Posted on 01/11/2009 4:52:24 AM PST by Liz
Back in 2001, fugitive financier Marc Rich had every reason to be thankful for the wealthy connections he'd made attending Manhattan's Fifth Avenue Synagogue. It was those connections who helped Rich convince Bill Clinton he deserved a presidential pardon. (Rich later invested $15 million with Madoff). Bernie Madoff might be analyzed for decades without getting at the complex layers as his monumental stock-market fraud played out.......the delirious delight Madoff must have taken in his global deception, the panic when he first heard the whir in the air of axes about to fall...knowing he is permanently established as one of the world's major frauds, up their with Sacha Stavisky, whose worthless bond scheme nearly brought down the French Third Republic. Madoff soaked the rich, but he specialized in soaking the Jewish rich. The spectacle presented by a Jew swindling Jews is itself flush with interest...... as Madoff's financial machinations were revealed, American Jews' reactions had to have been: this can't be good for the Jews. Jews are always on the qui vive for anti-Semitism. According to the anti-Semitic stereotype, Jews are financially astute, with a highly flexible sense of ethics, sharpies, operators par excellence. Bernie Madoff, alas, plays to this stereotype to perfection.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.com.au ...
Fugitive commodities trader Marc Rich was one of 140 people Bill Clinton pardoned during his last hours as president. Rich, 66, was charged in 1982 with the largest tax-evasion scheme in U.S. history, having evaded more than $48 million in income taxes. In 1983 Rich was indicted on 51 additional counts of racketeering and wire fraud. Rich also violated the Trading with the Enemy Act by conducting business with Iran, even as U.S. embassy staff were being held hostage. In 1983, Rich fled to Switzerland, never serving a day in jail. After (renouncing his American citizenship and), fleeing the United States, Rich became an Israeli citizen and a major benefactor of Jewish charitable organizations, giving nearly $80 million to Israeli hospitals, museums, orchestras, and universities. A 1999 profile in the Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv called Rich “the biggest donor to artistic and cultural institutions in Israel” over the past 15 years. Cultural and educational institutions in Israel had no problem accepting money that was supposed to go into U.S. tax coffers.
In the U.S. Rich’s generosity includes $5 million pledged to Birthright Israel, which has sent 17,000 young American Jews on free trips to Israel. According to Avner Azoulay, formerly with the Mossad, who runs Rich’s foundation in Israel, the trader also helped Mossad search for missing Israeli soldiers and brought dozens of Jews from Ethiopia and Yemen to Israel. He may have been entangled in a failed 1992 Israeli agreement with North Korea whereby the Asian country would cease selling long-range ballistic missiles to Middle Eastern states in exchange for $100 million in Israeli investments and mining aid.
Americans want to know if there was a money-for–pardon deal. Rich’s ex-wife, songwriter Denise Rich, a major Democratic fund-raiser, contributed $450,000 to Clinton’s presidential library foundation and more than $1 million to Clinton’s campaign coffers. Did that money actually come from Marc Rich?
There is little doubt that Rich’s charitable contributions helped produce letters to Clinton from dozens of Israeli and American Jewish leaders. The letters came from what The New York Times called “a virtual Who’s Who of Israeli society and Jewish philanthropy.”
America’s outrage over the pardons caught the Jewish community by surprise, and there was some backpedaling from leaders who earlier had supported Rich’s case. Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Reform movement’s Union of American Hebrew Congregations, was critical of Jewish lobbying on Rich’s behalf. He charged in a Washington Jewish Week article that the Jewish community was “bought” and that its leaders failed an “important moral test.”
The Jewish weeklies moaned about two “stationery mix-ups.” According to a March 1 Washington Jewish Week article, Marlen Post, chair of Birthright Israel and a past president of Hadassah, mistakenly sent a “first-draft” of her letter on Hadassah stationery instead of Birthright stationery. Rabbi Irving “Yitz” Greenberg, chair of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, meant to use Jewish Life Network letterhead instead of Council stationery. Hadassah and the Holocaust Memorial Council—the organization that oversees the taxpayer-supported Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC—were embarrassed that they had appeared to support a pardon.
Michael Schneider, executive vice president of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), said his organization was a recipient of donations from the Rich Foundation. He was “very surprised,” however, to learn that a letter thanking Rich for a donation in December 2000 was included in a packet of similar letters sent to the White House in support of a presidential pardon for Rich.
The Feb. 23 Forward newspaper quotes Schneider as saying, “It wasn’t exactly correct to use our letter in such a way.”
In addition to urging from Clinton’s American Jewish constituents, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben Ami, Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert, and the former head of Mossad, Shabtai Shavit, also lobbied for the pardon. Clinton’s aides have told lawmakers that it was Barak’s support of Rich’s petition that was key to its success. Barak talked to the president about it as many as four times.Joseph diGenova, the attorney representing Rich’s lawyer before congressional investigators, told Forward that it was Israel’s direct, heavy involvement that won the pardon.
In a Feb. 19 New York Times op-ed essay, former President Clinton tried to explain to the American people why he pardoned Rich. After enumerating seven reasons relating to Rich’s prosecution, Clinton said: “Finally, and importantly, many present and former high-ranking Israeli officials of both major political parties, and leaders of Jewish communities in America and Europe, urged the pardon of Mr. Rich because of his contributions and services to Israeli charitable causes, to the Mossad’s efforts to rescue and evacuate Jews from hostile countries, and to the peace process through sponsorship of education and health programs in Gaza and the West Bank.”
Clinton’s op-ed piece triggered harsh criticism from right-wing Jewish opinion makers, including those who have been among the most hawkishly pro-Israel. William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, put it bluntly. “He tried to blame it all on the Jews,” Kristol told the New York Observer. “Playing the Jewish card like this is a new low, even for Clinton.”
Rabbi Hier in the Feb. 23 issue of Detroit’s Jewish Week, called the president’s statement “absolutely troublesome to me as a Jew. It opens the door to anti-Semites. It feeds into the idea that Jews control everything, control the world, control the White House. He’s dumping a lot of garbage on the doorstep of his friends, the Jews.”
Ronald Lauder and Malcolm Hoenlein, chairman and executive vice president respectively of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, were outraged by the op-ed and accused Clinton of “scapegoating” Jews. Others thought it was Clinton who was the victim of scapegoating. “For Jewish leaders to blame President Clinton for their behavior is outrageous,” Martin Begun, the head of the New York Jewish Community Relations Council, told the Observer. “If Clinton used poor judgment, that’s one thing—but for them to apply pressure on him and then blame him for inciting anti-Semitic behavior is a baffling twist of logic. The poor man was pressured to death.”
“The notion appears to be that Mr. Clinton’s citing of Jewish and Israeli support for Mr. Rich’s pardon…was an anti-Semitic attempt to blame history’s eternal victims for his own wrongdoing,” a March 4 Forward editorial chided. “Politics, lobbying and fund-raising operate by their own sets of rules. Jewish advocacy has flourished under these rules; when Jewish activists stumble, they should take their hits. For Jews to have lobbied a president, and then to cry ‘scapegoat’ when he acknowledges their appeals, is disingenuous,” the Forward editorial concluded. http://www.wrmea.com/archives/april01/0104024.html
I agree, but apparently they're not very good at it, since they mostly voted for 0bama even after he said he was going to abandon Israel.
But what in the world was Mark Rich thinking in conducting business with Iran?
Confusion reigns supreme.
Liz is this site wrmea.com not a Free Palestine Propaganda site? If it is not anti-semitic, what is?
MAP OF MADOFF'S FAMILY-SOCIAL LABYRINTH USED
TO RAKE IN BILLIONS---INTERACTIVE AT WEB SITE
WEB SITE http://news.muckety.com/2008/12/28/madoff-used-social-family-networks-to-rake-in-billions/9031
That doe-eyed, winsome smirk hides an unspeakable evil.
"I'm Bernie. Trust me."
IOW. conservatives
"But at the same time, the elites have become more impressionable - more removed from everyday problems, more trusting of what they hear, and more likely to adopt unthinking viewpoints based on brand or emotion.
IOW libs
This was written was a few years back when Kristol was still playing “Let’s Pretend“....as he was getting ready to destroy the Republican party with religious cleansing and kicking so/conservatives to the curb. Billy's pal Douglas Feith was busy at his computer creating fake documents to dupe the next president.
Keep in mind, Kristol's fave prez candidate---Crusading NYC prosecutor Rooty Giuliani---COMPLETELY missed the Madoff fraud. Maybe it was all those campaign contributions flowing into his coffers from the East Side (snicker)?
.....what in the world was Mark Rich thinking in conducting business with Iran?......
“I’m a businessman.“ is his stock answer to any allegations of wrongdoing.
Fox reported today that Madoff’s mother invested all her money with him. 3 million. She is having to sell her Palm Beach home.
I think he stole from his sister not his mother.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2162614/posts
Anybody think Bernie is making a deal to stay home?
“Let me stay home and I will tell you which off shore accounts have my money. Send me to jail, screw you, you’ll never find the billions”
Whaddya think?
I'm checking out that Washington Report on Middle East Affairs site. A veeeeery interesting hard news piece on my favorite criminal, oops, 'public servant', Richard Perle and his cabal in Dubya's admin.
Serving Two Flags
Ah, I stand corrected.
Maybe the up from working class striver for country club family doesn't talk much about money much.
That Bernie, he sure was a busy guy, eh? Must of sucked down Red Bull by the gallon.
Yes, these brilliant elite are all fervent supporters of Zero.
(I rest my case).
Here's Peter's house.
As the No. 2 executive at Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, Peter Madoff worked side by side with his older brother Bernard for nearly 40 years.......Peter was viewed as Bernie's heir apparent so the brothers tried to avoid flying together when they went on skiing trips together. Now, they are keeping their distance. Peter has stopped coming into the office and isn't talking publicly about his role at the securities firm, where he headed trading operations.
Peter's daughter also joined the family business. She worked primarily as a "compliance lawyer" at Madoff Securities' market-making arm at the time of her uncle's arrest.
Both she and her father graduated Fordham law School....as did Megan Cheung the SEC analyst who scrutinized, and found no fraud in Madoff's operation.
Megan Cheung doesn’t work anymore and stays home to raise her two kids.
Must be nice, stay at home mom. She must of saved a lot of money. Of course kids are very expensive, schools maybe private schools and then there is college and retirement. That’s nice. I like a nice story. Picket fences. Kids in prep school. Maybe Mr. Cheung does quiet well now, or they have a rich uncle.
Three exchanges between former President Bill Clinton and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak on the Marc Rich pardon. The following are verbatim notes from conversations between former President Bill Clinton and former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak about the pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich. Other topics were covered by the two heads of state during their calls, but were edited out of the transcript.
Dec. 11, 2000, 6:17 - 6:36 p.m. (in the Presidential Residence):
Prime Minister [Ehud] Barak: Okay, thank you. One last remark. There is an American Jewish businessman living in Switzerland and making a lot of philanthropic contributions to Israeli institutions and activities like education, and he is a man called Mark [sic] Rich. He violated certain rules of the game in the United States and is living abroad. I just wanted to let you know that here he is highly appreciated for his support of so many philanthropic institutions and funds, and that if I can, I would like to make my recommendation to consider his case.
President Clinton: I am going to take all of them up at the same time. I know about that case because I know his ex-wife. She wants to help him, too. If your ex-wife wants to help you, that's good.
Prime Minister Barak: Oh. I know his new wife only, an Italian woman, very young. Okay. So, Mr. President, thank you very much. We will be in touch. [Rich's second wife, Gisela, is actually German.]
January 8, 2001, 5:57 - 6:15 p.m. (in the Oval Office):
Prime Minister Barak: Let me tell you last, but not least, two names I want to mention. [Redacted] The second is Mark [sic], the Jewish American.
President Clinton: I know quite a few things about that. I just got a long memo and am working on it. It's best that we not say much about that.
Prime Minister Barak: Okay. I understand. I'm not mentioning it in any place.
President Clinton: I understand.
Prime Minister Barak: I believe it could be important [gap] not just financially, but he helped Mossad on more than one case.
President Clinton: It is a bizarre case, and I am working on it.
Prime Minister Barak: Okay. I really appreciate it.
January 19, 2001, 2:47 - 3:09 p.m. (in the Oval Office):
President Clinton: [Redacted] I'm trying to do something on clemency for Rich, but it is very difficult.
Prime Minister Barak: Might it move forward?
President Clinton: I'm working on that but I'm not sure. I'm glad you asked me about that. When I finish these calls, I will go back into the meeting on that but I'm glad you raised it. Here's the only problem with Rich; there's almost no precedent in American history. There's nothing illegal about it but there's no precedent. He was overseas when he was indicted and never came home. The question is not whether he should get it or not but whether he should get it without coming back here. That's the dilemma I'm working through. I'm working on it.
Prime Minister Barak: Okay.
Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder, for example, mentioned that his reservations about a Rich pardon (if indeed he ever harbored any) were mitigated by its potential "foreign policy benefits."
Translated into the common lingo---that means that Rich's supporters pushed forward the pardon with the spoken (or unspoken) promise that peace would breakout in the Mideast........if the US pardoned Rich.
DONOR TO CLINTONS GETS MIDNIGHT PARDON
In 1983, Mark Rich was indicted in federal court of evading more than $48 million in taxes. He was also charged with 51 counts of tax fraud and with running illegal oil deals with Iran during the hostage crisis. Rich gave a $million to Hillary's campaign and $1/2 million to Bubba's Library to pay for his pardon and dismissal of his evasion of US taxes. He's also a friend of Clintonista Terry McAuliffe- Rich is just a regular guy (/s).
According to 2001 testimony given to the House Government Reform Committee hearing on Clinton's 11th-hour pardons, Israeli PM Barak called Clinton at least three times to urge him to pardon Rich. Three witnesses gave the exact same testimony - former White House chief of staff John Podesta, former White House counsel Beth Nolan, and former Clinton adviser Bruce Lindsey.
THE MAN WOULD WOULD BE OBAMA'S AG Emails prove that Eric Holder lied when he said he only heard about the Rich pardon in November of 2000. The emails prove he was involved as early as March of 2000. Holder's mission was to help Mark Rich evade Justice Dept procedure.
Somebody coordinated the testimony of the Clintonista witnesses. Could that have been Holder? Of course, Clinton or somebody else might have lied to them about the number of the calls at the time. Most suspect they were all coached into this particular lie.
REFERENCE Yoav Appel and News Agencies
FR Posted on 03/04/2001
JERUSALEM (March 4, 2001)
Despite congressional testimony to the contrary, the Prime Minister's Office yesterday refuted the claim that Prime Minister Ehud Barak made three calls to then president Bill Clinton in a bid to gain a pardon for fugitive financier Marc Rich. According to testimony given Thursday to the House Government Reform Committee hearing on Clinton's 11th-hour pardons, Barak called Clinton at least three times to urge him to pardon Rich. Three witnesses gave the same testimony - former White House chief of staff John Podesta, former White House counsel Beth Nolan, and former Clinton adviser Bruce Lindsey.
But last night the Prime Minister's Office was still standing by its the statement that Barak gave following the pardon. "The prime minister made one call and the matter was only raised at the end of the phone call, where Barak stressed Marc Rich's contribution to Israeli society," a source at the Prime Minister's Office said.
A source close to Barak expressed great surprise that people close to Clinton have passed the responsibility for Rich's pardon on to Israel. "It is obvious that a marginal telephone mention did not play a deciding role in the granting of the pardon. Even if it is convenient to say so, it is untrue, especially when other requests by Barak in which he invested much greater effort, like [Jonathan] Pollard, were not granted," said the source.
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