ASHCROFT ON CLINTON

John Ashcroft used his first interview as attorney general to criticize
Bill Clinton's role in the war on drugs and his pardon of fugitive
financier Marc Rich.

In a television interview Wednesday night, the new attorney general said
his top three goals were to increase gun prosecutions, reinvigorate the war
on drugs and to stamp out racial discrimination.

But he also looked back at some of President Clinton's most controversial
moves, including his pardon of Mr. Rich on his last day in office, the
Associated Press reports.

"A pardon should be reserved for a situation where there is a manifest
sense of injustice," Mr. Ashcroft said Wednesday night on CNN's "Larry King
Live" program. "The American people are troubled whenever they think a
pardon would be associated with political support or financial support."

Although expressing "surprise" over the pardon, Mr. Ashcroft nevertheless
said the Constitution gives a president a "pretty unfettered right" to
pardon anyone.

The new attorney general also blamed Mr. Clinton in part for a rise in
marijuana use during the 1990s. In the 1992 campaign, Mr. Clinton said he
once had smoked marijuana, but didn't inhale. He later told an MTV town
forum that if he had to do it again, he would inhale "if I could; I tried
before."

"I think that sends the wrong signal," Mr. Ashcroft said.