting took place on December 22, 2000 -- after the New York based Hasidim sect delivered 1,400 votes to Hillary Clinton's...

Did President Bush pull a classic Machiavellian move to outmaneuver Team Clinton over last week's Fourth of July holiday? In my opinion, the timing of President Bush’s commutation of Scooter Libby’s prison term was no accident. The President was well aware that former President Clinton would be joining his wife on the fourth for her visit to Iowa in an attempt to raise her sagging poll numbers there. The President is also very aware of the former President’s own record on pardons. President Bush also correctly judged that Team Clinton would resort to defending their own pardon record as soon...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - A Tennessee lawsuit against the brother of US Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is expected to be settled before the trial begins next Thursday. The suit accuses Tony Rodham of failing to repay debts to a Tennessee carnival operator. The case could have revived stories about how Clinton's brothers accepted money from people pardoned by her husband, President Bill Clinton. Rodham is accused of failing to repay $107,000 plus interest to the bankrupt estate of Edgar Allen Gregory Junior and his wife, both of whom received a presidential pardon in 2000. The Gregorys received pardons for a...

Clinton's brother near legal settlement By TRAVIS LOLLER, Associated Press Writer 14 minutes ago A lawyer for the brother of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said he's confident he can avoid a trial next week and settle a lawsuit that accuses Tony Rodham of failing to repay debts to a Tennessee carnival operator. That should be a relief to Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign since the case could have revived stories about how her brothers accepted money from people pardoned by her husband, President Bill Clinton. Rodham is accused of failing to repay $107,000 plus interest to the bankrupt estate of Edgar...

Grocery King George Torres Fingered in Murders Racketeering charges against Numero Uno markets founder include bribing two former L.A. planning commissioners By JEFFREY ANDERSON Wednesday, June 13, 2007 - 7:30 pmFEDERAL PROSECUTORS on Wednesday afternoon arraigned George Torres, one of South Los Angeles’ largest property owners and the owner of the Numero Uno supermarket chain, on murder charges. Also arraigned on a variety of racketeering charges, such as extortion and bribery, were several codefendants, including Torres’ brother Manuel, son Steven and former Los Angeles city planning commissioners Steve Carmona and George Luk. The federal indictment was unsealed in federal court...

Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Lamar Smith (R-TX) today asked Former President Bill Clinton if he would be available to testify at the Democrats' Thursday hearing on presidential pardon authority. "Former President Clinton is no stranger to controversial pardons, most notably the pardon of Marc Rich on his last day in office," stated Ranking Member Smith. "I can think of no better person to address this issue." At Thursday's hearing of the Judiciary's Crime Subcommittee entitled, "The Appropriate Use of the Presidential Pardoning Power," Democrats are expected to explore what is and is not the appropriate use of pardons, despite a...

An obscure court case threatens to bring Bill Clinton's presidential pardons controversy back into the public eye just as Hillary Clinton heats up her campaign for the White House. Bill Clinton issued 140 presidential pardons in his final days in office, and drew howls of protest when it came to light that Hillary's two brothers had received money from several of the people pardoned. Clinton pardoned Almon Glenn Braswell of his mail fraud and perjury convictions, and commuted the sentence of cocaine trafficker Carlos Vignali. Hillary's brother Hugh Rodham received nearly $400,000 for lobbying for the two men, although he...

A court-appointed bankruptcy trustee asked a federal judge this week to schedule a new court date in a case against Tony Rodham, the brother of Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., accused of failing to repay $109,000 in loans from a carnival company whose owners received controversial pardons issued by President Bill Clinton in the last hours of his presidency. According to documents filed in the case, Rodham received the loans, before and after the pardons were granted, from United Shows of America, Inc., owned by Edgar Gregory and his wife, who had been convicted of defrauding several banks.

Rodham Allegedly Received Fraudulent Loan as Payment for Securing Pardon Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced last week that it filed a formal request with the U.S. Department of Justice, calling for a criminal investigation into the reported activities of Hillary Clinton and her brother, Anthony D. Rodham, former President Clinton, and Vonna Jo Gregory, former owner of the carnival company, United Shows International. Recently released court documents provided new details concerning a scheme involving Anthony Rodham, who allegedly received $107,000 in fraudulent loans from United Shows International as compensation for securing a...

WILLIAM Jefferson Blythe III was born on August 19, 1946, in Hope, Ark. After his mother remarried, he took the family surname, Clinton. Clinton was a good student. He enjoyed playing the saxophone and even considered a professional musical career. While in high school, a fortuitous meeting with President John Kennedy led him to choose a life of public service.