The Pardon Probe Explodes
Investigators have much, much more to investigate.

February 22, 2001 9:25 a.m.

n 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.