After months of steering clear of substantive controversies, Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign has hit a few speed bumps in recent weeks. Some of the flaps are silly (the alleged missed gratuity at an Iowa diner), some are rhetorical (the senator’s hedging on driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants), and some are just sloppy (planted questions at public events).
The cumulative effect of these mishaps is that political reporters are inclined to try to pile on, looking for any opportunity to add to a slow-moving frenzy. It leads to manufactured controversies like this one, which don’t make a lot of sense.
Three recipients of controversial 11th-hour pardons issued by former President Bill Clinton in January 2001 have donated thousands of dollars to the presidential campaign of his wife, Democratic front-runner Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., according to campaign finance records examined by ABC News, in what some good government groups said created an appearance of impropriety. […]
One of the pardonees who has become a donor to Sen. Clinton is David Herdlinger, a former prosecutor in Springdale, Ark., who, according to press accounts at the time of his pardon pleaded guilty in 1986 to mail fraud after taking bribes to reduce or drop charges against defendants charged with drunken driving offenses. Now a life and business coach in Georgia, Herdlinger was pardoned by President Clinton in January 2001; he donated $1,000 to Sen. Clinton’s presidential campaign in August.
Insurance agent Alfredo Regalado, who gave Hillary Clinton $2,000, was pardoned by her husband for failing to “report the transportation of currency in excess of $10,000 into the United States,” according to the Department of Justice.
John Deutch is a different case, having served as President Clinton’s CIA director. Pardoned by President Clinton for charges he had mishandled government secrets — but before the Department of Justice could file the proper paperwork against him — Deutch, now a professor at MIT, gave Sen. Clinton the maximum allowable donation, $2,300.
“It’s not illegal,” Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, told ABC News. “But, of course, it’s inappropriate and she should return the money. It does raise the appearance that this is payback. One can only hope that she wasn’t yet aware of who made the donations.”
I have a lot of respect for Sloan and CREW, but I have no idea why these contributions are even remotely controversial. There’s just nothing here.
To be sure, some of Bill Clinton’s 11th-hour pardons in 2000 were controversial, and with good cause. But that was seven years ago. Hillary Clinton was running for the Senate at the time and played no role in the clemency process.
I’m trying to find the “appearance of impropriety ” with these contributions and don’t see anything. Many years ago — in one instance, a couple of decades ago — three people committed crimes and got caught. They were held accountable for their actions. Eventually, they received presidential pardons.
Now, years later, they’ve decided to participate in the democratic process and contribute, legally, to a political campaign. ABC News considers this controversial, why?
The issue here seems to be that these pardonees might be engaged in some kind of bizarre quid pro quo — Bill Clinton pardoned them, so they are in turn contributing to Hillary Clinton’s campaign seven years later.
But that’s ridiculous. If they gave money and then sought a pardon, that might be a story. If they promised to make a contribution in exchange for a pardon, that also might be a story. But neither is the case here — not even close. What do these three pardonees have to gain from donating now? Not a thing.
A story like this makes ABC News look worse than the Clinton campaign. There’s just no there there.