Posted on 12/13/2004 1:14:49 AM PST by kattracks
POST WORLD EXCLUSIVEWASHINGTON — Billionaire Marc Rich has emerged as a central figure in the U.N. oil-for-food scandal and is under investigation for brokering deals in which scores of international politicians and businessmen cashed in on sweetheart oil deals with Saddam Hussein, The Post has learned.
Rich, the fugitive Swiss-based commodities trader who received a controversial pardon from President Bill Clinton in January 2001, is a primary target of criminal probes under way in the U.S. attorney's office in New York and by Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, sources said.
"We think he was a major player in this — a central figure," a senior law-enforcement official told The Post.
Investigators are looking into a series of deals that took place in the months after his pardon from Clinton.
[snip]
Investigators now believe Rich and Pollner brokered many of the deals by finding buyers for the oil allocated to people who were bribed by Saddam.
[snip]
So intense is the interest of prosecutors in the Rich connection that Pollner was recently "grabbed" and questioned by investigators from Morgenthau's office as he was on his way to Kennedy Airport for an overseas trip, a law-enforcement official told The Post.
[snip]
Investigators still do not know how recipients of the vouchers led to Rich, but say his relationship with Saddam goes back more than a decade.
A report by the House Government Reform Committee on Rich's clemency deal established that it was well known to the CIA and other U.S. law-enforcement agencies at the time of the pardon that Rich had been dealing with Saddam since the early 1990s — after the Persian Gulf War when Iraq was the subject of an international embargo.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Nice going.......nominated for the Understatement of the Year.
Marc Rich runs thousands of so-called trading companies that are used to hide wrongdoing.
It would have been a simple matter for criminal minds like Clinton and Rich to hatch a scheme by which illegal monies would be deposited in trading co. bank acounts as legitimate "fees" or some such nonsense.
Don't worry, there's still See-BS to rely on to tell the truth to the American people.
Prairie
The effort by the MWDP is already underway as they are now heading toward equating the Kerik foul-up with the multitude of Clintoon felonies.
As bad as Slick was, one can't let pass the realization that he was and is a lazy bum and a total buffoon; the real menace is his lovely bride. No way Bill Clinton has the smarts or initiative to pull off the caper that was his presidency without considerable aid from the PIAP.
you know with a sweet campaign and lifestyle funding deal like "oil-for-food" going around that the Clintons would have to be in
Is it too late to devote a section of the Clinton museum to this?
I wonder if these investigations will drag George Galloway back into it.
It will...be assured..
There's the tie to Beestie. And what the heck was Barak's interest in setting Rich free?
Posted on 11/14/2003 4:08:11 AM EST by kattracks
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.
Originally published on November 14, 2003
Bless you for that excellent summation.
The list of Clinton's crimes are breathtaking, and the ones you mentioned, the most egregious.
It now looks like Clinton's negligence (or participation?) in the Oil for Food scandal---and facilitating Rich's activities through the criminality of the pardon----helped finance 9/11.
Indeed....what in hell are we waiting for?
How much more damn proof do we need?
I wonder if any Oil For Food money has found its way to to the Clinton Library?
Since he committed these crimes AFTER the pardon doesn't that mean he can be charged for them?
Nice find, TR.
So Denise lied? Watta surprise (/sarc).
Of course, if someone has to be the "sacrifical lamb" for the outrage of the Rich pardon, it would be really, really nice if it turned out to be Denise the Bag Lady.
I don't get that date. Surely Rich was acting as a middleman long before 2001?
If you're going after Hilary, and by extension, BIll, the Feds have to have it nailed down cold..hard evidence..corroborated testimony..the whole enchilada, otherwise it will be dismissed as a "political witchhunt"..The good guys know this..athey also operate on the assumption that Hillary doesn't know exactly what they have as yet..If she decides NOT to run..either in 06 or 08..then we can connect the dots...alo look for someone high in the UN to cut a deal..
Don't the folks in the UN have diplomatic immunity? If so, they're untouchable. Which means the feds will have to go after businessmen, bureaucrats, and/or pols. Fine by me, though. Anyone who was in on this ought to be doing time right next to Saddamn.
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