On July 10, President Trump commuted the 40-month prison sentence of his long-time associate Roger Stone. Stone had been convicted by a jury of felony crimes involving lying to Congress and witness tampering relating to the investigation of Russian ties to President Trump’s 2016 campaign. This action generated strong congressional condemnation from members of both parties, including Senator Mitt Romney, who called it “unprecedented, historic corruption,” and Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who issued a rare public statement rebutting claims that Stone had been treated unfairly by his investigative team.
On the heels of the Stone clemency decision, the chairs of the House Judiciary Committee and House Oversight Committee demanded a briefing on the pardon by White House Counsel and the release of grand jury materials relating to Roger Stone and his communications with the President. Further, while Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham has said a pardon of Stone was “justified,” he reacted to Special Counsel Mueller’s public statement by announcing the Senate Judiciary Committee would hold a hearing with Mueller on the matter.
Congressional scrutiny of controversial presidential clemency decisions is well-grounded in practice and precedent. Republican-led committees in the House and Senate took testimony from over 40 witnesses and held over 30 hours of public hearings to review various pardons by President Clinton. In its investigation of President Clinton’s pardon of financier Marc Rich, the House Government Reform Committee issued 70 subpoenas. In conducting such oversight, congressional committees have taken testimony from top Department of Justice and White House aides including the Deputy Attorney General, White House Counsel, White House Chief of Staff -- and from the President himself in the case of President Gerald Ford’s pardon of former President Richard Nixon. Further, committees have reviewed sensitive information including communications between the President and top aides regarding pardon deliberations, presidential notes to the National Security Advisor, and verbatim notes of President Clinton’s conversation with the Israeli head of state.
Below is additional detail on specific pardon examples.
On his last day in office, President Clinton issued 140 pardons, including one to businessman Marc Rich, who had fled the United States during an investigation that led to indictment for tax evasion, racketeering, and other charges. Two congressional committees, the House Government Reform Committee and the Senate Judiciary Committee, followed up with investigations of the pardon of Rich and several other individuals, hearing from 23 witnesses in over 18 hours [p. 5 of pdf “Controversial Pardon . . .”] of House hearings [p. 283 of pdf “Controversial Pardon . . .”] and a 3.5 hour hearing [p.4 of pdf “President Clinton’s Eleventh . . .”] in the Senate Judiciary Committee. A third committee, the House Judiciary Committee, also held a hearing [pdf “Presidential Pardon Power”] on the pardon power generally.
The House Government Reform Committee issued 70 subpoenas to investigate President Clinton’s last round of pardons. Witnesses who testified in the Committee’s inquiry included the Acting Attorney General Eric H. Holder, Jr. [p. 196 of pdf “Controversial Pardon . . .”], former Counsel to the President Beth Nolan [p. 320 of pdf “Controversial Pardon . . .”], former Assistant to the President Bruce Lindsey[p. 320 of pdf “Controversial Pardon . . .”], and former White House Chief of Staff John Podesta [p. 320 of pdf “Controversial Pardon . . .”].
The Senate Judiciary Committee witnesses included both Acting Attorney General Holder[p.32 of pdf “President Clinton’s Eleventh . . .”] and Department of Justice Pardon Attorney Roger Adams [p.23 of pdf “President Clinton’s Eleventh . . .”] Pardon Attorney.
Information reviewed and received by the Committees in these inquiries included verbatim notes of conversations between President Clinton and the Israeli Prime Minister, and testimony by former White House Counsel, former Deputy White House Counsel, and former White House Chief of Staff on their conversations with the President, their deliberative process, their recommendations to the President, and their confidential internal communications on the President’s pardon decision.
In 1999, President Clinton offered clemency to 16 members of the Puerto Rican paramilitary organization Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional (FALN). This action drew oversight scrutiny from four congressional committees -- the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, Senate Judiciary Committee, Senate Appropriations Committee, and Senate Foreign Relations Committee -- which together received over 12 hours of testimony with 24 witnesses over five days of hearings on the matter.
In the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee’s investigation, the Clinton Administration produced approximately 10,000 pages of documents. This included:
Witnesses who appeared at the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee’s hearing included three high ranking DOJ officials: Jon Jennings, Acting Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs, Department of Justice; Neil Gallagher, Assistant Director, National Security Division, Federal Bureau of Investigation; and Michael Cooksey, Assistant Director, Correctional Programs, Bureau of Prisons. Witnesses at the two Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on the FALN clemency decision included Deputy Attorney General Eric H. Holder, Jr., and Roger Adams, Pardon Attorney, Department of Justice.
