Wild
Bill’s January 23, 2001 Diary entry while inside
the Chappaqua Bunker N.Y.
It took a blizzard to get people to shut up
about my pardons. My everybody-did-it defense
wasn't doing the trick, and blaming the Jews for
the Rich pardon on the Op-Ed page of The Times
kind of backfired. So now we just have to keep
hammering away at old Bush's pardon of that
wealthy commie Armand Hammer.
Wasn't Beth Dozoretz a knockout in that blue
cashmere outfit when she took the Fifth for me?
Burton dragged her before his committee to
guarantee front-page pictures because the
tabloids were getting tired of pictures of
Denise Rich.
I'm not worried about Denise's (man I’m getting
hot thinking about her!) immunity deal with my
U.S. attorney in New York, who's a good ol'
slowpoke. Denise has a good forgettery and if
they rough her up, she'll pop for another
half-million to my library.
Smart of her to hire a press agent to say she
pleaded with me because Marc only wanted a
pardon so he could visit his daughter's grave.
Of course, Rich is the slimy sort who wouldn't
take the chance to come to visit his kid when
she was dying. But neither his character nor
fugitive standing influenced me on the pardon. I
did it on the merits, and the main merit was
that I owed Jack Quinn a favor that would make
him a quick quarter-million bucks.
That's the reality liberals now bad- mouthing me
can't seem to get through their heads. The power
to pardon is the final presidential power of
patronage. It has little to do with the felon
but everything to do with repaying the loyalty
of intermediaries.
That's not true in every case. I pardoned my
friend Henry Cisneros - all he did was lie to
the F.B.I. about supporting a girlfriend - so he
can run for governor of Texas. Then I pardoned
her so she wouldn't give him a hard time in the
campaign. Now Henry can make his comeback and
determine how Texas votes at the next Democratic
convention.
Now about those two hoods that Hugh Rodham
represented? I never gave a hoot about them. It
was Hillary's brother who got two nice chunks of
patronage from me, and what's so terrible about
a lawyer charging 200 G's apiece for new leases
on life? Hillary panicked and to get the heat
off her told him to give back the fee, but maybe
not all the return checks will be cashed—if you
know what I mean. I'll stand by her story that
her brother never mentioned his pardon
contingency fee while he was living with us at
the end, and I'll cover for her on getting votes
for pardoning those Hasidic crooks, but if the
bitch ever rats on me to boost the sales of her
$8 million memoir . . .
I delivered for Harry and Linda Thomason,
pushing for a couple of Arkansas felons on
behalf of a third party. Years ago, I tried to
help Harry make a buck by sicking the F.B.I. on
the travel office people; then I got my buddy
who runs CBS to be nice and pay Harry a million
dollars; and now I made good his pardon
contract. All because he and Linda are my
friends. Someday they'll deliver for me on a
multimillion-dollar film deal because I'm their
friend. That's what friends are for.
Pardons are for getting even with independent
counsels, too. The guys from Tyson Foods, my
first big-money benefactor, and where Hillary
got her excellent commodity advice, are now
clean. They'd been convicted for giving illegal
gratuities to my Agriculture Secretary. There's
tens of millions of dollars could come my
library's way from the Tysons and nobody could
ever prove a quid pro quo. Friends help friends,
is all. Bush is lucky - he won't need to pardon
supporters convicted by independent counsels. At
Justice, Ashcroft is holding over the
bureaucrats who protected me and the D.N.C. in
the Riady investigation.
To head the Criminal Division, he may bring in
Mike Chertoff, who didn't much bother me as
counsel in Al D'Amato's Whitewater hearings, on
condition Chertoff keep on Lee Radek, Joanne and
Susan in "Public Integrity."
Somebody in Bush's White House has the smarts;
that same old crowd at Justice will drag a foot
for Bush whenever he gets in trouble just as
they did for me.
To those who ask me, "How could you do it?" I
reply: Because I could. If it ain't provably
criminal, it ain't all that wrong. Beth Nolan,
the team player Jack Quinn got me to appoint
White House counsel, got it right: "the
President is the President."
The pardon fuss will be forgotten. I'll just
hunker down and read the life of Jimmy Walker,
"Night Mayor" of New York.
