-Caveat Lector-
Opinions: DAN K. THOMASSON: An appearance of impropriety
Scripps Howard News Service
WASHINGTON (February 20, 2001 12:05 a.m. EST
http://www.nandotimes.com) - There is an old rule of thumb in
ferreting out political corruption: Follow the money.
That was true in the Teapot Dome scandals of the 1920s and in the
Bobby Baker Senate scandals of the early 1960s. It was true in
the Watergate debacle a decade later and it is true in the
current matter of former fugitives Marc Rich and Pincus Green.
Following the greenbacks - some $1.45 million of them - leads
even the most naive of us to the almost inescapable conclusion
that Bill Clinton's startling pardons of Rich and Green were
predicated on money. If it looks like a bribe and it smells like
a bribe, chances are it is a bribe. Even if one is inclined to be
as generous as possible to the ex-president, the appearance of
impropriety here is enormous.
Now Clinton has offered us his rationale for the pardons in an
essay for The New York Times. In typical Clinton fashion, it is
full of spin and half-truths, avoidance and outright dissembling,
including the implication that he had a foreign policy motive.
Rich, it seems, actually spread a lot of his cash around for
"charitable" purposes over the years. He was generous with
Israel, whose officials, including Prime Minister Ehud Barak,
lobbied Clinton for Rich's relief from a 17-year indictment on
charges of tax evasion, $48 million worth.
Rich had renounced his citizenship in 1983 rather than answer the
charges in court. But in the current high-roller atmosphere of
politics, where big bucks drive everything, even that outrage can
be overcome if you show compassion to the right people.
Clinton categorically denies that his pardons for Rich and Green
were a quid pro quo for donations from Rich's ex-wife, Denise, to
the Democratic Party, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and to the
Clinton presidential library. He contended that three prominent
Republican lawyers approved of the pardon. All three, however,
denied this the moment the allegation appeared.
While Clinton could be expected to deny the obvious implication
that pardons were for sale in his administration, the former
president's disparagement of the country's criminal justice
system is most alarming. He made it clear that he felt that Rich
and Green were victims of overzealous government attorneys who
should have filed civil, rather than criminal, actions. Thus, it
was all right apparently for these extremely wealthy men to flee
their country to avoid prosecution because of an unfair process.
This is a disturbing position for a man who took a solemn oath to
uphold the rule of law as the nation's highest officer. It would
have been helpful if he had explained why Rich and Green chose to
be fugitives rather than face their day in court if the case for
their innocence was so strong.
The former president also failed to deal with allegations that
Rich and Green had ignored an embargo against doing business with
Iran, which at the time was holding Americans hostage and defying
every international rule of civilized behavior.
Meanwhile, Clinton's allies have begun to try to build backfires.
They plant stories that allege that all this furor about pardons
and gifts of furniture and office space and so forth is the
result of a well orchestrated scheme by George Bush and his
minions.
At the same time, friends of Denise Rich are offering
testimonials that she wouldn't be a party to anything as ugly as
trying to bribe the president of the United States. She was just
a "naive soul."
Please don't insult our intelligence. If that were the case, why
then did she refuse to testify before Congress, claiming her
Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination? Why then is
the federal prosecutor who is determined to get to the bottom of
this sorry mess contemplating offering her immunity for her
testimony?
Could it be that the hundreds of thousands of dollars she donated
to help finance the political activities of her White House
friends actually came from someone other than Denise Rich? Do we
wonder who that might have been?
Politicians and mobsters frequently use "cutouts" (to borrow and
old spy phrase) for diverting attention from the real source. The
record of the Clinton-Gore campaign funding scandals is replete
with examples of this kind of activity. Some might compare it to
money laundering.
The former president has been headed for a comeuppance over this
behavior from the moment he began renting out the Lincoln bedroom
to big campaign contributors. But while the money trail makes it
fairly clear what happened here, nothing is likely to happen to
Clinton. That may not be so true for the other key players in
this shameful matter.
Dan K. Thomasson is former editor of Scripps Howard News Service.
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