Pardongate

name, slang

name, slang ·Uncommon ·College level

Definitions

Proper Noun
  1. 1
    The 2001 controversy around Bill Clinton's pardons of 140 people, including Patty Hearst, on his last day in office as President of the United States. informal

    "Newly elected Senator Hillary Clinton suddenly found herself caught up in Pardongate's swirl, as prosecutors began reviewing her husband's grant of clemency for four upstate New York rabbis whose village voted for her […]"

Example

More examples

"Newly elected Senator Hillary Clinton suddenly found herself caught up in Pardongate's swirl, as prosecutors began reviewing her husband's grant of clemency for four upstate New York rabbis whose village voted for her […]"

Etymology

From pardon + -gate.

Related phrases

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.