posted
Keep Pardongate Alive It’s still pertinent.
By Deroy Murdock March 9, 2001 10:15 AM
Investigating what appears to be a contributions-for-clemency racket suddenly looks like an unacceptable inconvenience. "I assume we have had enough hearings," Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R., Miss.) told reporters Monday. "I'm inclined to move on." Lott's capitulation parallels both President Bush's stated interest in "moving forward" and quieter pressure to end congressional probes into the notorious Marc Rich pardon.
If Bill Clinton essentially auctioned grants of clemency, he perpetrated an aggravated assault on one of this republic's basic tenets. Bush, Lott, and others eager to ring the curtain down on Pardongate are behaving disturbingly like accessories to high crimes.
U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White is investigating the Rich pardon and a possible votes-for-clemency swap that may have benefited Senator Hillary Clinton (D., NY) and already has reduced jail time for four Hasidic hustlers from New Square, New York.
Last week's hearing also revealed a March 18, 2000 e-mail in which Rich representative Avner Azulay proposed to Rich attorney Robert Fink that Denise Rich go "on a 'personal' mission to NO1 with a well-prepared script." ("NO1," investigators believe, was President Clinton.) Three days later, Rich gave $50,000 to Hillary Clinton's Senate campaign. Another $50,000 eventually followed. Over the next seven months, Rich pumped $275,000 into Democratic campaign coffers, plus $100,000 to the Clinton library (atop her $350,000 in previous gifts). On January 20, Denise Rich's $475,000 personal mission was accomplished when her ex-husband won his notorious pardon.
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise.
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