Perino to press: ‘Talk to the hand when it comes to pardons.’

In her second-to-last press briefing today, White House Press Secretary Dana Perino refused to answer questions about possible last-minute pardons from President Bush. A reporter asked whether to expect any more pardons from Bush before he leaves office, and Perino replied by telling the press to “talk to the hand”:

PERINO: I just have you talk to the hand when it comes to pardons. But I don’t — we have never talked about them from here, in terms of what may or may not be coming, and I’m not going to start on — five days to go. … I don’t anticipate that you’ll have any, necessarily, on the 20th. But I — I can’t say that for sure because a president always holds that power and that right, up until the time that they’re no longer president.

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Last month, Perino insisted that the White House would follow the Department of Justice guidelines for issuing pardons. However, the administration broke with protocol in pardoning predatory mortgage lender Issac Toussie — forcing Bush to revoke the pardon the next day.

– Emily Aden