President Carter Sees Quid Pro Quo in Rich Pardon
Source: NewsMax.com
Published: 2/21/01 Author: Carl Limbacher
Former President Jimmy Carter said Tuesday that he believes there was a
connection between Bill Clinton's pardon of fugitive billionaire Marc Rich
and the financial contributions Rich made.
"I don't think there is any doubt that some of the factors in his pardon were attributable to his large gifts," Carter said during a speech at Georgia Southwestern State University.
"In my opinion, that was disgraceful," he added.
The former president did not say whether the gifts in question were those Rich lavished on numerous charities over the years -- or money Rich may have funneled to the Democratic Party, Mrs. Clinton's senate campaign and the Clinton Library fund using his ex-wife Denise as a conduit.
But the same day Carter commented on the Pardongate-gift connection, his former White House chief of staff Hamilton Jordan said that he would have been forced to resign if he had suggested pardoning donors.
"(President Carter) would have thrown me out of the Oval Office and probably fired me on the spot," Jordan wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece.
Any evidence of a Pardongate quid pro quo could spell legal trouble for Clinton, who is now the subject of a criminal probe by the U.S. Attorney for New York's Southern District, Mary Jo White.
The New York Post reported Thursday that Clinton has been consulting with Washington, D.C. criminal attorney Richard Ben Veniste.
Ben Veniste was part of the Democrats' legal team in Senate hearings on both the Watergate and Whitewater scandals.
He also represented suspected Mena, Arkansas drug smuggler Adler Berriman "Barry" Seal before Seal was assassinated in the midst of his 1986 trial.
HENCH adds: If Slick is visiting with criminal lawyer Ben-Veniste, (criminal lawyer, THERE'S a redundancy!) he's actually worried he'll get a grand jury, and possibly, indictment!
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