Old Friends

It turns out it's not strictly true that there's no disclosure of who the donors to the William J. Clinton Foundation are. The Clinton Global Initiative, one of the Foundation's branches, posts a list of members and the "membership fee" is $15,000 a year. It's a pretty long list, and mostly either of people I haven't heard of and those I have heard of range from Brad Pitt to John Podesta and back. But also Denise Rich, Marc Rich's wife, who I would have thought the Clintons would be going out of their way not to associate with or at least take money from at this point.

Of course, this sort of thing is still a poor substitute for real disclosure of who the donors to the Foundation -- and to other presidential foundations like the one George W. Bush is putting together as we speak -- are and how much they're giving.

Comments

This is a crucial issue and I look forward to more reports on this story.

/no I don't
//there's a war going on

Posted by Jim | October 5, 2007 10:48 AM

yeah, i've been looking for a way to bring the clinton global initiative to its knees. now we'll really get those charitable bastards, eh matt?

Posted by southpaw | October 5, 2007 11:16 AM

Who knows, maybe Mark Rich will need another pardon in 2016.

Seriously, this is a great issue for Obama. Nobody thought the Rich pardon was defensible. So why not shame Hillary for the Clintons' continuing to associate with people who scandalously bought a pardon from Bill? Also, he might drop in who Rich's lawyer was (Scooter Libby).

Posted by Dilan Esper | October 5, 2007 11:52 AM

"But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right is doing"

Matthew 6:3

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | October 5, 2007 12:34 PM

Dilan, the Prime Minister of Israel thought the Rich pardon was defensible which is why he asked Clinton to do it.

Matt, I am a little disappointed that you fell into the spin machine here. Certainly Rich was a fugitive, on the other hand by the time of the pardon the conduct under which he was convicted was no longer a crime. The whole affair was simply another case of false outrage and manufactured storyline. {Denise Rich is a big donor, her divorced husband (and huge philanthropist for Israeli causes) gets a pardon, therefore Clinton sold a pardon for cash}. Let's just say there are a few holes between this and an established case of official bribery. The Republican noise machine lies and makes causality out of nothing, its what they do. Moreover they are perfectly happy to assert Bush's powers without qualification, they are plenty willing to assert that Bush can appoint US Attornies for any reason or no reason. These same people that got their panties in a twist because Mrs. Clinton lost confidence in a goddamn servant. And because Bill wanted a change in staff in the travel office. But now anything goes because US Attornies "serve at the will of the President".

The 'proof' that Clinton was motivated by campaign contribution to pardon Rich is non-existent. It is simply guilt by association.

So Esper where is your proof of scandal? Was the Prime Minister of Israel part of the scam? Did Denise buy him off too?

Joe Conason got this one right in real time
Pardon for peace?
How the Middle East impasse and the Jonathan Pollard case influenced Clinton's decision to pardon Marc Rich.

Feb. 13, 2001 | Maddened by the pardon of international fugitive Marc Rich, the pack of Clinton-hunting bloodhounds in Congress and the Washington media have typically failed to notice what may be the single most important fact about their quarry.
During the period when he was considering the Rich case, Bill Clinton was simultaneously engaged in a desperate effort to resuscitate the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations and listening to Ehud Barak, Shimon Peres, the former chief of the Mossad intelligence service and a host of other current and former dignitaries from Israel as they pleaded with him to pardon Rich. It is almost certain that those entreaties swayed him more than the largesse of Rich's ex-wife Denise, who has donated more than $1 million to Democrats over the last decade.
Helping Rich became a priority for Israeli officials -- particularly those in the hierarchy of the Labor Party -- because of his services to the Jewish state. Not only did the Swiss-based businessman give enormous amounts of money to charities and institutions there, but he has also used his connections in other nations to perform services for the Israeli government. According to press reports, he has assisted in the rescue of Jewish families from hostile countries, and he's believed to have gathered information for Israeli intelligence agencies as well.

"Where there is smoke, there is fire" Well not necessarily, sometimes the smoke is just blown with an intent to deceive, which looks to have worked for both Matt and Dilan. You don't have to like the power of the Israel Lobby, but it certainly exists. To discount it to zero in the Rich case while putting Clinton's motives in the worst light possible and then claiming 'Case Closed' is between deluded and dishonest.

Posted by Bruce Webb | October 5, 2007 1:05 PM

"There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again." —President George W. Bush, Nashville, Tenn., Sept. 17, 2002

Words to live by. Don't get, or worse remain, fooled again.

Posted by Bruce Webb | October 5, 2007 1:12 PM

Dilan, the Prime Minister of Israel thought the Rich pardon was defensible which is why he asked Clinton to do it.

There's a difference between wanting Clinton to do it and thinking it is defensible.

Rich was a fugitive

That's the end of the discussion, isn't it? He could have come back here, faced justice, and then we could talk about pardons.

Pardoning a fugitive is rewarding the second crime-- which clearly is a crime, whatever you want to say about the first crime.

on the other hand by the time of the pardon the conduct under which he was convicted was no longer a crime

Unfortunately, if you weren't a rich campaign contributor of the Clintons, that wasn't enough to get you out of jail. You know, maybe Ricky Ray Rector's mistake was not contributing to the Clintons' reelection campaign. Of course, maybe he figured he could do that after the execution.

The whole affair was simply another case of false outrage and manufactured storyline. {Denise Rich is a big donor, her divorced husband (and huge philanthropist for Israeli causes) gets a pardon, therefore Clinton sold a pardon for cash}.

That's not false, that's true. And it wasn't like it was the only pardon that was suspect. Clinton pardoned a well-connected drug dealer here in LA at the behest of Antonio Villaraigosa.

By the way, if the Rich pardon were so defensible, why did he wait to the last minute to do it? Why not do it before the election? After all, it was so clearly a case of manifest injustice, right? The voters clearly would have understood, right?

The Republican noise machine lies and makes causality out of nothing, its what they do.

A broken clock is right twice a day.

The 'proof' that Clinton was motivated by campaign contribution to pardon Rich is non-existent. It is simply guilt by association.

The proof is clear, if circumstantial. He pardoned an evil man who should have rotted in jail not only for his crimes but for skipping justice, based on reasons that he never applied to any of the pardon petitions received from poorer citizens. The guy's wife just happened to be a huge financial supporter of the Clintons and FOB. (She may have had a personal connection with Bill Clinton as well.)

If you want to believe that Bill Clinton-- who, remember, for all his virtues was a huge liar-- didn't do this as a favor for Denise Rich, you are simply naive.

Helping Rich became a priority for Israeli officials -- particularly those in the hierarchy of the Labor Party -- because of his services to the Jewish state.

I should add one more thing. Since Clinton was not Prime Minister of Israel, he had no business pardoning Rich for this reason either. (Nonetheless, I don't buy that he did-- if he had really wanted to help Israel in that way, he would have pardoned Pollard, not Rich.)

Posted by Dilan Esper | October 5, 2007 2:44 PM

Denise Rich is Mark Rich's ex-wife, not his wife.

Posted by me2i81 | October 5, 2007 3:12 PM

Dilan re-read your original post. In it you said "Nobody thought the Rich pardon was defensible." That was factually untrue, much of the leadership of perhaps the US's perceived number two ally were asking for this.

Marc Rich was convicted in abstentia. I don't know if there is a postive legal obligation to return to the United States in that case. Certainly the United States was free to seek extradiction but it is not clear to be that that being a fugitive actually consituted a new crime.

"Unfortunately, if you weren't a rich campaign contributor of the Clintons, that wasn't enough to get you out of jail" Kind of a non-starter. Because at the time Rector was executed cop killing was still a crime in the State of Arkansas. Still is today.

Ricky Ray Rector's mistake was not failing to donate to Clinton, given that he was robbing a convenience store at the time he probably didn't have the money. His mistake was gunning down police officer Martin. You would have to search pretty hard to find a cop killer that got pardoned ever. I don't normally favor executing the mentally retarded, on the other hand you can probably relate his low IQ to the fact that Rector shot himself in the head. Which to me puts him more in the category of parent killer throwing himself on the mercy of the court on the basis that he is an orphan.

"That's not false that is true". Assertions are not arguments, nor are they evidence. Frankly I remain unmoved.

Pardons typically come at the very end of the term and after the elections so that is sort of a false hare.

Vignali was not pardoned. He had a fifteen year prison term commuted to the six years time served. People serve less time for manslaughter. Do politically connected people get pardoned at a higher rate? I don't know, lets ask Casper Weinberger. And actually Vignali actually argues against your Rich point, Vignali didn't give any money that I know of to Clinton.

"Evil man"??? My friend that is practically unhinged. I mean I could see 'bad man' but 'evil'? In what way?

"Huge liar"? The whole Paula Jone's case was a cooked up one funded by the Federalist society solely to harass Clinton. The ruling by the Supreme Court that the civil suit would not be disruptive to the Administration is in retrospect a cruel joke. For that matter Clinton's testimony on the matter was ruled irrelevant to a case that was ruled without merit. Whether he could have been convicted of perjury is I think an open question. Or do you have some other lies in mind? Maybe centering around cocaine flights into small airports or something?

Pollard is a convicted traitor. To equate him to a fraudster as an appropriate candidate for a pardon is a little odd. He should have been shot.

And finally I don't know that 'proof' can be 'circumstantial'. 'Beyond a reasonable doubt' is not the same as 'proof' and in this case I don't think you have made even the first case. There is a perfectly plausible case, backed by documentation, that Clinton acted as he did at the request of the Israeli government. Unless you have some proof that Denise Rich had some juice with Peres the notion that he pardoned Rich for any other reason is overdetermined. There is nothing implausible with the notion that the very reason Clinton moved on Rich was to reduce Israeli pressure over Pollard.

You can believe what you want. Frankly I think you are the victim of manufactured outrage. Clinton's pardon powers are absolute, the fact that this action may have additionally served to please a long term supporter does not in itself establish a quid pro quo, correlation is not causation no matter what you think.

"After all, it was so clearly a case of manifest injustice, right?" That is a strawman, no one claimed the convictions were a manifest injustice, just that Rich's record otherwise made the case for clemency.

Posted by Bruce Webb | October 5, 2007 4:00 PM

The list of $15,000 members doesn't tell us which families and corporations gave millions and therefore may be sleeping in the Lincoln Bedroom. Keep digging, Matt.

Posted by bob | October 5, 2007 4:50 PM

Marc Rich was convicted in abstentia. I don't know if there is a postive legal obligation to return to the United States in that case.

You are not quite telling the truth here. He was indicted while he was in Switzerland, and did not return to face the charges. Thus, when he was convicted, he became a fugitive from justice and there was an outstanding warrant for his arrest for 17 years.

And yes, as a United States citizen at the time (he tried to get Spanish citizenship but was turned down), he had an obligation to face justice in this country. Expatriates remain subject to the laws of their country of citizenship.

Ricky Ray Rector's mistake was not failing to donate to Clinton, given that he was robbing a convenience store at the time he probably didn't have the money. His mistake was gunning down police officer Martin. You would have to search pretty hard to find a cop killer that got pardoned ever. I don't normally favor executing the mentally retarded, on the other hand you can probably relate his low IQ to the fact that Rector shot himself in the head. Which to me puts him more in the category of parent killer throwing himself on the mercy of the court on the basis that he is an orphan.

You are heartless. Clinton deliberately murdered a man who had no idea what was happening to him, to further his own political gain.

Pardons typically come at the very end of the term and after the elections so that is sort of a false hare.

No, Bruce. Defensible pardons come earlier. The indefensible ones come just before leaving office.

Vignali was not pardoned. He had a fifteen year prison term commuted to the six years time served. People serve less time for manslaughter. Do politically connected people get pardoned at a higher rate? I don't know, lets ask Casper Weinberger. And actually Vignali actually argues against your Rich point, Vignali didn't give any money that I know of to Clinton.

Vignali's relatives were huge donors to the Democratic Party here in Los Angeles. And as for Caspar Weinberger, I didn't know that Democrats held that up as a great example of the use of the pardon power.

"Evil man"??? My friend that is practically unhinged. I mean I could see 'bad man' but 'evil'? In what way?

Evil. He aided the Ayatollah Khomeni in Iran, one of the worst persons alive at the time, for pure profit, and then used his juice to escape justice.

"Huge liar"? The whole Paula Jone's case was a cooked up one funded by the Federalist society solely to harass Clinton.

1. He still lied. 2. He lied about a bunch of other things too.

And finally I don't know that 'proof' can be 'circumstantial'.

Well, plenty of people are in jail based on circumstantial evidence. And because they didn't have a record of campaign contributions to the Clintons, he didn't let them out, either.

Clinton's pardon powers are absolute

You just established yourself as fatuous. The fact that he had absolute power to do it doesn't make it right. Or do you think the same way about Bush and Scooter Libby?

Look, it is clear that you are nothing more than a flack for the Clintons.

Posted by Dilan Esper | October 5, 2007 5:14 PM

Matt,

I signed up at www.guidestar.org to get access to the Clinton Foundation's form 990.

In 2005, it received $80 million in public support. Stephen Bing contributed over $10 million.

After looking over the statement, I'm more curious about where the money goes rather than where it comes from.

Posted by FS | October 5, 2007 5:32 PM