Unprecedented!

What we have here — and I think we should put it on the table right at the beginning — is that the suspicion was that if Mr. Libby went to prison, he might further implicate other people in the White House, and that there was some kind of relationship here that does not exist in any of President Clinton's pardons, nor, according to those that we've talked to...is that it's never existed before, ever" ... Representative John Conyers, Jr.

In one of the many, many classic, unforgettable pardon controversies that has long since been forgotten, Ulysses S. Grant was looking at the prospect of a dear friend about to enter federal prison following what newspapers of the day tagged the most "important" trial in U.S. history.

Grant's presidency began, like Bush's, with requests that he void pardons granted by the previous president (Andrew Johnson) - the big difference being that Grant did just that. On February 14, 1870, he asked John McDonald to serve as Supervisor of Internal Revenue in a district which included seven states and had its center in the St. Louis area. McDonald had worked with the President during the War and some historians suggest Grant may have been rescued from several uncomfortable situations as a result of McDonald’s personal acquaintance with Abraham Lincoln. Whatever the past benefits, McDonald turned out to be a key figure in the development of what became known as the Whiskey Ring.

When evidence of illegality began to creep toward the highest places in the administration, Presdient Grant was reported to have said, "Let no guilty man escape if it can be avoided" (Why, that almost sounds familiar in a way!) But, by August of 1875, investigations were creeping toward the President's personal secretary, Orville E. Babcock. There were also rumors that the president’s brother, Orvil, and brother-in-law, Fred Dent, would be indicted. Of course, by that point, Grant himself was in the line of fire. Supporters of the administrations complained of “rebel” grand juries that were “trying to indict the whole Administration.”(Or, if you will, the prosecutions were purely "political")

In the closing arguments of a Whiskey Ring trial, prosecutor John B. Henderson (a former Senator from Missouri who had voted for the acquittal of Andrew Johnson) accused the President's secretary of obstructing justice and attacked President Grant personally. More specifically, Henderson spoke to the jury of “interference by the President” with investigations of the Treasury Department. (Creepy, isn't is? The old "cloud of suspicion" routine). Grant saw to it that Henderson was fired (Yep). But, McDonald was found guilty on November 23 and sentenced to three years in jail. He was also fined five thousand dollars.

A House Committee “investigated” the Whiskey Frauds and produced a voluminous “report” just in time for the presidential campaign. (Questions? Contact Rep. John Conyers, Jr.) So, Grant prudently waited until after the election, in the last year of his second term to pardon McDonald. As a result, his sentence was commuted and the fine was remitted. The application was supported by “respectable citizens” of Missouri (Perhaps not as many as are on Libby's list), but physicians who were “men of integrity and eminent in their profession” also certified McDonald was quite ill. The three-year term had ended after only a year and two months.

Unfortunately for Grant, John McDonald enjoyed a miraculous recovery from his “complication of painful and dangerous maladies” and lived on to produce an account of the Whiskey Ring that was serialized in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The sensational account (published in 1880 as Secrets of the Great Whiskey Ring) described President Grant as a knowing participant and established Joseph Pulitzer as a national force in journalism.

On the other hand, most observers today agree that McDonald's "tell all" was unreliable ... perhaps because it was written by an easily-condemned federal convict, a jail-bird, etc.