With only hours left in his presidency, Bill Clinton issued 140 presidential pardons. Who was pardoned, and especially who was not, offered a fascinating insight into the thinking of the former president.
A presidential pardon essentially expunges someone's criminal record. Many people convicted of felonies in the US are prohibited from voting, holding elected office, signing certain legal documents or holding many professional licences, even after they have served their time in prison. A pardon can restore their pre-conviction status.
Among those pardoned was Susan McDougal, a one-time business partner of Mr Clinton in the Arkansas Whitewater real-estate deal.
Ms McDougal became a national symbol of opposition to independent counsel Kenneth Starr's wide-reaching investigation into Mr Clinton's personal and professional life. Nothing ever came of the Whitewater investigation, but Mr Starr did succeed in uncovering Mr Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky.
Mr Starr was determined to force Mrs McDougal to testify before a secret grand jury. She refused and claimed Mr Starr was abusing his prosecutorial powers.
It was an extraordinary standoff. Ms McDougal and her then husband, Jim, had not seen or spoken to the president for years. She was neither rich nor powerful. Mr Starr wielded a fully-fledged Washington-based, government-sanctioned legal apparatus. But Susan McDougal was a strong-minded country woman from Arkansas.
Mr Starr succeeded in getting a judge to charge her with contempt of court for refusing to testify.
She was also convicted for a minor crime in connection with Whitewater. She was jailed for 21 months. Moreover, she was moved around to various prisons, making it difficult for her family to visit her. All together, she served time in seven jails in five states.
I spent several hours with Ms McDougal at the women's prison in Los Angeles about two years ago. Dressed in a bright orange jumpsuit, she was pale and thin. By the time we spoke she had been in jail for several months. She had endured fights, sleepless nights and cells ridden with cockroaches and rats. They were unimaginable circumstances for an ordinary, middle-class woman.
"But you know what? I can stay here for ever. I will never testify, no matter what they do to me," she said.
"People think I am protecting Bill Clinton, that I am being loyal to him. That's not it. Bill Clinton didn't do anything wrong that I ever saw. I have nothing to testify about.
"But Kenneth Starr is determined to break anybody he needs to try and destroy Clinton. And that's wrong. I will not be a part of it. That is not how I was raised."
I asked Ms McDougal whether she thought about getting a pardon. "I don't even think about it and I don't expect it. The President of the United States has got bigger political things to deal with than me."
Mrs McDougal was eventually released from prison when the law that covers contempt of court convictions mandated her release. Yesterday she was elated.
"I kept telling myself it didn't matter," she said, speaking from her Arkansas home. "I didn't request a pardon. But when the moment came I realised it did matter. If there is one person in the world who knew I was innocent it was Bill Clinton. But he didn't have to do this. All I can say to him is `Thank you'."
She added that her work these days is largely about dire prison conditions in the US, and that she will continue to try and bring attention to the issue.
Among those also receiving pardons were John Deutch, former head of the CIA, who was convicted of storing government secrets on his home computer; former cabinet secretary Henry Cisneros, who lied to the FBI and made illegal payments to cover up an extra-marital affair; and several officials connected to a financial scandal in the Agriculture Department.
Mr Clinton also pardoned Patricia Hearst Shaw, an heiress to the Hearst fortune who was kidnapped in 1974 by terrorists, the Symbionese Liberation Army, and forced to rob a bank. When captured, she was convicted of grand theft and served nearly two years of a seven-year prison term.
She was released with help from President Jimmy Carter, who supported Mr Clinton's decision. Ms Hearst later married her bodyguard.
Mr Clinton also pardoned his brother, Roger, for a drug conviction he received many years ago. But perhaps most notable were four men Mr Clinton did not pardon.
They were the four considered most likely to receive presidential attention, four powerful figures with influential constituencies who lobbied hard on their behalfs: Michael Milken, a Wall street trader who made billions in the 1980s and pleaded guilty to securities fraud; Jonathan Pollard, a former Navy officer who sold US military secrets to Israel; Leonard Peltier, an American Indian activist who killed two federal agents in 1975; and Webster Hubbell, a former top Justice Department official and lawfirm partner of Hillary Clinton, who was convicted of financial violations involving his former clients.
Mr Milken had wealthy friends in the Democratic Party, such as the California supermarket magnate, Ron Burkle, press hard for his pardon, which might have allowed him to reenter the securities business.