-Caveat Lector-
Protocol Breach Cited in Rich Case
By James V. Grimaldi and Susan Schmidt
Washington Post
Staff Writers
Wednesday, February 14, 2001
Page A01
The Justice Department official in charge of reviewing pardon
applications plans to tell a Senate committee today that "none of
the regular procedures were followed" in President Clinton's
pardons of commodity traders Marc Rich and Pincus Green, offering
a dramatic account of the frantic final hours preceding the
pardons.
In prepared testimony submitted to the Senate Judiciary
Committee, U.S. Pardon Attorney Roger C. Adams relates how, when
his office was informed in a post-midnight phone call from the
White House that the pardons were under consideration, the White
House counsel's office told him that "little information" existed
on Rich and Green because "they had been living abroad for
several years." The two men have not returned to the United
States since they were indicted 17 years ago on widely publicized
charges of evading $48 million in income taxes.
The pardon attorney's office was so unprepared that a staffer had
to conduct an Internet search to gather more information on Rich
and Green, according to Adams, who is to testify before the
committee today. He said he used the Justice Department's
command center to call then-deputy attorney general Eric Holder
at home at 1 a.m. only to learn that Holder was already aware
the pardon was under consideration.
Adams has only spoken briefly in public about the raft of pardons
Clinton issued on his last day in office, telling The Washington
Post on Inauguration Day, "I've never seen anything like this."
His testimony will represent the first public accounting of the
Rich pardon from the point of view of the career lawyers whose
job it is to review pardon applications. Adams is to testify
along with Holder and Jack Quinn, the former White House counsel
who helped secure the Rich pardon.
Even as the Senate planned its first hearings into the pardons
and a House subcommittee issued subpoenas to some of the key
figures, President Bush said it was "time to move on" beyond the
controversy.
"Congress is going to do what they're going to do. They've
already started the process," Bush told reporters aboard Air
Force One as he returned from a visit to Norfolk Naval Air
Station.
"My attitude is . . . all this business about the transition,
it's time to move on. I'm just . . . looking forward, and
that's what I'm going to do," he said.
The House Government Reform Committee issued subpoenas yesterday
for the records of all donors of more than $5,000 to the Clinton
library fund and records in an attempt to determine whether there
is a link between contributions by Rich's ex-wife, Denise Rich,
and the pardon. Denise Rich contributed $450,000 to the Clinton
library fund in three payments from July 1998 to May 2000.
The committee also asked for records from the National Archives,
including telephone records and e-mails mentioning Marc or Denise
Rich from Clinton, former adviser Bruce Lindsey, former White
House chief of staff John Podesta and former White House counsel
Beth Nolan. The requests also seek records involving Beth
Dozoretz, a Rich friend and former Democratic National Committee
official who discussed the pardon with Clinton, and Terry
McAuliffe, a Clinton library fundraiser and the new DNC chairman.
Also yesterday, sources said Lindsey, who was a deputy White
House counsel, was the official who telephoned Arthur Levitt Jr.,
the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, on the
morning of Jan. 19, the day before Clinton left office, to tell
him the president was considering pardoning Rich. The fact that
a call had been made was known previously, but not that it came
from Lindsey, one of the president's closest confidants.
After consulting his staff, Levitt called Lindsey back and
registered strong objections.
Levitt concluded that the pardon would not occur, he said in an
interview, because the Clinton aide -- whom he said he did not
want to name -- clearly signaled that he too thought it was a bad
idea that would not get off the ground. "He said, 'This guy is a
fugitive, and it seems this is an inappropriate use of the pardon
authority,' " Levitt recalled.
The disclosure of Lindsey's call adds to the information on how
Clinton's top aides advised against the pardon. In addition to
Lindsey, then-White House chief of staff Podesta and White House
counsel Nolan had expressed reservations, according to interviews
and documents.
Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), who is leading the Senate probe,
said yesterday that he will ask Adams whether a number of the
Clinton pardons are invalid because legal procedures were not
followed. "There may be a real issue as to whether a pardon has
been granted here," Specter told reporters yesterday.
As Adams describes the early-morning hours of Jan. 20 in his
prepared testimony, as his staffer was surfing the Internet, the
FBI faxed records that "confirmed Rich and Green were wanted
fugitives whom law enforcement authorities were willing to
extradite for a variety of felony charges, including mail and
wire fraud, arms trading and tax evasion."
Holder, in an interview yesterday, said he had been preoccupied
with reports of a possible threats against President Bush when
Adams called him about the Rich pardon. "I was really distracted
that night," Holder said. "We had very good intelligence about
what was going to happen the next day. That was my focus that
night."
Holder said at last week's House hearing that he had little
knowledge of the Rich case. "Within the deputy attorney
general's office, when we first heard about this matter, back in,
I guess, the latter part of '99, none of us were familiar with
Mr. Rich," Holder said.
As U.S. attorney in the District of Columbia in April 1995,
however, Holder announced a $1.2 million civil settlement with a
government contractor on grounds it was "indirectly owned by
fugitive Marc Rich," according to his own news release. The
company, Clarendon Ltd., was supplying coin metal to the U.S.
Mint in contracts valued at $45 million. The company was barred
from doing business with the federal government if any of its
principals were under indictment. Holder's office charged that
Rich had "substantial indirect ownership" of the company.
Staff writer Robert O'Harrow contributed to this report.
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