Politics - How the Clintons handled break of Roger and Hugh stories

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Current News : One Thread

MSNBC/Newsweek

Oh, Brothers! As the pardon mess grows, the Clintons struggle to survive—all over again By Howard Fineman, Mark Hosenball and Michael Isikoff NEWSWEEK

March 5 issue — It was crisis time in the Clinton household again, and the former president was taking evasive action.

HE’D SLIPPED UNNOTICED into Washington late last Monday night to see his family’s new mansion on Embassy Row. But before he arrived, his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, had heard disturbing news: the National Enquirer would soon disclose that one of her two brothers, Hugh Rodham, had been paid $200,000 for his work on the last-minute pardon of a notorious swindler named Almon Glenn Braswell.

The next morning, housewarming gave way to war-rooming. Bill phoned Hugh’s lawyer, demanding that Hillary’s brother return the cash—and another $200,000 he got for winning a commuted sentence for a convicted cocaine dealer. Clinton lawyers checked official records and drafted a cautiously worded denial. Then there was the stagecraft. It was decided that Bill had to scram before the story broke. He needed to be safely out of microphone range at the family’s other new home, in Chappaqua, N.Y. It was too late for the shuttle. So after midnight a Secret Service mini-motorcade got going. If you were driving I-95 in the wee small hours, you might have seen it: the 42d president, retreating north. Clinton can run, but he can’t hide much longer. Evidence continues to mount that his last days in the Oval Office were an apotheosis of access, a pardon pigout in which the jailhouse doors were opened and reputations restored to those with piles of cash and ties to the Clinton family and its friends. The list of characters in the pardon party is growing and includes not only Rodham, but also the president’s troubled half brother, Roger—and Hillary Clinton herself. First Friends on the list include megadonor Denise Rich and fund-raiser Beth Dozoretz as well as Hollywood buddy Harry Thomason, consigliere Harold Ickes and Hillary’s senatorial campaign treasurer, William Cunningham. The last three apparently followed the rules in obtaining pardons for two Little Rock businessmen. But like everyone else in the final days, they had Clinton connections—and were only too happy to use them. The clemency mess has drawn the full attention of Mary Jo White, New York’s U.S. attorney. Will Main Justice follow? Attorney General John Ashcroft isn’t yet eager to name a special counsel. But a legal source close to the White House tells NEWSWEEK that eventually Ashcroft might have no choice. This is now a sprawling legal matter that may require investigation in several states. In Congress, sources tell NEWSWEEK, some influential Republicans want the issue brought before Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee. The sometime movie actor knows the topic cold. A former U.S. attorney, Thompson prosecuted a sweeping pardon scandal in his home state in the late ’70s.

February 23 — The U.S. Attorney’s office in New York has opened a criminal investigation of the commutation of prison sentences for four Hasidic Jewish men. NBC’s Lisa Myers reports.

Though he won’t be a witness, Clinton is the central figure—and the political if not legal target. Disconsolate Democrats keep asking themselves, how could he? But investigators are asking a different question: Why? The critical legal issue now is clear enough: in those final frenzied days, did he issue any of his 140 pardons or 36 commutations in exchange for personal gain, or the expectation of personal gain? Investigators want to know if he favored donors—or prospective donors—to the fund established to build a $200 million library in his honor in Little Rock. If there’s a quid and a quo, is there a pro?

Clinton has vehemently denied that he considered anything other than “the merits” of justice in every case. And in fact, money per se has never motivated him. The laws on such matters have been narrowly construed; if there were legitimate reasons for the pardons, the presence of illegitimate ones isn’t enough. Most experts think he would be “exposed” in a criminal-law sense only if fugitive financier Marc Rich had secretly funneled money into the library fund—and if Clinton knew where it was coming from. But the probes are expanding and multiplying in ways that could put others in legal jeopardy—if they made or promised gifts in hopes of official actions. And they, in turn, may have damaging stories to tell about the former First Family.

Investigators are focusing on a key document: the list of contributors to the Clinton Library Foundation. Federal investigators are seeking records of the donors. Investigators told NEWSWEEK that they believe there is “a correlation” between thus-far unpublicized contributors and “other pardon-related issues.” Last week library lawyer David Kendall refused to turn over a full list to Rep. Dan Burton’s House committee. But Kendall—who is also the Clintons’ personal lawyer—gave the House some heavily redacted documents. They confirmed the names of two donors—Rich and Dozoretz—who had lobbied hard for the Rich pardon.

The two are, so far, the only known link between the pardons and the library. Denise Rich, according to the document, donated $450,000 to the fund. Beth Dozoretz, whom Clinton often calls for personal chats, pledged $1 million. Denise Rich wrote Clinton last December, begging for her former husband’s pardon “with all my heart.” Tom Green, Dozoretz’s attorney, last week told NEWSWEEK that she had “a very few conversations” with the former president in which the Rich pardon was “mentioned.” Money may not have been the only currency. Prosecutors want to know if votes were somehow sold, too—and in this case Hillary’s own actions are at issue. U.S. Attorney White, already investigating the Rich pardon, last week expanded her probe to Clinton’s grant of clemency to four Hasidic Jews who were convicted of defrauding the government in 1999 and who live in a community that happened to vote overwhelmingly for Hillary last fall. Hillary has denied that the subject of clemency came up before the election—and there is no evidence to the contrary. She sat in on a Dec. 22 meeting regarding clemency that President Clinton had with the leader of the group, but says she never uttered a word. Clintonistas had a new explanation for her silence last week. The Orthodox Hasidic men are uncomfortable in the presence of women. “They didn’t even acknowledge her,” said one Hillary adviser. If so, it may be the first time Mrs. Clinton had been glad to suffer under the yoke of male chauvinism.

The Clintons might instead have enjoyed discussing with the Hasidim Biblical tales of troubled brothers—and the troubles they can cause. Roger Clinton, it turns out, worked for at least six petitioners whom he privately assured of success. Indeed, he’d set himself up as a pardon lobbyist years earlier, and the FBI had launched a number of investigations into his efforts. One such case was put in motion after startled FBI agents heard Roger talking about how he could arrange clemency for a felon in jail for S&L fraud. FBI Director Louis Freeh, NEWSWEEK learned, had taken a personal interest in the case—but was rebuffed by Justice Department higher-ups. The FBI is said to remain interested. “Somebody needs to take a look at this,” insisted one FBI official.

Maybe so, but Roger apparently didn’t have any success in the final days. He says he left the list of proposed pardonees on a table in the White House, where he hoped his brother would see it. It’s not known whether Bill ever did. One of those on the list was a friend that Roger had made while serving a stretch in federal prison on cocaine charges. Two others were notorious in an Arkansas bond-dealing scandal. They had been convicted of cocaine charges in the freewheeling Little Rock of the ’80s, and one of them, Dan Lasater, had won a state pardon in 1990 from the then Gov. Bill Clinton. Roger Clinton says he wasn’t paid for his services, and none of those on the list got pardons. Only Roger got one.

At least initially, Hugh Rodham had more luck in his pardon work. A Florida-based lawyer who ran for the U.S. Senate in 1994 (with advice from Hillary), he has drawn unfavorable notices for some of his own business adventures. He and a third sibling, younger brother Tony Rodham, tried to set up a hazelnut-export business in the former Soviet republic of Georgia—until the State Department told them to stop. The brothers traveled to Taiwan and South Korea prospecting for business. During one visit, according to local press reports, they brought a gift and personal letter from Hillary to the Korean First Lady, Lee Hee-ho. (A spokesman for Mrs. Clinton says she does not recall the episode.)

When Hugh arrived to take up residence in the White House during the final days, Hillary’s friends say, she thought he was there solely for nostalgia’s sake. He had, after all, long since become a down-home, golf-playing buddy to the president. But it turns out that Hugh had other matters in mind—obtaining help for his new clients: Braswell, a convicted quack-remedy swindler, and Carlos Vignali, a drug trafficker convicted in 1994 of conspiracy to sell 800 pounds of powdered cocaine to a Minneapolis crack syndicate. Vignali’s application was vehemently opposed by the prosecutors involved. In Braswell’s case, Justice Department officials had no idea a pardon for him was even under consideration. Had they known, they would have objected in a heartbeat—given that they have an active criminal investigation of him for tax fraud underway. What happened after Hugh’s arrival remains murky. Rodham spoke about the Vignali case with Bruce Lindsey, Clinton’s longtime political confidant. Lindsey’s reply was noncommittal, and he claims he never raised it with the president. No one knows how Braswell’s name ended up on the final pardon list. Through his lawyer, Rodham denies that he discussed either case with Clinton, asserting he had “done absolutely nothing wrong” in representing Braswell and Vignali. Hillary last week publicly denied knowing what her brother was up to—let alone that he was being paid to represent the felons. “I was very disappointed and saddened by this whole matter,” she said at a packed Hill press conference.

Was Hillary really out of the loop? Her advisers concede that she knew that the pardon party had begun. But they insist that she was busy last December establishing two new homes and prepping for her Senate career. Asked about the pardons, Hillary repeated her mantra: “Ask my husband.” Indeed, she privately seemed unfazed by the revelations. She’d been told of the Enquirer story in the lobby of a movie theater. She was there with Chelsea to see “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.” Perhaps she was drawn to the plot: a Chinese fable about a well-educated woman who yearns to live in a male-dominated world of warriors. “Believe it or not, she has her own career to worry about now,” said one close friend late last week. That seemed clear—and may have been one reason her husband rode off in the middle of the night.

-- Anonymous, February 25, 2001


Moderation questions? read the FAQ