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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Lacelle who wrote (123118)	1/22/2001 11:27:22 AM
From: willcousa	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

The self-centeredness of Clinton over the weekend and the instant healing of Jessee James Jackson must have been a factor.

To: John Lacelle who wrote (123118)	1/22/2001 12:01:33 PM
From: Zoltan!	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769670

Clinton pardons Rich as payoff to Quinn and for contributions to his corrupt party: ....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 (news - web sites), 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 (news - web sites), 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. dailynews.yahoo.com