[click here] for my thoughts on George W. Bush and former Connecticut Governor John G. Rowland, known as "Johnny" to both Presidents Bush.
[click here] for the text of the letter meant to arrive for Johnny's first day of Federal Prison. Warning: I'm not nice and use foul language.
Contacting Former Connecticut Governor John G. Rowland
contact former Governor John G. Rowland at 203-758-1117 or e-mail his office jgr@jgrowland.com. John G.'s [website]
The Get Justice Coalition post on the above [found here]
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Political intrigue
Former Governor Says He Is Not Seeking A Presidential Pardon
By JON LENDER, DAVE ALTIMARI and EDMUND H. MAHONY | The Hartford Courant
January 10, 2009
Former Gov. John G. Rowland said Friday that he won't seek a last-minute pardon from President George W. Bush for the December 2004 corruption conviction that landed him in federal prison.
"I am not seeking a pardon nor have plans to," Rowland said in an e-mail response to a question from The Courant.
Rowland did not respond by Friday evening to a follow-up e-mail asking if his response meant that he was ruling out any possibility of his receiving a Bush pardon.
Speculation has been rising among political insiders about a possible pardon for the former governor at a time when some prominent convicts from politics and business throughout the countryhave joined the traditional end-of-term rush for pardons from an outgoing president.
For example, in Massachusetts, former House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran submitted an application last month for a presidential pardon on his 2007 conviction for obstructing justice, the Boston Globe reported Friday.
Rowland, who served 9½ years as governor, once had a prominent profile in national Republican politics and enjoyed a good relationship with the Bush family. Before becoming governor, Rowland served in Washington as a congressman from the Waterbury area during the tenure of Bush's father, former President George H.W. Bush.
He resigned as governor in mid-2004, and pleaded guilty in December of that year to a felony count related to his receiving $107,000 in travel, gifts and improvements to his lakeside cottage from businessmen who got hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts and tax breaks from his administration. He later served 10 months in federal prison.
A presidential pardon restores various rights lost as a result of the conviction but does not erase or expunge the record of the conviction.
Rowland now works as a $95,000-a-year public pitchman for Waterbury's economic development efforts. He also gives speeches about the lessons that he learned in his downfall.
President Bush has granted more than 190 pardons during his eight years in office, not a large number compared with past presidents. End-of-term pardons are often controversial — as former President Bill Clinton's were — and Bush last month took the unusual action of rescinding a New York developer's pardon.
The developer — Isaac Robert Toussie, convicted of mail fraud and making false statements to federal housing officials — was among 19 people Bush pardoned on Dec. 23. Bush rescinded the pardon on Dec. 24, after newspapers revealed that Toussie's father had given a total of $40,000 over the course of a year to either the national Republican Party or GOP candidates.
Customarily, those seeking executive clemency apply to the White House but submit personal applications to the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of the Pardon Attorney. The pardon attorney initiates a review and, through the deputy attorney general, recommends to the president for or against clemency.
In the past, the pardon attorney has followed a fairly rigid review process in accordance with federal rules, Justice Department regulations and past practice and tradition. But because final decisions ultimately rest with the president, there have been deviations from the traditional review process.
Congressional analysis of the pardons process have found that local judges and law enforcement personnel are frequently notified when executive clemency applications are under review by the office of the pardon attorney. There are no indications that such notifications have been made recently in Connecticut.
Senior Republicans also said that they had no knowledge of pending clemency cases in Connecticut, and a spokeswoman for the pardon office said that as of Friday, no clemency petition had been received from Rowland.
Rowland's lawyer, R. Bartley Halloran, said Friday: "I don't know anything about it, and if that were happening, I think I'd definitely know about it."
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[click here] for my complaint with official Connecticut and allegations of Connecticut State Police misconduct
[my complaints], The Connecticut State Police Misconduct complaints,
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