-Caveat Lector-
January 22, 2001
Was a pardon a quid pro quo?
By Joseph Curl
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
The former wife of Marc Rich, the fugitive commodities
trader and tax evader pardoned by President Clinton in his final
hours in office, donated more than $1 million to Democratic
causes since 1992, including Bill Clinton's and Al Gore's
presidential campaigns.
Mr. Rich fled to Switzerland in 1983 after the U.S. government
indicted him on 65 counts of tax fraud, racketeering and tax
evasion charges that carry a maximum 325 years in jail.
The billionaire trader, one of the world's richest men, was
accused of evading more than $48 million in taxes and faced
prosecution for violating U.S. sanctions by trading oil with Iran
during the time Iran held American hostages.
Denise Rich, who now lives in New York, contributed nearly
$1.3 million to Mr. Clinton and Mr. Gore's campaigns, the
Democratic National Committee and various Democratic causes,
including contributions to Hillary Rodham Clinton's New York
Senate campaign. She also has donated to more than a dozen
congressional campaigns.
Mrs. Rich, who identifies herself on federal contribution
records as a "songwriter," "actress" or "philanthropist," also
gave money to pro-choice and family-planning organizations with
Democratic ties and a group called "Friends of Albert Gore, Jr.
Inc."
She contributed as well to the campaigns of former Sen.
Charles S. Robb of Virginia and Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski of
Maryland.
It was not clear if she was married to Mr. Rich when she
made the contributions, but a January 1992 Fortune magazine
article about her husband identified Mrs. Rich as his wife.
Mr. Rich's attorney, former Clinton White House counsel Jack
Quinn, had been lobbying for a pardon for Mr. Rich. Asked
yesterday about the pardon of Mr. Rich, Mr. Clinton said he had
spent a lot of time considering the case.
"I spent a lot of personal time . . . because it's an
unusual case, but Quinn made a strong case, and I was convinced
he was right on the merits," said Mr. Clinton, speaking to
reporters in suburban Chappaqua, N.Y., where he now lives.
"That's all I can say. Others might disagree, but I think
Quinn made a very compelling case in the end."
Mr. Rich and his former business partner, Pincus Green, have
not returned to the United States since their companies pleaded
guilty in 1984 to evading millions of dollars in taxes by
concealing profits on oil trading. They remain in Switzerland, a
haven for laundered money that does not recognize tax evasion as
sufficient grounds for extradition.
The case against the two men and Mr. Rich's Swiss metals and
commodities trading firm, Marc Rich & Co., was at the time the
largest tax-evasion case in U.S. history.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Mr. Rich, now
66, conspired in April 1980 with the Iranian government to
purchase more than 6 million barrels of oil, in violation of the
trade embargo imposed by the United States.
Mr. Clinton granted pardons to 140 persons Saturday,
including a key figure in the Whitewater scandal, Susan McDougal;
former CIA Director John Deutch; ex-Housing and Urban Development
head Henry Cisneros; and one-time fugitive heiress Patty Hearst
Shaw. Mr. Clinton also pardoned Mr. Green.
The pardon does not erase a criminal record, although it
does restore rights lost as a result of a criminal conviction,
such as the right to vote or the right to carry weapons. In cases
where a pardon is issued to someone who has not been convicted of
a crime, the pardon ends all pending legal matters.
Pardons often are granted to those who have adopted
high-profile philanthropic campaigns, something Mr. Rich's
associates say he has done.
Mr. Clinton 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," Mr.
Clinton said.
"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."
It is not clear how Mr. Rich "paid in full." He told the
Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv last year that he has attempted to
settle his tax fraud case with the United States on numerous
occasions, even offering to pay more than $100 million in fines,
but balked at prosecutors' insistence that he serve jail time.
Despite his fugitive status, Mr. Rich has remained a force
in world-commodity trading. The Fortune magazine article said Mr.
Rich had, since 1988, sold the U.S. Mint more than $25 million in
copper, nickel and other metals to make coins.
"Now Congress wants to know how Rich . . . made a cozy
customer out of the same government that indicted him," Fortune
reported.
Rep. Bob Wise, West Virginia Democrat, called a special
subcommittee hearing into the matter and accused the Mint and the
Treasury of "enriching the biggest tax evader in U.S. history."
Embarrassed Treasury officials promised to consider putting his
U.S. affiliate, Clarendon Ltd., on the blacklist for government
procurement, Fortune reported.
Despite his own personal legal cloud, Mr. Rich's firm, based
in Zug, Switzerland, still trades in metals and grain, with about
$6 billion in trading volume. The firm employs about 300 people
in offices in London; Moscow; Beijing; Bucharest, Romania; and
White Plains, N.Y.
Mr. Rich has spent 17 years living in exile, but he does not
live as a man on the run. He lives primarily in a guarded villa
in Zug, where the walls are adorned with paintings by van Gogh,
Picasso and Monet. He spends time at his residences in Israel and
Spain, both of which, like Switzerland, do not recognize
tax-fraud charges under their extradition agreements with the
U.S. government.
Mr. Rich has been a free spender during stays in Israel,
becoming one of the country's biggest philanthropists. Bloomberg
News Service reported in 1999 that Mr. Rich gave $3 million to
the Tel Aviv Museum and $1.4 million to the Israel Museum in
Jerusalem and another $1 million to help construct the Tel Aviv
Cinematheque.
Other charitable donations Mr. Rich has made include gifts
to Swiss concert halls, an eye clinic in Zimbabwe and a health
program for Palestinian children. In all, Mr. Rich's associates
say, he has given more than $100 million to charitable groups in
50 different countries since he was indicted.
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