Washington — Troubled by former President Clinton's last-minute pardons, Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft said Sunday that the Justice Department is reviewing its procedures to ensure that federal prosecutors and crime victims are made aware of clemency applications.
On Capitol Hill, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott said Congress, whose enthusiasm for continued investigations seems to have waned after four hearings on the pardons, still has a role to play.
"I think we should look at some remedial action or some sort of advice to future presidents. Presidents of either party, you need to go through a process here," Lott, R-Miss., said on "Fox News Sunday."
President Bush has said he thinks it is time for Congress to move on, and Lott said last week, "I'd be inclined to move on."
Ashcroft declined to discuss specific pardons granted by Clinton hours before he left office on Jan. 20. He did say he was "troubled about a variety of things in relation to the pardons. I think pardons ought to be used to correct problems in the justice system, not to reward friends or otherwise."
The attorney general said on Fox he has decided to review procedures so prosecutors and victims "are adequately heard" when the department is considering a pardon.
At a House committee hearing last month, the official who served as pardon attorney at the Justice Department from 1990 to 1997 said that from the beginning of his presidency, Clinton moved to take away the agency's traditional role of being the first to review pardon requests.
Clinton granted more than 170 pardons and commutations on Jan. 20, including one to fugitive financier Marc Rich. Republicans want to know whether there was a money-for-pardons deal in that case. Rich's ex-wife, songwriter Denise Rich, contributed $450,000 to Clinton's presidential library foundation.
U.S. Atty. Mary Jo White in New York has said that her office was unaware that a pardon for Rich was being considered. She is conducting a criminal investigation into the pardon.
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