Bush Pardons 6 in Iran Affair, Aborting a Weinberger Trial; Prosecutor Assails 'Cover-Up'

[Lasher]

December 25, 1992

Six years after the arms-for-hostages scandal began to cast a shadow that would darken two Administrations, President Bush today granted full pardons to six former officials in Ronald Reagan's Administration, including former Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger.

Mr. Weinberger was scheduled to stand trial on Jan. 5 on charges that he lied to Congress about his knowledge of the arms sales to Iran and efforts by other countries to help underwrite the Nicaraguan rebels, a case that was expected to focus on Mr. Weinberger's private notes that contain references to Mr. Bush's endorsement of the secret shipments to Iran.

In one remaining facet of the inquiry, the independent prosecutor, Lawrence E. Walsh, plans to review a 1986 campaign diary kept by Mr. Bush. Mr. Walsh has characterized the President's failure to turn over the diary until now as misconduct.

Decapitated Walsh Efforts

But in a single stroke, Mr. Bush swept away one conviction, three guilty pleas and two pending cases, virtually decapitating what was left of Mr. Walsh's effort, which began in 1986. Mr. Bush's decision was announced by the White House in a printed statement after the President left for Camp David, where he will spend the Christmas holiday.

Mr. Walsh bitterly condemned the President's action, charging that "the Iran-contra cover-up, which has continued for more than six years, has now been completed."

Mr. Walsh directed his heaviest fire at Mr. Bush over the pardon of Mr. Weinberger, whose trial would have given the prosecutor a last chance to explore the role in the affair of senior Reagan officials, including Mr. Bush's actions as Vice President.

http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/06/29/reviews/iran-pardon.html

The apple never falls far from the tree.

[malaise]

1. Indeed poppy was the chief counsel here

They were fishing for excuses to free Scooter.

[Lasher]

3. And they set it up

On instruction from the White House, the publican noise machine had been hard at work to spread the lie about the "excessive" sentence.

[Hubert Flottz]

2. I'll bet the Gawdpoppy helped Junior cook up Libby's escape too.

The day they split up from the last vacation, Junior pulls the stunt. Today Bush is busy polluting West Virginia again.

[Lasher]

5. Happy 4th of July, Hubert

Yup, Junior got instructions to pull the trigger during the fishing trip. Probably right about when the SS diver was getting their anchor unstuck for them.

[Hubert Flottz]

12. Happy fourth of July to you too.

The Nazi types take care of their own it seems...

Acquittal of the "Blood Judge"

As a judge on Hitler's dreaded wartime People's Court, Hans-Joachim Rehse signed 231 death sentences. Last year a West German lower court sentenced Rehse, now 66, to five years in prison as an accessory to "legal murder." Plainly convinced that the sentence was far too light, the Federal Court in Karlsruhe ordered a retrial on the grounds that he was either wholly responsible or wholly innocent and should be sentenced accordingly. Last week a Berlin criminal court touched off a nationwide uproar by acquitting Rehse.

Catcalls and outraged shouts of "Pfui, Pfui!" interrupted Judge Ernst-Juergen Oske's reading of the verdict. A man in the audience rose and cried: "Millions were murdered—and now a sentence like this!" As Rehse, his greying head raised high, tried to walk from the room, an elderly man slapped his face and cried: "Shame, you blood judge, for all the victims you have on your conscience!" Berlin Mayor Klaus Schütz called the decision "outrageous." Robert Kempner, a former U.S. deputy chief of counsel at the Nürnberg Trials, who now lives in Frankfurt, described the ruling as "the greatest setback of German justice since 1945." For once, the New Left and the right-wing press of Axel Springer found themselves in agreement. Both condemned the judgment as outrageously lenient.

Death to All. Under Rehse's cold eye, leniency was rarely a problem. He sat in judgment of a schizophrenic boy who wrote from a juvenile asylum requesting "weapons, munitions, cameras, explosives and a diamond ring" to overthrow the Nazi regime; of a Catholic priest who dispatched an appeal for a "humane peace" to a Swedish bishop; of an internationally famous biologist who told a friend that he expected the Third Reich to crumble. All were condemned to death. To be sure, Rehse served only as a member on the bench of one of Hitler's most notorious political judges, "Raving Roland" Freisler, who escaped the Allies' justice by dying in an air raid at the war's end. But the Federal Court noted last year that German judges always act collectively.

Judge Oske's reasoning took another tack. It is one that could, if it is accepted as a precedent, free 45 remaining former Nazi judges and prosecutors from prosecution. Oske insisted that Rehse and his seven fellow judges on Freisler's dreaded Volksgerichtshof did not deliberately subvert the law as then applicable. Thus, while the sentences in which Rehse participated were "inhuman as seen today, in times of war no nation and no state can get along with normal means of defense. Germany was in a life-and-death struggle."

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,844696,00.html


"Germany was in a life-and-death struggle." Sounds like Mr Addington or Gonzo or Yoo, going to bat for King Georgie...

[deutsey]

4. This is one of the reasons I believe Libby's "commutation" will be forgotten

in six months.

[Lasher]

6. It won't be forgotten by me.

Even if Democrats aren't smart enough to bring this up during Campagn '08, public awareness will again be kindled when Junior gives Scooter a full pardon just before leaving office.

[stevedeshazer]

7. I haven't forgotten, nor forgiven

[Lasher]

9. I feel the same way about Gerald Ford's preemptive pardon of Nixon

We need to take this power away from presidents.

[annabanana]

8. Cancer is never "cured".. It is only "in remission".

The chances of recurrence are greater if there are any cells that aren't "caught and removed". Vigorous oversight is ALWAYS necessary.

[Lasher]

10. And for six long years we never even got a checkup.

We have yet to determine how far this cancer has spread.

[L. Coyote]

11. Are the Sandinista terrorists on the Texas border yet? Rhetoric to haunt Freeepers.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x503712

There is no statute of limitations for murder. There was no pardon for murder.

Who killed Ben Linder? Who killed Linda Frasier?