-Caveat Lector- WJPBR Email News List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Peace at any cost is a Prelude to War! Clinton stirs fresh debate with defense of Rich pardon Defense of fugitive financier has Republicans in an uproar By MICHAEL HEDGES Copyright 2001 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau WASHINGTON -- Former President Clinton's first detailed defense of the pardon of financier Marc Rich raised new questions Sunday from Republicans involved in the fugitive's case. Far from putting the controversy to rest, the explanation "raises more questions than it answers," said New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who originally prosecuted Rich. In a lengthy opinion piece published in the New York Times, Clinton denied he issued the pardons because of payments by Rich's ex-wife to his library project, his wife's Senate campaign and the Democratic Party. Clinton said he acted "in the best interest of justice." "The suggestion that I granted the pardons because Mr. Rich's former wife, Denise, made political contributions and contributed to the Clinton library foundation is utterly false," he wrote. "There was absolutely no quid pro quo." But one of the reasons Clinton listed for granting the pardon touched off a fresh controversy. Clinton said the case for the pardon was "reviewed and advocated ... by three distinguished Republican attorneys: Leonard Garment, a former Nixon White House official, William Bradford Reynolds, a former high-ranking official in the Reagan Justice Department, and Lewis Libby, now Vice President (Dick) Cheney's chief of staff." But the three men emphatically denied they "reviewed and advocated" the Rich pardon. "It is absolutely false that I knew about and endorsed the idea of a pardon," Garment said in a separate Times article. Reynolds said, "I was astounded. I have had no communications with the Clinton administration or the president ... having to do with the effort to obtain the pardon at any time." A Cheney spokeswoman said, "The assertion that Mr. Libby had anything to do with President Clinton's pardon is nonsense." Following those denials, former White House spokesman Joe Lockhart told ABC-TV's This Week that Clinton made a mistake to include them. "It is incorrect to say that they were part of the pardon application," Lockhart conceded. But Lockhart said it was earlier work by the three, who served as Rich attorneys at different times, "that persuaded the president that he ought to grant the pardon." An editor's note in today's Times said, "During the press run, Clinton's office asked that the reference to `applications' be changed to `the case for the pardons' to try to clarify Clinton's point." The revision, the Times said, was meant to refer to the principle that Lockhart spoke of. New York U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White, a Clinton appointee, announced last week she had opened a criminal investigation into the pardon to determine whether Rich had bought it. Rich, along with business partner Pincus Green, fled the United States in 1983, shortly before being indicted in the largest tax-fraud case in American history. Rich was charged with 50 counts of racketeering, wire fraud, income-tax evasion and illegal oil trading with Iran. The Rich pardon touched off criticism after it was revealed his former wife donated more than $1 million to Democratic campaigns, more than $100,000 to Hillary Rodham Clinton's Senate race, and $450,000 as a first payment on a donation to the Clinton library. The controversy deepened as it was revealed Clinton granted the pardon without input from the federal prosecutors in New York, or from the U.S. Justice Department. In his Sunday article, Clinton said he had several reasons for pardoning Rich, including that other oil companies doing similar deals were not charged criminally but "were instead sued civilly by the government." Clinton also said he had important foreign-policy reasons for giving Rich clemency. "Many present and former high-ranking Israeli officials of both major political parties and leaders of the Jewish communities in America and Europe urged the pardon of Mr. Rich because of his contributions and services to Israeli charitable causes," Clinton wrote. Previously, Clinton said that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and the man who recently defeated him, Ariel Sharon, both sought the pardon. Giuliani, who led the investigation of Rich when he was U.S. attorney in New York's southern district, said on Fox News Sunday that Clinton's letter left out the fact that Rich was trading with Iran during the 1979 hostage crisis. Giuliani said Clinton's claim that Rich should have been charged in civil court rather than criminally was wrong. "Marc Rich ran away for 17 years. These charges included trading with Iran during the hostage crisis, energy violations, a number of other frauds," Giuliani said. Clinton's explanation of the pardon also left some Democrats, who have been critical of the former president's actions since leaving office, unsatisfied. On CBS-TV's Face the Nation Sunday, Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman of California, who has been a strong Clinton ally, said Clinton's explanation left him unpersuaded. "It bothered me a lot that the president didn't get the full input from the prosecuting attorneys in New York and from the Justice Department," said Waxman. "When you look at the facts, it just doesn't seem on the surface to warrant a pardon for a man who is a fugitive from justice." 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