Word: pardoners
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...President's budget, Alan Greenspan has blessed it, and every argument the Democrats make gets drowned out by that Other Story, the presidency that will not end, the scandal that will not die. Internal Republican polls last week showed Bush had little reason to fear that the Clinton pardon debacle would overshadow his big budget road show. Bush's message was getting through, pollsters found; the ones being drowned out were the Democrats. The power sharing they expected after a close election--their ideas won, they insisted, it was just their candidate who lost--has been exposed as so much...
...neutered himself. By last week Clinton's near silence on why he pardoned fugitive tax swindler Marc Rich and assorted other highflyers and lowlifes was getting a little spooky. It was time to tap on the lid of the trunk and see if Houdini was still alive in there. Now he got help from the Old Guard, the magician's assistants who had stuck by him through thick and thin and thick. Here came faithful fund raiser Beth Dozoretz, who we learn was cleared by the Secret Service to visit the White House 76 times in the past two years...
...like her pal Denise Rich before her, Dozoretz pleaded the Fifth Amendment, and with that, the pardon scandal was moving out of the familiar theatrics of the Congress to the deadly quiet, far more serious precincts of the Southern District of New York, where prosecutor Mary Jo White was reported to be in contact with Denise Rich about finding out what she knew...
That Clinton ignored their advice and proceeded so recklessly looked damaging on its face, but the faithful trio actually did Clinton some good. They noted that pardon requests were pouring in from every direction in the final days, not just from relatives and benefactors and potential blackmailers. "We had requests from members of Congress on both sides of the aisle and both houses, we had requests from movie stars, newscasters, former Presidents, former First Ladies," Nolan said. They agreed that Clinton had exercised dreadful judgment but that it was his right. "The President is the President," Nolan said...
Gray saw no problem with Cox's library contribution because it was made after the pardon. By contrast, Rich's ex-wife gave $450,000 to Clinton's project before he pardoned her ex-husband. "What's semi-toxic for Clinton was raising money for the library while he was still in office and letting people know, By the way, we're open for pardons, too," said Gray. "We never solicited Mr. Cox's application...