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Wednesday morning, investigators for the House Government Reform
Committee were waiting for the arrival
of subpoenaed documents in the Marc Rich pardon case. By Wednesday
night, they found themselves expanding their probe to include two
other last-minute actions by Bill Clinton — the pardon granted
to millionaire health huckster Almon Glenn Braswell and the commutation
of sentence given to convicted cocaine distributor Carlos Vignali.
Both had been facilitated by Hugh Rodham, brother of former First
Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton. At least with Braswell, Rodham had
a deal which provided for him to be paid a "success fee" if a pardon
was actually delivered. It was, and Rodham collected $200,000 from
Braswell, to go with the $200,000 he had already gotten from Vignali.
"I think we have to look at this now," said a committee source who
earlier in the day suggested that the pardon investigation might
be winding down. By the end of the evening, committee chairman Dan
Burton had faxed lists of questions to both Rodham and Vignali.
Burton wants to know not only what role Rodham played in the case
for each man, but also whether Rodham helped anybody else win clemency.
"Have you or any individual in your firm had contact with President
Clinton, First Lady Hillary Clinton or any individual in the White
House, the purpose of which was to advocate a pardon or commutation?"
Burton asked Rodham. "If so, please list all such contacts, naming
the individual with whom you spoke and describe the substance of
such communication."
Braswell was found guilty of fraud in 1983 in connection with his
multi-million dollar business selling phony health-care products.
His pardon attracted attention in recent weeks after it was discovered
that he is currently the target of a federal grand-jury investigation
in Los Angeles focusing on possible charges of tax evasion and money
laundering. Vignali was found guilty of drug running in 1995. He
had served six years of a 15-year sentence, and, even though he
received letters of support from local leaders, the commutation
of his sentence set off angry protests from the judge and prosecutors
in his case.
But until Wednesday both cases had been lost in the furor over the
Rich pardon. The first hint that things were changing came early
in the day, when advance copies of an upcoming issue of the National
Enquirer tabloid began to circulate in Washington. The Enquirer
reported that on January 22 — the first business day after
receiving his pardon — Braswell wired $200,000 to Hugh Rodham's
law firm in Jacksonville, Florida. The Enquirer reported
that Rodham was responsible for making sure Braswell's last-minute
pardon application got to the White House.
The story had not yet been reported — the Enquirer was
not scheduled to be released until Thursday — when Bill Clinton
himself confirmed it with an I-knew-nothing statement released from
his home in Chappaqua, New York. "Yesterday, I became aware of press
inquiries that Hugh Rodham received a contingency fee in connection
with a pardon application for Glen Braswell and a fee for work on
Carlos Vignali's commutation application," the former president
wrote. "Neither Hillary nor I had any knowledge of such payments.
We are deeply disturbed by these reports and have insisted that
Hugh return any monies received."
Veteran Clinton-parsers were quick to point out that the former
president did not deny knowing about Rodham's involvement in the
pardon process — he only denied knowing about "such payments"
received by Rodham. For his part, Rodham's lawyer Nancy Luque —
familiar to the Burton committee as the attorney for convicted campaign-finance
felon Maria Hsia — released a statement saying Rodham "did
not advise President or Senator Clinton of his involvement in these
requests. He believes they were unaware until this week of his work
on his client's behalf."
The news came just as some Republicans began to believe that momentum
was waning for further investigation into the Marc Rich pardon.
The House Government Reform Committee's investigation has slowed
down as staffers wait for subpoenaed documents from two upstate-New
York banks that had done business with Denise Rich, the former wife
of Marc Rich. The committee is also waiting for material from the
Clinton presidential library foundation and from the Secret Service,
which was asked to produce records of White House visits by Denise
Rich and other family members.
The committee is scheduled to hold a hearing on March 1st, at which
members will question former White House counsel Beth Nolan, former
White House chief of staff John Podesta, and Clinton confidante
Bruce Lindsey about their roles in the Rich case. Committee investigators
are eager to hear the White House insider accounts, but are unsure
how much they will add to the big picture of the Rich pardon.
Earlier on Wednesday, before the Rodham news had broken, one congressional
source said it might soon be time to end the investigation. "You
can't spend a year looking at pardons that you can't do anything
about," the source said. "Maybe we should hold one more hearing,
find out what people in the White House did, and then say, 'Okay,
ladies and gentlemen, we've presented what we can present.'"
Now that's changed. Reports of Rodham's activities raise all sorts
of new questions about the role that money and access played in
the Clinton White House pardons. How did Braswell and Vignali connect
with Rodham? Who was Rodham's contact in the White House? What did
Bill Clinton know? What did Hillary Rodham Clinton know? Were other
pardon applications involved? Was there more money involved? The
new questions mean that an investigation which might otherwise have
soon ended will instead go forward for many weeks to come.
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