To his credit, President Bush has issued far fewer pardons thus far than many of his predecessors. But even so, the goof up this week in which Bush pardoned Isaac Robert Toussie (in photo) and then the next day revoked the pardon shows that this presidential power is better left unused — or at least used very rarely. Toussie is a Brooklyn real estate developer who was convicted of mail fraud and other crimes. His pardon, which circumvented the Justice Department’s vetting process, was revoked after the White House learned more about the extent and nature of Toussie’s prior criminal offiense and of political contributions made by Toussie’s father .
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27 Comments
Pardoning power is used by most Presidents as they prepare to leave office. Without checking, I suspect Presidents have this power anytime during their term of office. I think it does give a margin of safety to our justice system which is supposed to be based on the law … remember the blindfolded lady of justice on the U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington.
I don’t think the president has the power to revoke a pardon, even his own. What if Bush revoked Clinton’s pardons? Same thing. This could be very interesting.
On pardons in general; Presidents don’t make nearly enough of them.
Most executive pardons come long after the pardonee has served time and paid fines.
Most are merely symbolic. You can vote again if you were found guilty of certain felonies. Or maybe a pardon is for reforming your life of crime in some worthy way. (”Some worthy way” might be your ability to pull yourself up from your bootstraps so effectively to contribute cash to political campaigns. That’s probably not a real good reason.)
I think it was Tim Allen who did hard time for selling marijuana, came back as a stand-up comic and TV and movie actor and garners a certain amount of respect for causes he supports. I’m not sure the moral infrastructure of Christendom would be destroyed by an executive pardon.
Nothing is certain, of course, but I think society can pretty much rest assured even a dolt such as George WMD Bush isn’t gonna issue a last-minute pardon to Charlie Manson.
It’s far more likely a Governor Sam Brownback would, on Inauguration Day, 2011, would pardon Dennis Rader while giving him George Tiller’s address.
The pardon, although announced, had not been signed off, Bush did not really “revoke” the pardon. He stopped the paperwork procedure to complete his offer of a pardon.
Then newspapers should stop reporting that the pardon was revoked. And dipshit should never have announced it.
“beber” observes –
“…dipshit should never have announced it.”
I mean really.
If Shrub hadn’t revoked the pardon no one would have paid attention to it past the next day’s Limbaugh broadcast. Now it’s turned into a final lesson us just how incompetent George WMD Bush is and always has been.
George WMD Bush’s legacy — in fact it should be inscribed on his statue — is:
Fool me once?
Shame on…
Shame on… you.
Fool me twice..>?
…
Shame… on….
…
Ya can’t get fooled again.”
I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole Touccie affair came to light for insurgents in Bush’s White House making it virtually impossible to preemptively pardon Cheney and Rumsfeld et al.
Monkeyhawk has brought up a point I had not considered, a few days around I was reading that one of them that was pardoned in the last go around. Was a Kansas man whom was convicted in 1962 and giving 3 years probation. That meant he was not in Prison and has served his sentence by 1965. So why in 2008 give him a pardon? He had long ago served his time and moved on with his life it did not on the face of it make any real sense to me.
But yes some effects of a conviction does last longer then the lock-up time.
Photo surfaces of President Bush with father of housing scammer Isaac Toussie
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2008/12/27/2008-12-27_photo_surfaces_of_president_bush_with_fa.html
___________________________________________________
Of course it was all just a big mistake.
A lot of folks seem to think that when they elect a president, they elect a God. They credit him for all the good things and blame him for all the bad. The way I read this is that Bush or an aide realized that they shouldn’t have pardoned this guy (not sure why)and did the right thing in revoking it. And the moronic left gives him hell for doing the right thing.
How many people have been pardoned who should have had it revoked or never granted? We just have to look back to the last president for examples of that.
Outlander – I actually agree with you on this one. I am wondering how this pardon circumvented the Justice Department’s vetting process. Who actually pushed this pardon through? Is there an investigation into what happened?
Actually, many presidents have given pardons that were questionable – not just Bill Clinton.
“A lot of folks seem to think that when they elect a president, they elect a God.”
For pure power sake, the President of the United States is about as close to the hand of god that it gets.
I’m less interested in who bush pardons then whether Obama will vigorously pursue throwing bush and his whole rotten gang in jail.
“Bush Grants Then Revokes a Pardon
On Dec. 23 President Bush pardoned Isaac Toussie, who had defrauded low-income home buyers, then on Dec. 24 he revoked the pardon. It is a bit early to tell how this will play out, but suppose Toussie goes to federal court to claimed “once a pardonee, always a pardonee” and loses. In other words, suppose the courts rule that if Presidents have the power to pardon, they also have the power to revoke a pardon. That could have implications if President Bush pardons members of his administration on his last day in office and then incoming President Barack Obama revokes the pardons. This is definitely uncharted territory.”
http://electoral-vote.com/evp2008/Pres/Maps/Dec25.html
“Both Toussies face suits accusing them of fleecing hundreds of blacks and Latinos who bought overpriced, shoddy houses. ”
Well clearly, bush understood that they were just victims of ACORN and deserved a pardon.
They-he
Outie, true to form, apologizes for worst president ever . . . anything but accept the simplest answer that explains it: Bush is an idiot.
“Bush is an idiot”.
Look and listen to his past speeches as Governor of Texas. Then look and listen to his speeches as POTUS.
To me, he’s the guy who (on purpose) breaks a few dishes so’s his wife doesn’t “allow” him to do anymore dishes. Or maybe he’s like Tom Sawyer tricking The Big Brain into whitewashing the fence. In any case, he is very well aware of what he’s doing and he’ll “get away” with anything he wants just because he knows the real idiots will just shrug whatever he does off as “doing what an idiot does”.
He’s not so stupid, he’s an evil piece of shit.
Linda – you bring up an interesting possibility. I guess it will come down to if an incoming president can revoke a pardon given by the preceding president?
As for Bush knowingly revoking a pardon that he felt was not warranted on moral grounds, I am not so sure about that. Rather, I think someone on his team brought the situation to light and decided to backpedal on the entire fiasco. I think the public does not know the entire story and just like everything else in the Bush Administration, the public will never know the entire truth.
Maybe this is Bush’s attempt to leave a legacy of bringing integrity and honesty to the White House, like he promised in 2000?
outlander
Posted December 27, 2008 at 10:18 am | Permalink
A lot of folks seem to think that when they elect a president, they elect a God.
—
Unfortunately the list of such Americans includes George W Bush.
“I guess it will come down to if an incoming president can revoke a pardon given by the preceding president?” — mom
—-
If one president had a ‘power,’ I’m guessing another somewhere down the line might want it too. Do we want any of them to have BOTH the power to pardon and the power to withdraw pardons? Opens a whole can of worms. This isn’t finished. Not the reasons for the pardon in the first place, withdrawing it, whether it was a pardon withdrawn or stopped midstream (so to speak).
I don’t expect we’ll have answers to these questions, just like we haven’t had answers to many many questions from this most corrupt in my lifetime administration. It’s been a sad, dangerous and miserable eight years which can’t end soon enough.
From what I read, a newspaper ran with the story of the contributions, and the admin. said they hadn’t been aware, and bush reversed the pardon.
Without the press, they would’ve gotten away with it.
There are two ICE agents that Bush should have pardoned before anyone else. Too bad he is a pos.
Blue,
“I’m less interested in who bush pardons then whether Obama will vigorously pursue throwing bush and his whole rotten gang in jail.”
As much as I would love to see that happen, I rather doubt that Obama will pursue it unless thare are some new revelations. He’ll be more involved in getting the country out of it’s current diasters than placing blame. On one hand, he’s right; we need to be facing forward. On the other hand though, we need to make sure Bush never happens again!
“I’m less interested in who bush pardons then whether Obama will vigorously pursue throwing bush and his whole rotten gang in jail.”
JR –
Care to share the federal statute(s) under which you suggest Obama would do so?
GMC,
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Bush and his minions could be tried under international laws for various war crimes. Let the World Court deal with him. Let Obama deal with the multiple disasters Bush wrought on us.
“under international laws for various war crimes.”
Again: care to elaborate just what law you would propose using?
What it boils down to is a desire to use the law to punish one’s political opponents for political purposes. That’s the stuff of Stalin and tinpot dictators. No matter where you stand on whether the Iraq war was a good policy or not, well managed or not, etc.; prosecuting Bush and/or members of his administration for “war crimes” is one of the dumber ideas in the long history of dumb ideas.
And it makes a mockery of the concept of “war crimes” – the real thing; i.e. Auschwitz, etc.
“GMC70″ tries to convince us –
“…it boils down to a desire to use the law to punish one’s political opponents for political purposes.”
No. It has to do with invading a sovereign state without provocation, in retaliation against nothing, for contrived imaginations of a potential threat which proved to have no basis in reality.
(You remember “reality,” don’t you, “GMC70.” You brought it up in another on another subject.)
Your “principles” have been diminished to the point, “GMC70,” that anything short of Auschwitz gets Dick Cheney and George WMD Bush a free ride, huh “GMC70?”
“Yeah, a million or more Iraqis were killed by ‘collateral damage,’ but at least there were no ovens involved so we Republicans are off the hook.”
“Principled pragmatism,” y’know?