Bush pardoned fraudster and then became first US president to revoke it

Washington, Nov.24 (ANI): Former US president George W. Bush's claim in his autobiography "Decision Points" that he resolved not to pardon anyone who went outside the formal channels, has been exposed as a lie.

According to Politico, he pardoned an unremorseful Brooklyn sub-prime portage scammer named Isaac Toussie, 36, along with a group of others who had asked for their names to be cleared by the outgoing president.

The memoir omits the fact that Bush was the first president in the history of the republic to revoke a pardon he had issued while in office, which happened after the Daily News disclosed Toussie's billionaire father donated nearly 30,000 dollars to the GOP.

Bush says he grew "frustrated" that people kept pulling him aside to ask for his mercy, such as Cheney's unsuccessful pleas on behalf of Lewis "Scooter" Libby, his close aide convicted of perjury in the probe into who leaked CIA operations officer Valerie Plame Wilson's classified identity.

Another who came calling was Toussie, who had been imprisoned for five months for mortgage fraud.

Four hundred and fifty victims of their scams were still suing the Toussies when Bush signed the pardon, even though they circumvented Attorney General Michael Mukasey and hired a former Bush White House associate counsel to successfully convince counsel Fred Fielding to approve it.

"At first I was frustrated. Then I was disgusted. I came to see massive injustice in the system. If you had connections to the President, you could insert your case into the last-minute frenzy," Bush explained in his book.

"Otherwise, you had to wait for the Justice Department to conduct a review and make a recommendation," he adds.

Toussie didn't qualify for consideration under the Justice Department's guidelines for the U.S. Pardon Attorney.

His developer dad, Robert Toussie, wrote the first national campaign donation of his life in 2008, giving the Republican National Committee and Senator John McCain's presidential campaigns 28,500 dollars just a few months before his son applied for a pardon.

Then-White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said Bush took back the Toussie pardon "based on information that has subsequently come to light," admitting it "might create an appearance of impropriety."

Other Bush aides said flatly that Bush read the Daily News and grew angry the campaign donation and victims' lawsuits had been overlooked. (ANI)