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Democrats, Republicans spar over Rich pardon

Former Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder: "Knowing all I now know, would I have made a recommendation against the pardon, and the answer to that is yes,"

In this story: Holder: 'Bells should have gone off' Prosecutors criticize pardon application Quinn: Prosecution 'a legal house of cards' RELATED STORIES, SITES

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Facing a tough grilling from GOP lawmakers, a former top Clinton administration Justice Department official now says he "would have done things differently" in his handling of the controversial pardon of financier Marc Rich.

"Knowing all I now know, would I have made a recommendation against the pardon, and the answer to that is yes," said Eric Holder, a former deputy attorney general. He rejected Republican suggestions that he supported the pardon to advance his own political career, saying he had been neutral and that the department was not "fully informed" about the case.

"My actions in this matter were in no way affected by my desire to become attorney general of the United States, any desire to influence or to curry favor with anybody, " Holder told Rep. Dan Burton, R-Indiana, the chairman of the House Government Reform Committee.

VIDEO CNN's Bob Franken says Jack Quinn faced a day of tough questioning by Rep. Dan Burton, (R) Indiana. amd committee Play video (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media)     DOCUMENT • Indictment: U.S. v. Rich (FindLaw) Part I | Part II Documents in PDF format require Adobe Acrobat Reader for viewing.

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Burton had raised the possibility of a "quid pro quo" in his questioning, noting that Holder had expressed some interest in joining a possible Gore administration as attorney general. Critics, primarily Republicans, say the pardon won quick White House approval because Rich's ex-wife Denise was a top Democratic fund raiser.

Holder: 'Bells should have gone off'

"In hindsight, seeing how this has turned out, obviously some bells should have gone off, some lights should have gone on," Holder told lawmakers. He said he did not recommend a pardon, but told a White House lawyer he would support it if it had foreign policy benefits.

The hearing, replete with partisan jousts between Democrats and Republicans, is focusing on the circumstances surrounding Clinton's last-day-in-office pardon of Rich, who was indicted in 1983 on tax and fraud charges and has remained abroad since the indictments, renouncing his American citizenship.

Burton said he will seek immunity for Denise Rich to force her testimony before the committee looking into that pardon. The hearing ended Thursday with no clear indication of when it might reconvene.

Denise Rich informed the committee on Wednesday night she planned to invoke her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and not answer the committee's written questions.

"I find it very, very troubling that in a case like this where the public simply wants an explanation, that its central figure would take the Fifth Amendment," Burton said.

Prosecutors criticize pardon application

An attorney for Ms. Rich, Martin Pollner, said in a statement to CNN that his client has been advised not to respond to the committee "until her attorneys have had sufficient opportunity to review all of the relevant facts and circumstances."

"Ms. Rich has done nothing wrong with regard to the pardon and knows of no wrongdoing by others in the requesting and granting of the pardon," Pollner added.

She has donated roughly $1 million to the party over the years and her attorney informed the committee Wednesday night that she also has donated a significant amount of money to the planned Clinton library.

The former prosecutor who built the case against Rich told the committee that proper consideration was not given to the case.

The pardon application "wholly and completely mischaracterizes the circumstances and facts surrounding the Marc Rich case," said Morris Weinberg Jr., former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. Weinberg said neither he nor any of the other prosecutors in the case were contacted by the White House or the Justice Department before the pardon was issued.

Outside the hearing, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pennsylvania, said he would seek a constitutional amendment allowing Congress to overturn presidential pardons.

Later on CNN's "Larry King Live", Burton said the entire pardon process may need to be reviewed.

"We have the responsibility to find out when there's wrongdoing, or what looks to be wrongdoing in government," he said, referring to the need for the hearing. "And secondly, we need to let future administrations know that there's a procedure to be followed before they pardon somebody. Obviously the president can pardon anyone he chooses, but there's a procedure that would have probably negated the possibility of Mr. Rich getting this pardon if they would have just followed it."

Jack Quinn, the former White House counsel who represented Rich, defended the pardon.

Quinn: Prosecution 'a legal house of cards'

"I remain to this day absolutely and unshakably convinced that the prosecutors constructed a legal house of cards in this indictment," Quinn said.

Weinberg said he was outraged at the pardon of Rich and a business partner, "who for the past 17 years have been international fugitives in what is the biggest tax fraud case in the history of the United States." In addition to tax evasion, Rich was indicted for wire and mail fraud, and for conducting illegal business with Iran.

Prosecutors in the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan, which brought the indictment, have told CNN they did not learn of the pardon until it was announced just hours before Clinton left office January 20.

Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Connecticut, asked Quinn if he was concerned about some of the countries Rich has worked with, including Iran during the hostage crisis and with South Africa during the apartheid era. "And if didn't matter to you, should it have mattered to the president of the United States?" Shays asked.

Some Democrats concede the president may have exercised bad judgment in granting the pardon, but insist there is no evidence of a quid pro quo in Clinton's decision.

"The Constitution gives him the authority to make that bad judgment," Rep. Henry Waxman, D-California, said.

Quinn told Burton that the pardon was not pushed through hurriedly, and was reviewed by the White House for five weeks before the final decision was made. He said he urged the White House to seek the views of the Justice Department regarding the case.

"The process this pardon followed gave the president the time and the opportunity to weigh the pardon fully," he said.

"I spoke to him early the week following the pardon, and we had a relatively brief conversation in which he affirmed to me that he had made this decision on the merits and expressed a concern that we make sure that people understood the basis for the application and the merits that were before him," Quinn said on "Larry King Live".

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