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Politics : Right Wing Extremist Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Carolyn who wrote (5100)	2/19/2001 12:46:56 PM
From: Sarkie	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 59480

This article is certainly not written by someone that loves Clinton. Clinton heads to New Orleans for lucrative speech ================================================================ NEW ORLEANS, Feb 19 (Reuters) - Former President Bill Clinton, out of office but still knee-deep in controversy over an 11th-hour pardon, headed to New Orleans on Monday to make a speech to high-tech executives for an expected $100,000. Clinton was set to open a four-day conference sponsored by software giant Oracle Corp. (NASDAQ:ORCL) despite a similar appearance two weeks ago that caused a storm and another that was reportedly canceled due to the fuss over his pardon to billionaire fugitive Marc Rich. It was not known if the former president would discuss last month's pardon that triggered a criminal and congressional probes amid suspicions Clinton was influenced by huge donations to Democratic causes from the ex-wife of Rich, who faced charges including tax evasion. Clinton has remained in the media spotlight because of the pardon and a series of other controversies in recent weeks, including a bid to rent an expensive Manhattan office and his use in his own home of furniture meant for the White House. Oracle spokeswoman Stephanie Hess said the company invited the ex-president partly because he was a good draw. "Like him or not, people want to see him," she said. Since Oracle announced Clinton would speak, a flood of people have signed up for the conference, which was now expected to attract at least 10,000 participants, Hess said. The firm's chairman, Larry Ellison, is a friend of the ex-president and its communications director is former Clinton White House press secretary Joe Lockhart. The appearance also prompted speculation that Ellison would offer Clinton a place on Oracle's board of directors, but the company said that had not been discussed. The speech, to be delivered around 6 p.m. EST (2300 GMT), would be Clinton's first on the corporate circuit since an appearance at a Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co. (NYSE:MWD) conference in Florida two weeks ago. That event prompted a storm of protests from some of the investment firm's anti-Clinton clients and a public apology from Morgan Stanley Chairman Philip Purcell. Last week, investment bank UBS Warburg, a unit of Swiss firm UBS AG (ZSE:USBZ.N), canceled a Clinton speech fearing it would be pulled into the Rich controversy, sources familiar with the negotiations said. For years, U.S. presidents have received large fees for speeches given soon after leaving office. CLINTON: NO QUID PRO QUO Rich, 66, has lived in Switzerland since fleeing the United States 17 years ago facing more than 50 federal criminal counts including racketeering, tax evasion and illegal shipment of oil to Iran. Clinton critics believe he granted the pardon because of Rich's former wife's donations to the Democratic Party and Clinton's presidential library. But the former president vehemently denied that in a column published on Sunday in the New York Times. "There was absolutely no quid pro quo," he said. Among the reasons he listed for the pardon was Rich's support for various causes in Israel, whose leaders pleaded his case with Clinton. A federal prosecutor in New York and two congressional panels are investigating the pardon, which Clinton granted on his final day in office before giving way to President George W. Bush. While president, Clinton was the target of several investigations that culminated in the U.S. House of Representatives vote to impeach him in 1998 following his Oval Office affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. The U.S. Senate later acquitted him. Since his departure, he also has come under attack for now-discarded plans to rent an $800,000-a-year Manhattan office at taxpayer expense and for taking $190,000 in gifts in his last year in the White House. He and wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, now U.S. senator from New York, have since paid for some of the gifts and returned others, including furniture that donors gave to the White House and the Clintons were using in their New York home. Copyright 2001, Reuters News Service