Tuesday, December 14, 2004
'Oil-for-Food' Bankrolled Clinton Library?
The investigation into the United Nations Oil-for-Food scandal has turned up evidence that places Pardongate fugitive Marc Rich at the center of the probe, the New York Post revealed in its Monday editions.
"We -think [Rich] was a major player in this - a central figure," a senior law enforcement official told the Post.
NewsMax: The bombshell development raises new questions about whether some of Saddam Hussein's Oil-for-Food cash may have found its way into the hands of Rich's ex-wife Denise, who contributed heavily to Bill Clinton's presidential library during the years now under investigation.
A 2001 report by the House Government Reform Committee on the Rich clemency deal established that the fugitive billionaire had been dealing with Saddam since the early 1990s - a fact well-known to the CIA and other U.S. law enforcement agencies.
Investigators told the Post they have received information that Rich and Ben Pollner, a New York-based oil trader who heads Taurus Oil, put together deals between Saddam and his international supporters as part of the Oil-for-Food scam.
When it became known in January 2001 that the ex-president had pardoned Rich, probers immediately zeroed in on his ex-wife Denise, who had donated more than $1 million to Democratic campaigns - including Hillary Clinton's first Senate race - during the same period that Rich was doing business with Saddam.
Rich's ex also ponied up $450,000 for Clinton's library and donated the max to the Clintons' defense fund.
During public testimony before Congress in February 2001, Denise Rich invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, raising prosecutors' suspicions that she was covering up the money trail between her husband and the White House.
But new probes into Rich's role in Oil-for-Food could put the spotlight back on Clinton, who said during a recent interview about the opening of his library that the only thing he regretted about pardoning the fugitive billionaire was that it was misconstrued by the media.
Rush: One of the reasons that Marc Rich did not come back to the United States and didn't want to, is he didn't want to be served with a bunch of civil lawsuits. This guy, folks, Marc Rich is as dirty as you can possibly imagine.
I also recall one of the reasons why he needed the pardon from Clinton, there was an Interpol arrest warrant out on him. Remember, he was staying in one little country, and he couldn't flee, couldn't leave that country, couldn't move around.
Once he gets Clinton's pardon and gives enough money to Clinton organizations and what have you, the Democratic Party, bammo! It's back on the crime social circuit, traveling all over there arranging these oil-for-food deals. This is the single biggest scandal... It's up to 24, $25 billion now.
The investigation into the United Nations Oil-for-Food scandal has turned up evidence that places Pardongate fugitive Marc Rich at the center of the probe, the New York Post revealed in its Monday editions.
"We -think [Rich] was a major player in this - a central figure," a senior law enforcement official told the Post.
NewsMax: The bombshell development raises new questions about whether some of Saddam Hussein's Oil-for-Food cash may have found its way into the hands of Rich's ex-wife Denise, who contributed heavily to Bill Clinton's presidential library during the years now under investigation.
A 2001 report by the House Government Reform Committee on the Rich clemency deal established that the fugitive billionaire had been dealing with Saddam since the early 1990s - a fact well-known to the CIA and other U.S. law enforcement agencies.
Investigators told the Post they have received information that Rich and Ben Pollner, a New York-based oil trader who heads Taurus Oil, put together deals between Saddam and his international supporters as part of the Oil-for-Food scam.
When it became known in January 2001 that the ex-president had pardoned Rich, probers immediately zeroed in on his ex-wife Denise, who had donated more than $1 million to Democratic campaigns - including Hillary Clinton's first Senate race - during the same period that Rich was doing business with Saddam.
Rich's ex also ponied up $450,000 for Clinton's library and donated the max to the Clintons' defense fund.
During public testimony before Congress in February 2001, Denise Rich invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, raising prosecutors' suspicions that she was covering up the money trail between her husband and the White House.
But new probes into Rich's role in Oil-for-Food could put the spotlight back on Clinton, who said during a recent interview about the opening of his library that the only thing he regretted about pardoning the fugitive billionaire was that it was misconstrued by the media.
Rush: One of the reasons that Marc Rich did not come back to the United States and didn't want to, is he didn't want to be served with a bunch of civil lawsuits. This guy, folks, Marc Rich is as dirty as you can possibly imagine.
I also recall one of the reasons why he needed the pardon from Clinton, there was an Interpol arrest warrant out on him. Remember, he was staying in one little country, and he couldn't flee, couldn't leave that country, couldn't move around.
Once he gets Clinton's pardon and gives enough money to Clinton organizations and what have you, the Democratic Party, bammo! It's back on the crime social circuit, traveling all over there arranging these oil-for-food deals. This is the single biggest scandal... It's up to 24, $25 billion now.
