Bush revokes pardon issued Tuesday for N.Y. developer

President says he did not know extent of crimes

WASHINGTON - President Bush yesterday revoked a pardon he had issued just 24 hours earlier for a politically connected real estate developer who defrauded hundreds of low-income home buyers - acknowledging that White House aides had not fully described the scope of the crimes that had been committed and the context of the clemency application.

The Christmas Eve reversal came after it was discovered that the pardon of Isaac Toussie had not met Justice Department guidelines, and that Toussie's father had donated $28,500 to the Republican National Committee, prompting some of Toussie's victims to charge that he got his record cleared thanks to his White House ties.

The pardon also threatened to embarrass Bush because Toussie, in bypassing normal procedures and taking his case directly to the West Wing, had hired a former top lawyer in the White House counsel's office, Bradford Berenson, who had access to the president's most senior advisers.

The issue of presidential pardons has been especially sensitive since Bill Clinton granted a series of last-minute pardons for well-connected criminals - most notably fugitive financier Marc Rich, who had been indicted for tax evasion and other charges. The pardon, granted during Clinton's final hours in the White House on Inauguration Day 2001, sparked a furor when it became known that Rich's family had made large campaign contributions and was a major donor to the Clinton library.

Bush has used his pardoning power sparingly during his eight years in the White House. Until now, his most controversial clemency decision was commuting the sentence of former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who had been convicted of lying to prosecutors in the Valerie Plame leak case. But even Libby has not received a full pardon.

White House officials said that when Bush learned details of the Toussie case, he was concerned especially about the fact that campaign contributions could been seen as having factored into the pardon.

"Everyone here was surprised by it," White House spokesman Tony Fratto said.

A written statement from the White House pinned the blame on Bush's staff, saying that White House counsel Fred Fielding had "reviewed the application and believed, based on the information known to him at the time, that it was a meritorious application. He so advised the president, who accepted the recommendation."

The White House statement referred obliquely to "information that has subsequently come to light," although aides declined to provide specifics beyond the fact that the president had not known about the RNC contribution and that he has limited time to consider the details of each pardon case.

Experts said yesterday they knew of no other instance in which a presidential pardon had been revoked. They said it was not clear whether Bush legally was able to do so.

"I can't think of another time that it’s happened for a presidential pardon," said Margaret Love, who was the lead pardon attorney under the first President Bush and for part of the Clinton administration. "It's not clear to me that it’s as easy to do as all that."

Some analysts suggested Toussie might be able to challenge the reversal in court. White House aides said that the pardon does not take effect until it is physically delivered to Toussie, and that he had not received it when Bush changed course yesterday.

More troubling, some said, was the fact that the pardon had been approved in the first place.

Toussie, a Brooklyn home builder, had been convicted after admitting that he falsified financial information of potential home buyers seeking mortgages backed by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. He was sentenced in September 2003 to five months in prison, five months house detention and a $10,000 fine.

Justice Department officials had declined to consider Toussie's application because department guidelines require that pardon applicants wait five years after the conclusion of their sentences. Typically, the agency interviews prosecutors and the trial judge involved in a case before deciding whether to recommend a pardon. But this process did not occur in Toussie's case.

Toussie's father, Robert, made his donation to the RNC in April - in addition to more than $11,000 in contributions to other GOP candidates over the course of the year. The pardon application was filed in August. White House officials confirmed that Berenson, a former associate White House counsel, had brought the case to Fielding's office but declined to comment further on internal proceedings.