-Caveat Lector-
MICHAEL SPITZER wrote:
>
> -Caveat Lector-
>
> February 16, 2001
>
> White House won't hinder Rich probe
Yeah surrrre. Rich was a money man in the Iran Contra drugs/ weapons
/hostages covert op run by Daddy Bush for ( even ) then brain impaired
Reagan.
Bush is not sitting so tight on the throne that he can weather a rehash
of Iran Contra with what we know today.
Joshua2
>
> By Sean Scully
> THE WASHINGTON TIMES
>
> The White House will not interfere with a criminal probe of
> President Clinton's last-minute pardon of fugitive financier Marc
> Rich, despite President Bush's call to "move on" and not dwell on
> the incident.
>
> "I do not think it is the role of the president to dictate to
> the independent Justice Department what investigations they
> should or should not conduct," White House spokesman Ari
> Fleischer said yesterday. "The president has expressed his
> opinion when he was asked about the Marc Rich pardon."
>
> U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White of the Southern District of New
> York confirmed yesterday that her office is conducting a criminal
> probe of the Rich pardon, which Mr. Clinton issued only two hours
> before he left office, without any of the customary Justice
> Department review procedures that usually accompany pardons.
>
> While Mrs. White refused to elaborate on the nature of the
> probe, law-enforcement officials say she is looking into whether
> personal gifts and political contributions by Mr. Rich's ex-wife,
> Denise Rich, influenced Mr. Clinton's decision.
>
> Mrs. White is also looking into whether the wealthy Mr.
> Rich, who lives in Switzerland, might have helped Mrs. Rich
> finance the gifts. Mrs. Rich is believed to have contributed more
> than $1 million to Mr. Clinton's campaign, the Democratic
> National Committee (DNC) and Mr. Clinton's presidential library
> fund. She also gave furniture to the Clinton family.
>
> While the president has unlimited power to grant pardons
> under the Constitution, nothing exempts him from federal laws
> against bribery.
>
> In a statement released yesterday by his office, Mr. Clinton
> denied any wrongdoing.
>
> "As I have said repeatedly, I made the decision to pardon
> Marc Rich based on what I thought was the right thing to do," Mr.
> Clinton wrote. "Any suggestion that improper factors, including
> fund raising for the DNC or my library, had anything to do with
> the decision are absolutely false. I look forward to cooperating
> with any appropriate inquiry."
>
> Congressional investigators have been looking into the Rich
> pardon as well, even though Congress has no power to interfere
> with a presidential pardon.
>
> The federal investigation will temporarily derail the
> aggressive investigation envisioned by House Government Reform
> Committee Chairman Dan Burton, Indiana Republican.
>
> The committee's majority counsel, James Wilson, said it
> would maintain a "respectful distance" so it wouldn't conflict
> with Mrs. White's investigation.
>
> That means the committee will likely back off demands to
> have Mrs. Rich testify and, perhaps, issue subpoenas for bank
> records and other documents. It will also delay a plan by the
> committee to offer Mrs. Rich immunity in return for her
> testimony, staff said.
>
> But nevertheless, committee officials yesterday said they
> will subpoena three of Mr. Clinton's closest White House aides —
> former chief of staff John Podesta, lawyer Beth Nolan and adviser
> Bruce Lindsey — for the next hearing on the pardon.
>
> In addition, the panel will recall Rich attorney and former
> White House counsel Jack Quinn for the same hearing, which has
> been scheduled for March 1.
>
> The committee also asked Mr. Clinton and Mr. Rich to release
> all their aides and lawyers from any executive and
> attorney-client privilege so they can testify freely.
>
> "We're also asking Mr. 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 told reporters.
>
> On Monday, Mr. Bush told reporters that he is not interested
> in questions about Mr. Rich, or other scandals surrounding the
> former president. There were reports that Mr. Clinton's staffers
> vandalized the White House on their way out, and Mr. Clinton
> admits that he took furniture and gifts from the White House when
> he left.
>
> "My attitude is, all this business about the transition,
> it's time to move on, it is," Mr. Bush said. "It's time to stay
> looking forward, and that's what I'm going to do."
>
> Mr. Fleischer said yesterday that Mr. Bush's attitude has
> not changed in any way. But he said that does not mean Mr. Bush
> is calling for a halt to Mrs. White's probe.
>
> "One of the things that President Bush stressed in his
> selection of the person to run the Department of Justice is it
> should be a nonpolitical Department of Justice," Mr. Fleischer
> said. "And when something is nonpolitical, that means you leave
> investigative decisions to the professionals who make those
> decisions."
>
> Mr. Fleischer said Mr. Bush is not worried that a scandal
> over the actions of his predecessor might in some way harm his
> own power to grant pardons. There have been suggestions on
> Capitol Hill to amend the Constitution to curtail the president's
> broad pardon power, and some legal scholars say a bribery probe
> into the Rich pardon could open up a narrow window for courts to
> review presidential pardons for the first time in history.
>
> The criminal investigation "is a separate issue," Mr.
> Fleischer said. "It does not deal with the president's
> prerogatives. The president's prerogatives to grant pardons are
> given from the Constitution, and the president, President Bush,
> still enjoys those powers undiluted."
>
> Justice Department officials have said that Mr. Quinn did
> not follow the regular process of applying for a pardon. Although
> no president needs Justice Department permission before pardoning
> someone, it is customary to ask for a thorough review before
> making a decision.
>
> In this case, Justice Department officials in charge of
> reviewing pardon applications did not learn of the Rich pardon
> until the early hours of Jan. 20, the day Mr. Clinton left
> office. Deputy Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. testified at a
> Senate hearing Wednesday that he had spoken with Mr. Quinn
> several times in the preceding months but had never signed off on
> any plan to pardon Mr. Rich.
>
> While Mr. Holder did not criticize Mr. Clinton directly, he
> did express frustration with the pardon and with the way the
> matter was presented to him by White House officials and by Mr.
> Quinn, who assured Mr. Clinton that he had "run it by" the
> Justice Department for an opinion.
>
> "I think 'running it by Justice' is a pretty good
> description of what happened," Mr. Holder said.
>
> Jerry Seper, reporting from Chicago, contributed to this article,
> which is based in part on wire service reports.
>
> =================================================================
> Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT
>
> FROM THE DESK OF:
> *Michael Spitzer* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends
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