New revelations show Hillary Clinton ‘profited’ off ‘Pardongate’: Book

Bill Clinton was the tightest president since Thomas Jefferson when it came to granting convicts pardons and prison sentence commutations. But all that changed when his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, decided to run for the Senate in 2000 and needed all the help she could get.

According to new details about the Clinton-era “Pardongate,” the last of several scandals that plagued the administration and further sullied the former president’s reputation as he left office, the Democrat pushed for so many pardons to help his wife and cronies that lawyers running the eleventh-hour operation resorted to internet searches to determine the “fitness” of applicants.

“None profited more than Hillary Rodham Clinton,” said Sinclair Broadcast investigative reporter Mark Hyman in his upcoming book, Pardongate: How Bill & Hillary Clinton and Their Brothers Profited from Pardons.

He told Secrets that 50 of Clinton’s eventual 457 clemency approvals directly aided allies of Hillary Clinton, including many that helped in her 2000 New York Senate victory that paved the way for her two failed presidential campaigns.

“It was Hillary Rodham Clinton who was the key influence behind the worst of the worst pardons and commutations that disgraced the office of the president, undermined the legal system and demonstrated that justice could be sold,” Hyman wrote in his Post Hill Press book, out later this month.

“Imagine to what extent a ‘President’ Hillary Rodham Clinton would thoroughly abuse the legal system to turn loose unrepentant, hardened criminals; reward wealthy donors; enrich her family and friends; and turn the executive clemency process into a glorified eBay get-out-of-jail-free card,” he added.

At a time when the media is hyperfocused on the pardons President Trump might grant to friends and allies tied to the Russia probe, Hyman’s book provides new proof that Pardongate will be hard to top in the scandal category.

Uncovered in years of research were the ties between Clinton family members, including Bill Clinton’s brother and Hillary Clinton’s two brothers, allies such as former chief of staff John Podesta and Rep. Jerry Nadler, and big donors, to the pardons. Hyman told us that 73% of the pardons came in Clinton’s last year and as Hillary Clinton was running for the Senate.

Although there are five hurdles those seeking clemency must clear, Hyman found that Clinton’s team skipped several and, in many cases, gave pardons and commutations to people who didn’t even ask for one. Thirty never applied for clemency — and got it.

The most scandalous was for billionaire Marc Rich, the fugitive whose wife, Denise, “funneled” more than $3 million to Clinton causes. His pardon came as Clinton handed the keys to the White House to George W. Bush, a day in which the Democrat would pardon 176, including his brother Roger Clinton and key Whitewater scandal figure Susan McDougal.

Now, as reports persist that Trump is eager to pardon allies, Hyman told us that it would be hard to top the Clinton operation.

“There’s speculation President Donald Trump may pardon some of those swept up in the Mueller investigation. Yet, nothing approaches the sheer audacity of Bill Clinton who gave away pardons so Roger Clinton and the Rodham brothers could pocket hundreds of thousands of dollars, and Hillary could stockpile political and financial IOUs,” he said.