Whoops! The other shoe is dropping!
Clinton's Pardon of Marc Rich
Raises Questions on Capitol Hill
By GARY FIELDS
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
WASHINGTON -- The furor over former President Clinton's pardon of fugitive
financier Marc Rich and his former business partner, Pincus Green, is raising
questions on Capitol Hill, where the House Government Reform Committee is
preparing a formal request for documents related to the pardon.
Those requests are expected to go out next week to
the Justice Department and the National Archives,
where Mr. Clinton's presidential papers have been
sent. It is the first step in possible congressional
hearings on the matter.
Current and former law-enforcement officers,
including New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, have
called for congressional hearings to investigate the
reasoning behind then-President Clinton's
pardoning, just hours before he was to leave office,
of Mr. Green and Mr. Rich.
Mr. Green and Mr. Rich had been fugitives since
they left the U.S. in 1983. They were indicted in
Manhattan that year on charges that they and their companies rigged a huge, illegal
oil-pricing scheme, evading $48 million in taxes and illegally buying oil from Iran
during the 1979 hostage crisis. Mr. Rich's companies later agreed to pay the $150
million and to forfeit $21 million in fines to settle the charges.
Before their trial, the two men left the country, moving to Switzerland, which refused
to extradite them. Mr. Clinton said in issuing the pardons that Mr. Rich's lawyer, Jack
Quinn, had made a compelling argument. Attorneys for Messrs. Rich and Green
have said that the charges against them wouldn't have been brought under current
circumstances.
One of the questions a possible hearing might seek to answer is whether Mr.
Quinn's former role as Mr. Clinton's White House counsel or as former Vice
President Al Gore's chief of staff played any part in the pardon.
A second question is whether the relationship the Clintons have with Mr. Rich's
ex-wife, Denise Rich, played any role. Ms. Rich has contributed hundreds of
thousands of dollars to the Democratic party in the past decade. |
