Marc Rich pardon controversy just won't die
By PETE YOST
Associated Press
November 20, 2008
WASHINGTON (AP) -- It's a controversy that Republicans refuse to forget: Bill Clinton's pardon eight years ago of fugitive financier Marc Rich. Just ask Eric Holder, President-elect Barack Obama's top choice for attorney general.
Holder, who was deputy attorney general during the Clinton administration, is in line for the attorney general job he long has wanted, but the 2001 episode with Rich still echoes. The Republican National Committee is resurrecting the incident, circulating an e-mail Wednesday that asks: "Why does Obama want to appoint an attorney general with a long history of controversial pardons?"
The Rich pardon that Clinton granted on his last day in office became the final controversy in a presidency filled with them.
Ordinarily, pardon applications go through a formal review at the Justice Department that take many months to complete.
But nothing was ordinary about the Rich case, nor the flurry of nearly--0 other final-day pardons by Clinton that accompanied it.
Rich fled to Switzerland just before he was indicted in New York in 1983 on charges of tax evasion, fraud and participation in illegal oil deals with Iran.
His ex-wife, Denise Rich, visited the White House more than a dozen times during Clinton's presidency and contributed an estimated $450,000 to his library foundation, $1.1 million to the Democratic Party and at least $109,000 to Hillary Rodham Clinton's first bid for the Senate.
Over the years, Rich ran through a string of prominent Washington lawyers tasked with trying to get him a presidential pardon.
Former White House counsel Jack Quinn succeeded where others failed, and the public reaction was immediate and bordered on outrage. Holder was summoned to Capitol Hill to explain.
According to testimony before the Republican-controlled House Government Reform Committee, Quinn's role resulted from action by Holder, who recommended Quinn as the best attorney to represent an unidentified defendant who wanted to settle a criminal matter with the Justice Department. It turned out that the man who asked for the recommendation was representing Rich.
Holder said that in the fall of 2000, he expressed to Quinn his desire to become attorney general in a potential Al Gore administration. Quinn had been Gore's counsel and chief of staff when Gore was Clinton's vice president.
The conversation took place weeks before Quinn informed Holder he was seeking a pardon for Rich, Holder testified. Republican lawmakers were unimpressed.
"You wanted something from Mr. Quinn. You wanted his support for attorney general of the United States, and he wanted a pardon for Mr. Rich and his partner," Rep. Dan Burton, the Republican chairman of the House panel, told Holder.
Holder insisted that he didn't know about Quinn's pardon plans at the time they discussed the attorney general's job.
And as Holder began dealing with Quinn's quest for a pardon, "my actions in this matter were in no way affected by my desire to become attorney general of the United States," Holder testified.
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