Posted on 11/20/2008 12:03:28 PM PST by lilylangtree
WASHINGTON - Eric Holder is in line for nomination by President-elect Barack Obama to the attorney general's job that Holder has long wanted, but the 2001 episode with fugitive financier Marc Rich is stirring partisan acrimony.
The role of the former deputy attorney general in the pardon of Rich opened Holder to strong criticism from Capitol Hill in a political uproar that Republicans refuse to forget nearly eight years later. The Republican National Committee is resurrecting the episode, circulating an e-mail Wednesday that asks, "Why does Obama want to appoint an attorney general with a long history of controversial pardons?"
The Rich pardon that President Bill Clinton granted on his last day in office became the final controversy in a presidency filled with them.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27822830/from/ET/
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
Holder is also responsible for the Puerto Rican terrorists Clinton pardoned. Of course, MSNBC neglected to mention that.
The marvel would be if Obamanation actually selected people to serve that were ethical, full of integrity, non-partisan and competent. That would be news.
It wouldn’t be reported on MSNBC.
video
At least it will be harder for them to complain about Bush’s pardons — if he makes any (and he should!).
Hey Marc Rich is only the biggest fugitive thief in the entire history of our country.
But the MSM seems dumbfounded as to why anyone would even care.
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BILL CLINTON'S RICH PARDON (The Clinton Legacy continues)
NY TIMES | December 31, 2004 | LETTERS
FR Posted on 12/31/2004 by Liz
EXCERPT Bill Clinton pardons Marc Rich in the final minutes of his presidency, after Rich's ex-wife had donated to Hillary Clinton's senatorial campaign. Rich immediately goes into business with Saddam Hussein in the Oil-for-Food scam...........
Clinton pardoning Rich in 2001 made it easier for Rich to participate in the Oil-for-Food scandal. Therefore, it can be fairly said that Bill Clinton himself bears partial responsibility for the deaths of more than 1,000 soldiers in Iraq, since the reason US soldiers were sent in Iraq was to prevent Saddam from using his stolen booty to build WMDs.......
Hopefully, some chickens are coming home to roost for Bill and Hill now that Marc Rich has been fingered as an active participant in the UN Oil-for-Food fiasco. This is the same tax evader and fugitive whose ex-wife Denise funded H illary's senate campaign and Bill's presidential library with big bucks, in exchange for a last minute presidential pardon for her husband just before Clinton left office. (Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
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NEW MARC RICH LINK STINK
By NILES LATHEM, NY POST, January 3, 2005
EXCERPT---New details of billionaire trader Marc Rich's shady oil deals under the UN oil-for-food program are emerging......These include deals with front companies that have connections to Saddam Hussein's underground financial network.
.......prosecutors are probing four suspicious deals that took place in Feb-April 2001. Rich was listed as a secondary buyer of oil contracts originally allocated by Saddam to mysterious French and Egyptian companies.
The questionable deals began a month after sanctions-buster Rich, a convicted tax dodger, received his midnight pardon from then-President Bill Clinton.
They took place during a period in which major Western oil companies were shying away from directly buying from Iraq because Saddam was demanding surcharges and kickbacks.
Rich has been identified as a primary target of oil-for-food probes by the U.S. attorney in New York and Manhattan DA Robert Morgenthau.
Rich, who lives in Switzerland and has not returned to the United States despite the pardon, denied in a statement issued by his company last week that he was involved in any illegal activities.
Iraqi shipping records, originally published in the Middle East Economic Review, a respected oil-industry database, provide an intriguing glimpse into some of Rich's oil dealings with the U.N. program and appear to bolster prosecutors' suspicions that he was a key figure in many of Saddam's moneymaking and global influence-peddling schemes. Investigators say they believe it is significant that the companies with which Rich was apparently doing business in the oil-for-food deals appear to have directors with secret financial connections to Saddam's brutal regime.
SOURCE http://www.nypost.com/news/worldnews/37665.htm
RICH MAY HAVE LIED ON PARDON FORM
NY DAILY NEWS, 11/14/03, BY GREG B. SMITH
The feds have evidence that Democratic fund-raiser Denise Rich violated an immunity arrangement by not telling prosecutors the whole truth during their investigation of Pardongate, sources say.
The sources said federal law enforcement has enough evidence to bring obstruction of justice counts against Rich but that no decision has been made on whether to charge her.
For nearly three years, the feds have been probing how the socialite songwriter's ex-husband, Marc Rich, won a pardon from President Bill Clinton during his last hours in office.
Marc Rich, a multimillionaire fugitive, was charged in 1983 with bilking the federal government of $48 million in income taxes and buying illegal oil from Iran during the 1979 hostage crisis.
Investigators want to know whether Marc Rich illegally funneled donations to Clinton and Democratic causes through his wife in return for the pardon.
Prosecutors from the Manhattan U.S. attorney's office asked a federal judge to order Denise Rich, who admitted lobbying Clinton for the pardon, to answer their questions. She did so, speaking to prosecutors and the FBI during numerous so-called "proffer" sessions in 2001. Under an arrangement with the feds, Rich was granted immunity from prosecution - as long as she told the truth and spilled everything she knew.
Two sources told the Daily News that investigators recently discovered Rich breached that arrangement, either by lying or by not revealing potentially illegal activities she knew about.
During her many sessions with prosecutors, the sources said, Rich talked about her one-on-one discussions with Clinton and about the $1million-plus she raised for Clinton and Democratic causes.
The sources would not say whether Rich discussed her $450,000 donation to the Clinton Presidential Library. Sources say Rich admitted reimbursing several of her employers for their donations to Hillary Clinton's successful campaign for Senate in 1999, a practice that is illegal.
Yesterday Denise Rich's attorney, Thomas Fitzpatrick, said, "I have never heard from the U.S. attorney that she was less than truthful. ... There's no breach of her obligation of truthfulness that I know of." Marvin Smilon, a spokesman for Manhattan U.S. Attorney James Comey, declined to comment.
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