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 ...
This starts my day out sweetly and makes my tagline all the more appropriate.
Does anyone know if the networks have touched this story and made mention of Clinton's pardon?
NO!
The Saddam Oil Vouchers Affair (Details-Glencore) 02/19/2004 (Chronology of Oil-for-food scandal)
Documents Prove U.N. Oil Corruption Insight, | April 13, 2004 | Kenneth R. Timmerman
Marc Rich Tied to U.N. Oil for Food Scandal (NewsMax) 04/29/2004
(Marc) Rich linked to money laundering (Nordex)6/21/02
....something on the order of say having a "blue dress"? (/sarc)
Lookit, the evidence is there, it's just that the bar to obtain justice has been raised so high, even videoed and audioed crimes in progress is not enough.
You got enough money, and cagey lawyers, you can buy "experts," and introduce anything in a court of law as exculpatory evidence.
From the link.
The PARDON investigation evaporated into nothing, and this Marc Rich tie to Saddam will probably evaporate too. Why? If the NY Times went after this story the way they went after the men only golf club story in Georgia, you'd see frontpage headlines for 6 months.
Bingo! Too bad it's too big for a bumper sticker.
"Indeed....what in hell are we waiting for?"
Patience Liz,. . . . patience.
Hell has a place for the Clintons and Richs that cheat and defraud their fellow man. We may not see justice in this lifetime, but there will be a judgment day.
" The NYP is reliable."
Yep, and Morganthau's on the case--Manhattan DA--and the US Attorneys office. So's the WSJ. Methinks this one's going to have legs.
Toon didn't pardon Rich until 2000. The UN was dealing with Rich and his company long before that, while the guy was still on the lam. A fugitive. A felon. Nice people the UN does business with, eh?
Have to agree that this story will be buried. After a few columns nothing will ever come of this.
One name I am watching for in OFF is Aurora, the company of Michael Prest, old of Phibro and Marc Rich & Co.
And what ever happened to that bag of money a carrier for Rich tried to get thru customs at Heathrow(?) a few years ago?
Judgement Day will come. All well and good.
However, we live in a democracy whose shining lodestar....and rockhard foundation...... is the rule of law.
We cannot allow the rule of law to be harmed in any way.
Allowing Clinton to get away with his crimes, tarnishes the rule of law, and diminishes democracy.
That means all of us are diminshed ---and our liberties undermined---by these crimes.
With the Clintons; charity truely begins at home, and the more chairty for themselves; the better. Read "King of Cons". It will tell you just how all of these so called helpers of humanity only help themselves.
Eliot Spitzer, caped crusader...did he ever investigate Marc Rich?
"Clinton screwed up big time. Looks likes he is going to have to add to the libary and make it a doublewide to house the Clinton/Rich/OFF scandal spin exhibit."
Isn't it odd that Clinton's memorial to himself is so close to the Dimwits description of some of the women he became entangled with?
There should be a sign out front that says "This is true trailer trash".
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