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HenchPAC NewsCHAPPAQUA, N.Y. (Reuters) - Former President Clinton, who pardoned 140 people in his last hours in office, said on Sunday that the pardon system needed improving and defended his pardon of fugitive commodities trader Marc Rich.
Clinton, speaking to reporters in suburban Chappaqua, New York, where he moved after leaving Washington on Saturday, said he tried to use pardons to restore rights to those who had paid for their misdeeds.
``You're not saying these people didn't commit the offense. You're saying they paid, they paid in full, and they've been out long enough after their sentence to show they're good citizens, so they ought to have a chance to get full citizenship,'' Clinton said.
``So a pardon after the fact is more a restoration of full citizenship, and I think that therefore we ought to be more open-minded about that,'' said the former president, who pardoned 140 people and commuted the sentences of 35 others.
``As long as we live in a world where you can never vote again or have full citizenship unless you get a pardon, then the word 'pardon' is somehow almost a misnomer,'' he added.
Asked about Rich, who has eluded prosecution for alleged racketeering and tax evasion, Clinton said he had spent a lot of time considering what he called a ``unusual'' case.
Among World's Wealthiest Men
Rich, one of the world's wealthiest men, fled to Switzerland after being indicted in 1983 on more than 50 counts of wire fraud, racketeering, trading with Iran in violation of a trade embargo and evading more than $48 million in income taxes.
He settled his dispute with U.S. authorities over tax evasion but remained wanted for other charges.
``I spent a lot of personal time ... because it's an unusual case, but (Rich's attorney Jack) Quinn made a strong case, and I was convinced he was right on the merits,'' Clinton said.
``That's all I can say. Others might disagree, but I think Quinn made a very compelling case in the end,'' he said.
Quinn, a former chief of staff for then Vice President Al Gore, served as White House counsel under Clinton until 1997.
New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, one of several prosecutors who had worked on the Rich case, criticized the decision.
``I'm shocked that the president of the United States would pardon him,'' he told reporters. ``After all, he never paid a price. He got on an airplane, took all his records and ran off to Zug, Switzerland, where he's remained a fugitive since then.''
Giuliani said Rich had made ``untold efforts to try to get the charges reduced, including many, many overtures and entreaties based on the use of influence.''
Stephanopoulos Criticism
Former White House adviser George Stephanopoulos also criticized Clinton's decision, noting that Rich's former wife had raised a lot of money for the Democratic Party in recent years.
Speaking on ABC's ``This Week'' talk show, Stephanopoulos alleged that Denise Rich, a highly successful songwriter and three-time Grammy Award nominee, had raised more than $500,000 in the past two years.
Clinton also said he has asked those who helped him work on the pardon list to draw up suggestions to improve the system.
``The system by which these things are reviewed, I think, has slowed down dramatically over the last 20 years, and our people are going to do an analysis of it, the people who work on it for me, and try to figure out how it ought to be organized, how it ought to be processed and how future presidents should handle this, or at least make suggestions,'' he said.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Rich, now 66, conspired in April 1980 with the Iranian government to purchase more than six million barrels of oil, in violation of the trade embargo imposed by the United States.
He and Pincus Green, also pardoned by Clinton, were once among the world's leading commodity traders. Their companies pleaded guilty in 1984 to evading millions of dollars in taxes by hiding profits on crude-oil trading.
But Rich and Green avoided prosecution themselves by staying in Switzerland, which has refused to extradite them to the United States.
HENCH adds: Commodities trading? Hillary? Hey, they can't let a REAL Justice dept. investigate all the commodities contortions, so pardon now, and keep raking in the illegal campaign cash for her Presidential run.
FORBES MAGAZINE:
NEW YORK - He wintered in St. Moritz and summered in Spain, but Aspen remained off limits, and that was a bummer. But Marc Rich, the fugitive financier, will suffer no longer, not after receiving a last-day-in-office pardon from President Clinton.
Rich, 66, a shadowy American-Spanish-Israeli billionaire commodities trader, got his pardon despite never having spent a day in jail--and he might have gotten a life sentence for his crimes. Pincus Green, Rich's longtime business partner also received absolution. But fellow near-billionaire Michael Milken, who spent two years in prison and paid a billion dollars in fines, was left off the pardon list and wondering what he did wrong.
Perhaps Milken married the wrong woman. Rich was wed to, and then divorced from, Denise Rich, a songwriter, record company executive and Democratic Party fundraiser. Perhaps Milken had the wrong lawyer. Rich was represented by Jack Quinn, former chief of staff to Vice President Al Gore, who personally discussed Rich's case with the president.
We assume, though, that Milken had a good lawyer, too. Milken also had powerful and generous friends. Ron Burkle, a California supermarket mogul and also a friend of Clinton's who pledged $135 million to the Clinton Library, worked hard to secure the financier's pardon.
The former Drexel Burnham executive probably also suffered from too much advance publicity, sparking protests from the U.S. Attorney's office in Manhattan and from the Securities and Exchange Commission, who argued that pardoning Milken would send the wrong message to would-be financial market miscreants.
Rich, for his part, fled the U.S. in 1983, evading prosecution on 65 counts, which included tax fraud and racketeering charges. All told, the government charged that he evaded more than $48 million in U.S. taxes.
Rich was also accused of trading oil with Iran during the U.S. hostage crisis in 1980. Before that, he allegedly earned millions by creating an oil-trading daisy chain that evaded U.S. oil price controls. Oil that was supposed to be regulated emerged, through Rich's financial sleight of hand, unregulated.
The U.S. Department of Justice International Interagency Outlook offered this "case detail" about Rich: "Tehran, Iran, November 4, 1979. Iranian militants invade the U. S. Embassy. For the next fourteen months, they hold fifty-three Americans hostage. Thousands of Iranians march through the streets, chanting, 'Death to America!' But one American quickly becomes popular with the new government in Tehran."
That American, now restored to full citizenship, was Marc David Rich. The U.S. had offered to pay a reward for information that led to his arrest and, if necessary, to relocate individuals who fingered him. But Rich remained a fugitive even after reaching an out-of-court settlement in the U.S. for about $150 million in taxes.
As for Milken, whatever his crimes, there was no need to offer a reward. If the FBI wanted to find him, they could look up his office in the phone book.
Rich was actually not hard to find either. He traveled widely, appeared at conferences and cut a wide swath in the St. Moritz social whirl. He traveled, according to the FBI, to Jamaica, Portugal, Britain, Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union and Israel in recent years, accompanied by a pair of bodyguards. His office was in Zug, Switzerland. But Rich and Green chose their crimes wisely--extraditing businessmen for tax evasion is something the Swiss do not do.
Protests about the Rich pardon came after the fact. New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, one of several prosecutors who had worked on the Rich case, told reporters: "I'm shocked that the President of the United States would pardon him. After all, he never paid a price.''
Green started his career at Phillips Brothers, once a commodities trading powerhouse, which later bought Salomon Brothers, the investment bank. He feuded with his partners, and, ultimately, he and Green started their own firm, Marc Rich & Co. After more battling, Rich left his namesake firm in 1993, which was later renamed Glencore and remains one of the world's largest commodity dealers. Rich got back to business in late 1995 with the Marc Rich Group.
Previously, Rich made "untold efforts to try to get the charges reduced, including many, many overtures and entreaties based on the use of influence,'' Giuliani said.
It was not clear exactly what turned the trick this time. Clinton told reporters, "I spent a lot of personal time [on the Rich case] because it's an unusual case, but Quinn made a strong case and I would suggest he was right on the merits.''
The precise nature of those merits remain as elusive as Rich himself.
HENCH adds: "Elusive?" Nah, it's OBVIOUS. Literally MILLIONS of illegal dollars funneled directly to the Clintons.
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