U.S. Atty. Launches Inquiry of Rich Case

The U.S. attorney in New York has opened a criminal investigation to determine if President Clinton’s last-minute pardon of fugitive commodities broker Marc Rich was secured with illegal payments, sources in the federal government said Wednesday.

The decision by Mary Jo White, a Democratic appointee, to investigate the Rich pardon came just a day after President Bush criticized congressional reviews of the matter, saying it was “time to move on.”

Bush’s remark dampened interest within the Justice Department for a criminal investigation, said one source familiar with the matter, which in turn prompted White to act.

“Mary Jo feels like [her office has] been after this guy for more than 15 years, and now this has really ticked her off,” said the source, who spoke on condition on anonymity.

This official said it was unclear whether White was opening a full grand-jury investigation into the matter or whether she would instead conduct a more limited review.

Among the matters her office is likely to examine are deposits of money into the bank accounts of songwriter Denise Rich, the fugitive’s former wife, and the timing of her roughly $1 million in contributions to Democratic candidates and causes.

Denise Rich also has contributed $450,000 to Clinton’s presidential library fund, and last year she made gifts of furniture to the president and Hillary Rodham Clinton.

In response to questions from a House committee reviewing the pardon, Denise Rich last week invoked her 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination. The House Government Reform Committee has been considering offering her a grant of immunity to testify, but a source close to the investigation said that decision would be delayed for at least a week to allow members to see what comes of White’s investigation.

Clinton also weighed in on the matter Wednesday night. He issued a statement defending his pardon of Rich and said his decision was based on the merits of the case.

“As I have said repeatedly, I made the decision to pardon Marc Rich based on what I thought was the right thing to do,” Clinton said. “Any suggestion that improper factors, including fund-raising for the [Democratic National Committee] or my library, had anything to do with the decision are absolutely false. I look forward to cooperating with any appropriate inquiry.”

Both actions capped another day of congressional testimony on the Rich pardon.

The Justice Department’s pardon attorney told a Senate committee that the White House kept him in the dark about its pardon of Rich and his business partner, never telling him that the two were fugitives in Switzerland who had avoided prosecution in New York for 17 years.

In his first testimony about the controversial pardon, Roger C. Adams said that he did not learn of President Clinton’s impending action until he received a post-midnight phone call in the administration’s last hours.

“I was told [by the White House counsel’s office] that the only two people on the [clemency] list for whom I needed to obtain record checks were Marc Rich and Pincus Green and that it was expected there would be little information because they had been ‘living abroad’ for several years,” Adams related.

“You were not told” that Rich and Green were fugitives? asked Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“I was not told,” Adams replied. He said he learned of their status only by contacting the FBI. He then passed along their files to the White House.

“None of the regular procedures were followed,” Adams said of the Rich pardon.

Adams’ testimony confirmed the previously disclosed irregularities behind Clinton’s most controversial pardon, an eleventh-hour action that has been criticized by both Republicans and Democrats as legally improper and politically driven.

Democratic senators joined Republicans in noting that the Justice Department had been kept in the dark about the clemency petition of the alleged tax evaders. They also questioned whether Clinton’s decision to pardon Rich was influenced by the political contributions of his former wife.

“I strongly disagree with the president’s use of his constitutional power,” said Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.). Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) added that “it makes a mockery of the system.”

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said she has “concerns not only about the Rich pardon but about a number of others” who were granted clemency on Clinton’s last day, including convicted California narcotics trafficker Carlos Vignali.

Feinstein said that she would like to know if Adams had recommended Vignali’s commutation. But when Adams declined comment, Feinstein said she would not pressure him to breach the confidentiality of any recommendation he had made.

Adams said that scores of people besides Rich and Green who won clemency from Clinton had never undergone Justice Department reviews. But “a majority” of the 176 pardons and commutations announced by the White House on Jan. 20 resulted after petitions were submitted to the department, he said.

Some committee members appealed to Clinton to “come forward” to explain the Rich pardon, much as then-President Ford voluntarily appeared before a House committee in 1974 to testify about his controversial pardon of former President Nixon.

Specter noted that if Denise Rich continues to use her 5th Amendment protection against self-incrimination to avoid testifying on the matter, “President Clinton may be the only witness available” to explain why the clemency was granted.

But Jack Quinn, a former White House counsel who represented Marc Rich, told the panel that he strongly believes Clinton granted the pardon on its merits. He cited a 20-minute phone conversation he had with Clinton on his last night in the White House and said it showed that the president believed Rich had been the victim of an over-aggressive prosecution that should have been resolved through civil litigation.

Specter, who has suggested that it might be technically feasible to impeach Clinton a second time over the Rich pardon, called three law professors to testify on whether Congress could limit the president’s absolute power to grant pardons.

All three said it would take a constitutional amendment, but they recommended against it.

“Each time we tinker with the original work-product of the framers, we risk producing unintended consequences,” said Ken Gormley, professor of constitutional law at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. Gormley said that allowing Congress to override executive pardons could further inject politics into the process.