Suggestion Of Pardons Met With Derision

President Clinton’s refusal to rule out pardons for his former Whitewater partners raised storm warnings Tuesday. Some observers said a Whitewater pardon would cause as much outrage as President Ford’s act of clemency toward Richard Nixon.

Clinton was noncommittal when asked Monday about a potential post-election pardon for Jim McDougal, his former wife Susan McDougal and former Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy Tucker. But he didn’t slam the door shut. He said he would review such requests “after there’s an evaluation done by the Justice Department.”

But that was enough to arouse strong reaction from Republicans.

“It would be an unprecedented use of the pardon power when you pardon someone who is involved in a matter in which you yourself are being investigated,” said Joseph diGenova, who was U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia in the Reagan and Bush administrations. He said it could be grounds for impeachment and “would doom his presidency - doom it, no matter what his other accomplishments.”

“There would be a storm of outrage and indignation,” agreed Robert Goldwin, a constitutional scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Goldwin served in the Ford White House and observed the protests following Ford’s pardon of Nixon for crimes he “committed or might have committed.

On Capitol Hill, some of Clinton’s sharpest critics called his remarks inappropriate. Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., said the president was offering Susan McDougal an inducement to keep silent.

“It’s like putting a carrot on a stick in front of her and further politicizing what she’s been doing,” Mica said in an interview.

“She’s been playing to him and now he’s playing to her. To me, it’s a disgusting perversion of the judicial system.”