As Bush's Term Ends, Some Big Names Seek Pardons

To be considered, felons using the normal process submit applications to the department's Office of the Pardon Attorney, led by former Marine Corps lawyer Ronald L. Rogers. The FBI provides information about the crime and the person's background, and prosecutors weigh in with their concerns. The cases flow through to the Justice Department's second in command, then to the White House, where associate counsel Kenneth Lee processes them. Final authority rests with the president.

Justice Department regulations say that people are eligible for pardons if they have been convicted, served their sentence and waited five years since their prison release.

Many steps in the cumbersome process can be averted in special cases, since the Constitution gives the president nearly absolute power to grant clemency. The office does not have a formal "first in, first out" policy for when claims should be processed, and at times late applications from high-profile officials with government ties have jumped ahead in the line.

President George H.W. Bush, for example, granted pardons to officials involved in the Iran-contra scandal. Only a week before former defense secretary Caspar W. Weinberger was scheduled to face trial, in a document dated Christmas Eve, the president pardoned Weinberger and several associates, including Robert C. McFarlane and Clair E. George.

Lawyer Robert S. Bennett, who defended Weinberger, said in an interview that he laid the groundwork for a pardon nearly a year in advance. He identified intermediaries to gauge the reaction of then-House Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.), consulted with other lawmakers and arranged newspaper opinion pieces. Only weeks before the award, White House officials asked Bennett to complete the pardon paperwork even though Weinberger had not been tried.

"I was the orchestra leader," Bennett said. "Then you've got to get important players to play the instruments."

In the cases now pending, criminals have turned to politically connected lawyers to work the system. Former White House lawyer H. Christopher Bartolomucci is advocating on behalf of clemency clients. Olson is trying to help Milken, who tried unsuccessfully to win clemency from Clinton. Milken was released from prison in 1993.

In the background of the debate is how, if at all, Bush will respond to pressure from left-leaning interest groups and congressional Democrats, who are calling for criminal investigations of former administration lawyers and members of the intelligence community who eavesdropped on Americans without warrants and used harsh interrogation tactics against terrorism suspects.

President Abraham Lincoln bestowed such blanket amnesty on soldiers who took part in the Civil War, and President Jimmy Carter took similar action for people who resisted fighting in the Vietnam War between 1964 and 1973. But scholars disagree about whether the current president could preemptively pardon members of the intelligence community without naming them and specifying the conduct for which they would receive amnesty.

One House Democrat, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (N.Y.), is sufficiently concerned that he introduced a resolution Friday demanding that the president refrain from pardoning "cronies who may well be guilty of serious criminal offenses."

John M. Deutch, the former CIA director criticized by the agency's inspector general for accessing and storing classified memos on an unprotected home computer, arranged to plead guilty to a misdemeanor offense in the waning days of Clinton's term. The president then pardoned Deutch in a last-minute arrangement that some Washington lawyers say could be repeated this time around.

Career prosecutor John Durham has been investigating the destruction of CIA videotapes depicting alleged torture of suspects with ties to al-Qaeda for nearly a year, but no charges have been filed. Meanwhile, the attorney general recently appointed another prosecutor, Nora R. Dannehy, to determine whether crimes were committed by former Justice Department officials in the firings of nine U.S. attorneys in 2006.

Officials involved in those cases, including former attorney general Alberto R. Gonzales and former CIA operations director Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., have not submitted clemency applications, a department spokesman said.