An indignant Bill Clinton denied on Thursday that he pardoned the fugitive financier Marc Rich in return for political donations, but a criminal investigation into the controversial pardon began, and it seems certain to keep the latest Clinton scandal on the boil for a while.
Clinton issued his denial as a federal prosecutor in New York was authorized by the justice department to investigate whether money played a part in the pardoning of Rich on Jan. 20.
PHOTO: AP
US attorney Mary Jo White, a Clinton appointee, is expected to examine bank and telephone records for evidence of illegal conduct by Rich and his supporters, as well as by Clinton himself.
"As I have said repeatedly, I made the decision to pardon Marc Rich based on what I thought was the right thing to do," Clinton's statement said. "Any suggestions that improper factors, including fundraising for the Democratic national committee or my library had anything to do with the decision, are absolutely false. I look forward to cooperating with any appropriate inquiry."
White's office and the FBI said that they had opened a joint investigation to find out if federal laws were breached.
Clinton and some of his closest former colleagues are now braced for at least three intensifying investigations into the pardons, which were issued just two hours before he left the White House.
White's is likely to become the most important. She runs the federal prosecution office in New York, which was once run by the New York mayor, Rudolph Giuliani.
Giuliani secured the original 51-count indictment of Rich in September 1983 on charges of arms trading, fraud and US$48 million tax evasion. The case is still the biggest tax evasion prosecution in US history.
White was not consulted about the Rich pardon and was reportedly "livid" when news of it emerged.
Rich and his co-defendant Pincus Green fled to Switzerland before the case went to court more than 17 years ago and both men have remained there ever since, while continuing to expand their hugely profitable commodities trading businesses.
The US authorities have been involved in regular talks for the past 17 years to try to resolve the Rich case, but proposed deals have fallen through because Rich refused to serve a jail sentence.
Early last year White refused to negotiate with Rich, saying that it would "give defendants an incentive to flee [from the US]."
Rich has now abandoned his US citizenship. In 1993 his 27-year marriage to the former Denise Eisenberg broke up.
The key issues in the new investigation are why and how Clinton added Rich's name to the list of 141 presidential pardons.
After Denise Rich returned to the US with her three daughters in the mid-1990s, she made a glittering career as a Manhattan socialite and a courtier at the Clinton White House, and became a major donor to the Democratic party.
She gave it more than US$500,000, and pledged at least US$450,000 to Clinton's presidential library fund. Some reports, denied by both sides, say her library pledge is far larger and could be as high as US$10 million.
Last year she also gave a set of two coffee tables and upholstered chairs to the Clintons, worth US$7,735, which the former presidential couple took with them when they left the White House.
Such support raises the question of whether Denise Rich tried to buy her former husband's pardon.
So far she has refused to testify on the grounds that she might incriminate herself.
Other issues under scrutiny are the means employed by Rich and his US lawyer Jack Quinn to orchestrate the behind-the-scenes lobbying which led to the pardon and, in particular, how the justice department and White's office were kept in ignorance of it.
Quinn says he focused his main effort on Rich's behalf by using his own access to the White House as a former counsel there and by encouraging prominent Israelis to pressure Clinton.
The former head of Israel's Mossad spy agency, Avner Azulay, said that former prime ministers Ehud Barak and Shimon Peres both spoke personally to Clinton about Rich's proposed pardon.
Azulay said he believed Clinton granted the pardon because of Rich's role in helping Jews get out of Ethiopia and Yemen.
The presidential pardon power is enshrined in the constitution. In all, Clinton issued 395 pardons in eight years, compared with 393 issued by Ronald Reagan in his two White House terms.
Meanwhile, three of Clinton's closest White House aides will be subpoenaed for the next House hearing into Rich's pardon, officials said.
The panel on Thursday asked the three aides -- former chief of staff John Podesta, lawyer Beth Nolan and adviser Bruce Lindsey -- to testify at their first hearing last week, but none of them appeared. This time the committee plans to issue subpoenas to ensure their presence at the March 1 hearing, officials said.
The questioning will reach into the Bush administration this time, a committee source said, with the committee likely to call Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, one of Rich's former lawyers.
The House Government Reform Committee also asked Clinton and Rich to release all their aides and lawyers from any executive privilege so they can testify at the committee's March 1 hearing without betraying any confidentiality oaths.
"We're also asking ... Rich, if he has nothing to hide, to let his counsel speak freely and that goes for the documents that have been claimed by them as well," committee spokesman Mark Corello said.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique