Clinton Says Marc Rich Pardon Based on 'Strong Case'

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CHAPPAQUA, N.Y. (Reuters) - Former President Clinton (news - web sites), 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.

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.''

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.

"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"

HIS people??? Still can't accept he's out. I am trying not to be "foul mouthed" any longer, but the garbage from this garbage for eight years has taken its toll on me!!! Can't someone shut him up?

"He and Pincus Green, also pardoned by Clinton, were once among the world's leading commodity traders."

He settled his dispute with U.S. authorities over tax evasion but remained wanted for other charges.

I hadn't realized Rich had settled with the IRS. I'd be interested to see the terms of the settlement. Wouldn't surprise me at all if Rich paid less than his full liability.

Commodities, international criminal, who else has a large account in Switzerland?

ANYBODY: I'm experiencing significant time delays between posting to a thread and seeing the post in the thread-THESE DELAYS have been occurring for days-perhaps this is our new system protocol? AM I ALONE W/THIS? THANKS FOR ANY REPLY

Hmmm, Guiliani prosectued Rich and then had the nerve to run against hitlery. I'll bet this one has her fingerprints on it.

Wait 'til next campaign from the dyanmic duo that only knows campaigning. $$$$$$$$$$

According to the aforemetioned Wash Times article regarding Marc Rich and the IRS --

Interesting how many of those pardoned were Clinton donors or defenders. Pretty obvious quid pro quo.

According to the aforementioned Wash Times article regarding Marc Rich and the IRS --

"``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."

This is hilarious. The restriction against lobbying by former administration insiders was never so comically portrayed as now. Priceless.

A lot of similarities between this pardon and the one in the article I posted about Clinton pardoning a fellow named Lake in Bakersfield. Lake was a rich Republican donor who made an illegal payment to Mike Espy. I am sure that most of the 140 pardons will reveal quid pro quo upon examination.

I would estimate that cliton's Swiss bank account is now sweeter to the tune of about ten million dollars because of this pardon. I would also suggest that Hill and Knowlton's Frank Mankewicz played a key interlocutory role in the execution of this situation.

Two things I learned in my meetings with Rich: (1) He disdains the US, and (2) a ten mill payoff would mean nothing to him.

Marc Rich, as seen on the Department of Justice Web site

People

Top Of The News: The Fugitive Kind

Dan Ackman, Forbes.com, 01.22.01, 10:39 AM ET

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.


Michael Milken: Unpardoned

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.

More From Forbes Magazine

Michael Milken on The Forbes Four Hundred Richest in America

Marc Rich on The Forbes Four Hundred Richest in America

multi-millionaire w/ assets well over $330 million.
long time supporter of liberal causes.
in trouble with IRS.
violated FEC rules.
live in switzerland
donated over $200,000 to bubba's presidential campaign.
donated over $10 million to DNC.
trophy wife half his age. (fair game for bubba)

how 'bout the widda shelia lawrence's sugar daddy, M. Larry Lawrence. former "WW II maritime Hero" & US ambassador to Switzerland up to his untimely death & subsequent burial in Arlington National Cemetery.

If you wanted to ski, party, have secret cosmetic surgery, launder/hide money, etc, they're there for you. ;-)

It could be Sen. Phil Gramm wouldn't want you to go sticking your nose into his wife's business there, though.

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.

Also
I have not seen anyone answer the question of "Why Steph?" It would seem on the surface to go against all the machinations of the DNC and Klintonista's. So is Steph jealous? Or is actually trying to clean up the DNC? Or is he friends with Milken? Inquiring minds would normally want to know.

(Is that too cryptic a comment? Refco is the king commodities trading firm, who Rich no doubt had close relations.)

Does anyone have a list of all of the people Scumbag pardoned during his last days? It ought to be pretty interesting reading.

........also known as a Samsonite X2000, suitable for filling with money and sending to Switzerland.

"The nature and extent of Rich's relationship with BCCI requires further investigation."

Eh? Larry Lawrence? He managed to die before anyone filed charges. Freepers at the time found evidence that Shelia paid $50,000 to the DNC plus a service charge plus goo-goo eyes for Clinton to get Larry buried in Arlington. She also had a nice stone made reciting Larry's lies about military service. I wonder what became of it after they dug up his lying bones.

BCCI's financing of commodities and other business dealings of international criminal financier Marc Rich. Marc Rich remains the most important figure in the international commodities markets, and remains a fugitive from the United States following his indictment on securities fraud. BCCI lending to Rich in the 1980's amounted to tens of millions of dollars.

Yes, definitely. The whole bunch -- Jackson Stephens, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Webster Hubbell, Bert Lance, Systematics, Vince Foster, and BCCI -- are tied together and continue to leave their mark.

Shelia. I think she and Bill Clinton ARE fair game -- for each other. I have (but cannot locate just now) a photo of them after Larry's funeral -- he in a dark tailored overcoat, she in a dark suit, pillbox hat and a widow's veil. Very dignified attire, both of them. They are exchanging a look that says, "Your limo or mine?"

FILE--President Clinton accepts a saxophone from Denise Rich as Senator-elect Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., applauds at the G&P Foundation Angel Ball 2000 dinner at the New York Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York, in this Nov. 30, 2000, file photo. President Clinton pardoned fugitive billionaire Marc Rich, ex-husband of Denise Rich, shortly before leaving office. Denise Rich, a co-founder of the foundation, is also a Clinton friend and Democratic Party fund-raiser. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)

I missed this post the first time around but saw the article in the Washington Post and thought I'd search here before posting it.

This is the scumbag who manipulated the commodities market by importing oil from Iran during the Iranian Hostage Crisis. He is a traitor pure and simple. He has never paid any price (except to the DNC and probably Hitlery's campaign) for his crimes.

This guy had 65 felony counts brought against him by none other than Rudy Guliano when he was the U.S. Prosecutor in N.Y. This was a slap in the face to all the hostages, their families, the Justice Department, and any "right" thinking American. He is just like Clinton, the scum of the earth.

This is posted for discussion purposes only. Given the curious history and resume of Mr. Rich, one can only marvel at how he may have avoided capture and paid his debt to society over the past 20 years.

New York-Long-time fugitive financier and oil and metals trader Marc Rich is a free man again, thanks to a last-minute pardon granted by outgoing president Bill Clinton Jan 20. Also pardoned was partner Pincus Green.

The controversial reprieve ends a nearly 20-year battle over tax evasion and other charges involving "daisy-chain" trading to skirt US oil price controls that prompted Rich to skip the US for Switzerland in 1982.

Rich's former trading firm Clarendon Ltd, now Glencore International, settled civil IRS tax claims for $171-mil in fines and penalties in 1984, in what federal prosecutors billed as the largest tax-evasion case in US history. But Rich himself remained unable to cut a deal to resolve some 65 criminal charges that remained, including racketeering and trading in Iranian oil while that country still held US hostages.

US Attorney Mary Jo White in New York, where a grand jury brought the charges in 1983 under federal prosecutor Rudolph Giuliani, reacted sharply to the pardon Jan 22. She issued a statement saying "The seriousness of the crimes is diminished and the fact and appearance of even-handed justice is compromised" by Clinton's action.

But Clinton brushed off criticism, telling reporters he "spent a lot of personal time" reviewing Rich's case, which was lobbied for by Clinton's own former White House Counsel Jack Quinn. Quinn "made a strong case," Clinton told reporters, "and I was convinced he was right on the merits."

Critics noted that Rich's former wife, New York songwriter and socialite Denise Rich, has been a major donor to Democratic political campaigns, giving some $1.3-mil in contributions in the past decade including funds for the Senate campaign of Hillary Rodham Clinton. The Clintons were even hosted at a gala soiree by the ex-Mrs Rich soon after release of the damning Whitewater Independent Counsel report that led to Clinton's failed impeachment.

But given the bitter divorce fight, in which Denise Rich is said to have upped her payout from $250-mil to about $500-mil, the socialite was not overly pleased with the pardon, according to a Jan 22 report in the New York Post.

Marc Rich, now about 66, was born in Antwerp and fled Nazi occupation as a boy to the US. His father had banking interests in Bolivia, and that was one of a number of foreign postings for Marc after he joined private trading house Philipp Bros in the 1950s. In 1973, with oil trading profits soaring after the first Arab embargo, Rich left Phibro to form his own firm, Marc Rich & Co, which soon became a major player in world oil markets.

He was particularly adept at securing supplies of Nigerian and Iraqi crudes, and gained a reputation as a reliable supplier in tough times to crude-short oil majors. He forged a particularly close relationship with Atlantic Richfield Co and trader Bill Ariano there, according to a 1984 article in Fortune magazine.

Although Arco lawyers denied any awareness of Rich's scheme, it was apparently price-controlled Arco "old oil" barrels that became the feedstock for at least part of Rich's alleged daisy chain scam. At Rich's request, Fortune reported, Arco sold big volumes of its US price-controlled production at about $12/bbl to several Texas trading companies doing business with Rich. Through various maneuvers, the oil ended up being graded as "stripper oil" exempt from price controls.

The federal charges against Rich are that his companies bought that mis-labeled oil, well above the "old oil" price but at a sizable discount to the $30/bbl spot market price for "new" oil. To recoup the profits created in the Texas trading firms, Abilene-based West Texas Marketing and Houston-based Listo Petroleum, Rich arranged for a large volume of "paper" oil trades that moved those proceeds to Rich and left the US-companies with little or no taxable profit.

Instead, the windfall ended up in a Rich-controlled Panamanian firm called Rescor, Fortune wrote, which was allowed to buy oil on the cheap from the trading firms and resell it at market prices, after the trading firms had paid market prices for oil from other Rich companies. Rich is said to have been in position to reap as much as $25/bbl.

The scam unraveled after WTM principals John Troland and David Ratliffe, jailed on other charges, inadvertently spilled the beans, according to Fortune. But the only Marc Rich employee actually punished was trader Clyde Metlzer, who pleaded guilty but avoided jail time.

It took the Justice Department several years to build its case against Rich, including protracted legal fights over company documents Rich claimed were protected by Swiss law. At one point US agents seized two trunkloads of documents at New York's JFK airport as they were about to be spirited out of the country.

But by the time the grand jury had brought its indictments, Rich and Green were long gone to Zug, where Rich is reported to live in heavily-guarded splendor, splitting his time between villas in Israel and the Costa del Sol of Spain (where he is now a citizen).

For almost 20 years, the US has been unsuccessful in prying Rich from Switzerland, which does not extradite for alleged US tax violations. Rich has carried on his international investments with seemingly little hindrance. His holdings have included a majority stake in publicly-traded Swiss metals conglomerate Sudelektra, now called Xstrata AG.

In fact, his Richco grain trading unit reaped subsidies from the US Agriculture Department in the late 1980s for helping arrange wheat sales to Soviet Union. And Rich turned out to be the silent partner of Denver oilman Marvin Davis in the taking-private of movie-maker Twentieth Century-Fox in the early 1980s, on whose board sat directors ex-president Gerald Ford and former secretary of state Henry Kissinger.

Congressional investigators probing the collapse of scandal-wracked spy-front bank BCCI in the early 1990s listed that bank's large commodity financing deals with Marc Rich as a relationship that "requires further investigation." But none was conducted.

Rich's opponents, including federal agents, have complained the secretive financier appears to have a pipeline into the inner reaches of the US government, allowing him to thwart enforcement. Certainly, intelligence gathering has always been a cornerstone of Rich's business success.

Speculation as to Rich's current wealth range upwards of $2-bil, according to Forbes magazine's "rich list." But finances of the reclusive fugitive are murky to track. Through a series of transactions, Rich has purportedly sold out his stakes in Glencore to start up and then sell out of other oil and metals trading firms such as Traffigura and Novarco.

A common feature of Rich's companies has been his heavy involvement in the trading of crude and metals from some of the world's more dodgy venues, including Nigeria, Russia and Iraq. Indeed, Glencore has built itself into a powerhouse of trading in aluminum, alumina, crude, refined product and other strategic materials, with annual turnover pegged at $30- to $40-bil, according to a recent report by Standard & Poor's.

But Glencore, 85% owned by its employees, must rely heavily on debt financing, which makes up about 75% of its $7.2-bil of total capital, S&P noted Jan 16 in putting a "negative" credit watch on its triple-B-plus rated corporate debt.-James Norman

I think I see a tiny inscription on the sax that reads
"On loan from Roxanne Pulitzer" hhmmm.......

Seems the failure/lack of curiosity at Justice has been endemic to more than one administration.

I have to ask, did clinton give the guy a pardon for each and every one of the charges brought against him, or did he issue a blanket pardon for everything the guy could have done? Or for that matter, what he may do in the future? I realize it is a fine point, but if clinton actually gave 65 pardons to this guy, I can see where the pardon count gets dramatically higher.

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,

But that wasn't the deal. The deal is, as a convicted felon, part of your punishment is that you've lost certain rights permanently, it doesn't matter that you've served your time. The two are mutually exclusive.

It is interesting to note this comment in today's WSJ article about Rich's pardon.:

Twenty-one prominent Israelis, Americans and others sent letters supporting the application. They included Shabtai Shavit, the former head of Mossad, the Israel intelligence service, who said Mr. Rich "used his extensive contacts" in other countries to help the agency "in the rescue and evacuation of Jews from enemy countries."

For almost 20 years, the US has been unsuccessful in prying Rich from Switzerland, which does not extradite for alleged US tax violations.

I lived in Zug for many years at the peak of Marc Rich's eponymous company's success (and worked for his competitors). There, um, might be another reason they didn't extradite him. Besides the revenues brought in by his company, he basically owned the whole town/canton (state). There wasn't a bit of infrastructure or culture that he didn't pay for in that city. They weren't about to lose their cash cow.

A funny story -- there was an American man writing a book about the metals traders and the scandals, and he wanted to get an interview with Marc Rich for his book. So he went to the elegant restaurant in Zug where Marc Rich ate his dinner and approached him sitting alone in a booth. Mr. International Businessman was perfectly friendly as the writer began to speak with him. He smiled and excused himself to visit the restroom. After 15 minutes had passed, the writer went to the restroom himself to find out if something was wrong. The tiny, high window in the small "WC" was wide open, letting in the winter air; the gentleman in the designer suit (on the FBI's 10 most wanted at the time) had squeezed through and escaped.