Word: pardon
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...still defiant Bill Clinton." And by Friday, an op-ed piece was being drafted for the New York Times under Clinton's byline. In it, he would not come up with the apology some party elders had been begging for. However, he would accept full responsibility for the Rich pardon and frustratedly, angrily, defiantly assert it was one with which he was comfortable...
...struggled to regain his footing, Clinton was even able to conscript a few ragged surrogates to put a noble if belated spin on the Rich pardon. Clinton did it, they said, to please Ehud Barak, as a gift to a man who risked so much for peace that he got kicked out of office. One problem with that explanation is that Israeli officials downplay Barak's role, saying it consisted of a brief mention during one phone call; sources close to Clinton contend there were at least three. Either way, the Rich effort paled beside Barak's unsuccessful effort...
Harder to explain away was Senate testimony by Justice Department official Roger Adams suggesting that the White House had scrambled in the predawn hours of Inauguration Day to create a paper trail that made it appear that the Rich pardon had gone through normal channels. Adams suggested the White House even tried to slide it by Justice, portraying Rich as a jet setter "living abroad" and leaving out the detail that he was also a fugitive...
Before the pardon, Rich appeared to have it all--a mansion in a Swiss village, a global business and a helicopter to take him skiing where no lift could reach. But if he left Switzerland, Israel or Spain, he risked getting bounced to New York to face criminal tax-evasion charges from 1983. Bounty hunters and U.S. Marshals set traps for him, and Rich missed his father's funeral--and later his daughter's when she died of leukemia in 1996. That's why, for the two decades after he fled the U.S., Rich has been trying...
Rich's empire has flourished because of his ability to operate below radar. But the pardon he wished for has magnified his every move, and the relationships he has nurtured have begun to sour. "A lot of people are distancing themselves from Rich," says Lang. Swiss officials are investigating whether Rich's company has complied with laws against money laundering. The longest trade of Rich's career may turn out to be the most foolish...