How Big is That Hand?

On February 14, 2001, Margaret Colgate Love, a former U.S. Pardon Attorney, testified at a Hearing on Presidential Pardons conducted by the Senate Judiciary Committee, February 14, 2001. Love told the Committee:

In 1898 the first clemency rules promulgated by President McKinley directed all applicants for executive clemency to submit their petitions to the Attorney General, and specified how such applications would be processed within the Justice Department. Over the next hundred years these clemency regulations would be reissued on several occasions, but they remained remarkably similar in each new iteration, providing perhaps our most venerable and consistent framework for governmental decision-making. Prior to President Clinton's final grants, the number of situations in which pardon was granted without a prior Attorney General investigation and recommendation pursuant to these regulations could be counted on the fingers of one hand. (Notable exceptions are President Ford's 1975 pardon of Richard Nixon, President Reagan's 1981 pardon of two FBI
officials being prosecuted for authorized illegal searches, and President Bush's 1992 pardon of six Iran-Contra defendants.)

This portion of her testimony, especially the second half, generated a great deal of media discussion. Most often, Clinton was accused of bypassing the "normal channels" by granting pardons not "vetted" by the Justice Department. The unfortunate thing, of course, is that - other than Ms. Love's anecdotal aside - no one produced data with respect to the number of pardons granted in previous administrations that "bypassed" the "normal channels." No serious assessment could be made as to whether Clinton's behavior was about average, unprecedented, below average, etc.

Working with the language employed by Ms. Love (above), let's consider just a few examples of individuals who we know received presidential pardons before Clinton's controversial exit, but did not "submit their petitions" to the Attorney General "pursuant" to anyone's "regulations":

- J. Alva Church (McKinley)
- Dave Milsops (McKinley)
- Harve Bruce (McKinley)
- Vuco Perovich (Taft)
- Fred D. Warren (Taft)
- George Burdick (Wilson)
- Mary Hall Ingham (Wilson)
- Bettie Regneau (Wilson)
- Julia Hurlbut (Wilson)
- Mrs. John Rogers (Wilson)
- Mrs. John Winters Brannan (Wilson)
- Florence Bayard Hilles (Wilson)
- Allison Hopkins (Wilson)
- Minnie Abbott (Wilson)
- Beatrice Kinkead (Wilson)
- Anne Martin (Wilson)
- Mrs. Robert Walker (Wilson)
- Jeanet Frothingham (Wilson)
- Mrs. Gilson Gardner (Wilson)
- Louise C. Mayo (Wilson)
- Eleanor Calnan (Wilson)
- Dorris Stevens (Wilson)
- Charles Craig (Coolidge)
- Gerald Chapman (Coolidge)
- Reginald P. Ray (Franklin Roosevelt)
- Francis E. Townsend (Franklin Roosevelt)
- Oscar Collazo (Truman)
- Rudolph Abel (Kennedy)
- Irving Flores Rodriguez (Carter
- Rafael Cancel-Miranda (Carter)
- Andres Cordero (Carter)
- Lolita Lebron (Carter)
- Oscar Collazo (Carter)
- Richard Nixon (Ford)
- Mark Felt (Reagan)
- Edward S. Miller (Reagan)
- Marion Zacharski (Reagan)
- Joseph Occhipinti (Reagan)
- Casper Weinberger (Bush)
- Robert C. MacFarlane (Bush)
- Elliott Abrams (Bush)
- Clair E. George (Bush)
- Duane R. Clarridge (Bush)
- Alan D. Fiers (Bush
- Henry O. Flipper (Clinton)
- Dan Rostenkowski (Clinton)
- Edwin Cortes (Clinton)
- Elizam Escobar (Clinton)
- Alberto Rodriguez (Clinton)
- Alejandrina Torres Clinton)
- Ricardo Jimenez (Clinton)
- Carmen Valentin (Clinton)
- Carlos Alberto Torres (Clinton)
- Juan Segarra Palmer (Clinton)
- Antonio Camacho Negron (Clinton)
- Luis Rosa (Clinton)
- Oscar Lopez Rivera (Clinton)
- Dylcia Pagan (Clinton)
- Adolfo Matos (Clinton)
- Alicia Rodriguez (Clinton)
- Ida Luz Rodriguez (Clinton)
- Oscar López Rivera (Clinton)
- Antonio Camacho Negrón (Clinton)

These, again, are just some of the known (publicized) cases where clemency was exercised without anyone applying for it, much less applying for it in accordance to the rules and regulations of the Department of Justice. In sum, that must be some hand Ms. Love was counting on!