Yo, pardon me?

So Bush just rescinded a pardon:

President Bush on Wednesday retracted one of the 19 presidential pardons he granted just before the Christmas holiday. 

The White House announced that Isaac Toussie, a Brooklyn developer convicted of fraud and making false statements to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, should not be granted clemency. 

White House press secretary Dana Perino said the new decision was "based on information that has subsequently come to light," including on the extent and nature of Toussie’s prior criminal offenses. She also said that neither the White House counsel’s office nor the president had been aware of a political contribution by Toussie’s father that "might create an appearance of impropriety."…

The White House decision on Toussie had come without a recommendation from the pardon attorney, Ronald L. Rodgers, as Toussie’s request for a pardon came less than five years after completion of his sentence, so that eliminated another step in the review process…

A story in the New York Daily News said Toussie’s father, Robert, donated $28,500 to the national Republican Party in April. It was his first political donation and came just months before Toussie’s pardon petition, the newspaper said.

I can see that. It would be wildly inappropriate to check if the person you were giving a pardon to was someone who wasn’t cleared for a pardon who’d given you a wad of money when they asked for a pardon. So what was Toussie pardoned for?

Mr. Toussie, now 37, pleaded guilty in May 2001 to using false documents to get mortgages insured by the Department of Housing and Urban Development…

Mr. Toussie admitted that he agreed to help home buyers qualify for HUD loans by lying about their income. But in a civil rights class-action lawsuit brought in United States District Court in Central Islip, home buyers, most of them black and Hispanic, accused a long list of builders, bankers, appraisers and mortgage brokers — including Mr. Toussie and his father, Robert I. Toussie — of selling poorly constructed new homes at inflated prices and deceiving buyers into believing that property taxes would be deferred or reduced.

And why, if you have a sick sense of humor, is that funny? Because Toussie didn’t go, like Dana Perino said he had to, through the Pardon Attorney?

Nah. Because of who Toussie’s lawyer is.

Mr. Berenson served as a consultant to Independent Counsel David M. Barrett in the prosecution of former HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros.

Do what now?

Nearly a decade after he was appointed to investigate then-Housing Secretary Henry G. Cisneros, independent counsel David M. Barrett spent more than $1.26 million of federal money in the last six months of fiscal 2004, the Government Accountability Office reported yesterday.

Since its inception, the Cisneros investigation has cost nearly $21 million, a total rivaling some of the largest independent counsel investigations in history. Much of the money has gone for pay and benefits, travel, rent and contractors.

So Mr. Toussie, who has confessed to defrauding HUD, hired a lawyer who’s pretty much spent his career investigating a Democrat for allegedly defrauding HUD to get him a pardon for admittedly defrauding HUD.

And until the backlash became awkward for Our Fearless Leader, that and a sad little five-figure sum got Mr. Toussie a pardon, and presumably Mr. Berenson a nice retainer.

Which is damn trusting from a man who not only covered for a number of Abramoff associates, but helped to write the Patriot Act.

Are you shocked?

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