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'How dare you criticise Bush?'
05/07/2007 20:35 - (SA)
Terence Hunt
Washington - The White House on Thursday made fun of former President Bill Clinton and his wife, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, for criticising President George W Bush's decision to erase the prison sentence of a former aide.
Presidential spokesperson Tony Snow said: "I don't know what Arkansan is for chutzpah, but this is a gigantic case of it."
Clinton is from the state of Arkansas. Chutzpah is a Yiddish word for brashness.
Representative John Conyers, a Democrat who heads the House Judiciary Committee, has scheduled hearings on Bush's commutation of I Lewis "Scooter" Libby's 2½ -year sentence for perjury and obstruction of justice in the CIA leak case. Libby was Vice-President Dick Cheney's chief of staff and a Bush adviser.
"Well, fine, knock himself out," Snow said of Conyers. "I mean, perfectly happy. And while he's at it, why doesn't he look at January 20th, 2001?"
'The law is a minor obstacle'
In the closing hours of his presidency, Clinton pardoned 140 people, including fugitive financier Marc Rich.
The former president tried to draw a distinction between the pardons he granted, and Bush's decision to commute Libby's 30-month sentence.
"I think there are guidelines for what happens when somebody is convicted," Clinton told a radio interviewer on Tuesday. "You've got to understand, this is consistent with their philosophy; they believe that they should be able to do what they want to do, and that the law is a minor obstacle."
Senator Clinton, seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, said the Libby decision "was clearly an effort to protect the White House". "There isn't any doubt now, what we know is that Libby was carrying out the implicit or explicit wishes of the vice-president, or maybe the president as well, in the further effort to stifle dissent."
Former Vice-President Al Gore said he found the Bush decision "disappointing" and said he did not think it was comparable to Clinton's pardons.
"It's different because in this case the person involved is charged with activities that involved knowledge of what his superiors in the White House did," Gore said on NBC television's Today show on Thursday.
Without prison, it is unclear what happens next
Snow also tried to clear up confusion about Libby's probation. While commuting Libby's sentence in terms of prison time, Bush left in place his two years of supervised release. But supervised release - a form of probation - is only available to people who have served prison time. Without prison, it is unclear what happens next.
Snow said the White House view was this: "You treat it as if he has already served the 30 months, and probation kicks in. Obviously, the sentencing judge will figure out precisely how that works."
US District Judge Reggie B Walton, earlier this week, said the law "does not appear to contemplate a situation in which a defendant may be placed under supervised release without first completing a term of incarceration".
He gave Libby's attorneys and Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald until Monday to respond.
- SAPA
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