Whether President-elect George W. Bush actually pardons citizen Bill Clinton may be far less relevant, in the course of history, than the immediate signals Bush sends to independent counsel Robert Ray with respect to whether Clinton should be indicted when he vacates the White House.
If the experience of President Gerald R. Ford in 1974 is any guidepost, Bush's best hope for getting his own presidency on a strong footing may depend on reaching some quiet understanding with the special prosecutor, heading off the pardon issue before it crashes out of the gate.
From the moment of his first press conference Aug. 28, 1974, President Ford was plagued by a single question: Would he pardon his predecessor, Richard M. Nixon? The drumbeat continued daily. Ford's close advisor, Robert T. Hartmann, would later say that the decision to pardon Nixon was purely a "selfish" act. Without some end to the Watergate misery, Ford believed that he would never get his own presidency launched.
Twenty-five years later, at a Duquesne University forum, Nixon's criminal attorney, Herbert J. Miller, revealed that a key ingredient in the ultimate resolution was Watergate Special Prosecutor Leon Jaworski. Miller disclosed that he met privately with Jaworski at the Jefferson Hotel in Washington to gain the prosecutor's tacit agreement not to undercut the pardon. Both Miller and Ford's advisors understood that, although they could not control Jaworski, they needed to be tuned to the same frequency. Otherwise, a pardon would hurl the nation into a new phase of political chaos. Jaworski signaled his agreement to the pardon for two reasons, according to Miller. First, he felt that the public spectacle of a criminal trial of a former president would damage the United States. Second, he believed that there would be serious questions whether a fair trial could ever be assured, given the massive publicity surrounding the Watergate case.
In the case of Clinton, President-elect Bush has good reason to emit careful radio signals to independent counsel Ray. After the bruising and rancorous presidential election, bringing closure to the Clinton debacle might go a long way toward averting another national sideshow and allow Bush's unfurling agenda to stay at the forefront of the news.
