Reproduced with permission of The Progressive Review, 1739 Connecticut Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20009, 202-232-5544, Fax: 202-234-6222. Editor: Sam Smith, ssmith@igc.org.

Whitewater: Trying to fix the fight

In his aggressive effort to prevent and influence possible Whitewater testimony, Clinton has started publicly hinting at presidential pardons for those involved. This follows his previous offer to raise money for witnesses that don't plead guilty i.e. those who hang tough.

As we have pointed out, all this could be considering witness tampering, a federal offense. Some two hundred members of Congress (all Republicans except for three southern Democrats) wrote Clinton asking that he cease and desist from talk of pardons. A resolution to this effect was about to be introduced in the House, but according to its sponsor, GOP Representative Spencer Bachus, House Democrats indicated they "were prepared to shut down the government over the issue" by creating a last minute budget crisis. Said another Republican congressmember, Curt Weldon, the Democrats "went ballistic" at the thought of having to vote on the pardon issue.

Meanwhile, the Washington Times has uncovered the fact that Clinton has pardoned the gambling pal of his mother. The pardon of Jack Pakis came in 1995 without fanfare. Pakis was convicted under the Organized Crime Control Act, sentenced to two years in prison, but the sentence was suspended. He was fined and put on probation. Pakis, a friend of Clinton's mother Virginia Kelley, was arrested as part of an FBI sting operation against illegal gambling in Hot Springs.

According to the Washington Times, "his trial judge described Mr. Pakis as a professional gambler, part owner of an illegal casino and an illegal bookmaker for football and horse-racing bets." US District Judge Oren Harris, said the FBI had "reached into Hot Springs to put a stop to gambling that has existed here since the 1920s." But he suspended the sentence, saying that since local acceptance of gambling was so widespread it would be unfair to send Pakis and his co-defendants to jail. Pakis once owned a piece of the Southern Club -- Al Capone's favorite -- in the mob resort of Hot Springs where, as Kelly put it in her autobiography, "gangsters were cool and the rules were meant to be bent."

Despite the media's downplaying of Whitewater, a top advisor to the White House and congressional Democrats admitted to the Washington Times that "we're talking about that all the time." The Times also reported: "Other party officials said they would meet a potential post-election indictment of the president or first lady by asking top congressional Democrats to seek a resignation of the president. 'We're already talking about that, and we'd be ready if it explodes,' said one prominent Democrat, speaking on the condition of anonymity."