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Mediamatters.Org -
A November 20 Washington
Times article by Jerry Seper repeated accusations in a House Republican
report of wrongdoing by Eric Holder, who is reportedly President-elect
Barack Obama's choice for attorney general, in the context of President Clinton's 2001 pardon
of Marc Rich. In doing so, Seper suggested that Holder had illicitly worked
with Rich attorney Jack Quinn to bypass career Justice Department officials and
falsely suggested that Holder had written an email telling Quinn that
"the 'timing is good' for Mr. Rich's request for a
pardon." In fact, Holder did not write the email that Seper cited, and
according to testimony by former White House counsel Beth Nolan, pardon applications were directed to the
White House because the Justice Department's pardon office stopped handling new
applications in the fall of 2000.
Seper reported that "[t]he former prosecutor whom
President-elect Barack Obama wants to run the Justice Department bypassed the
agency's career lawyers during one of the most controversial final decisions
made by President Clinton in January 2001 -- the pardon of billionaire fugitive
financier Marc Rich, congressional records show." He later claimed that
evidence in a Republican-led House Government Reform Committee's majority report on the pardon "included an
email in which Mr. Holder told Mr. Quinn to 'go straight' to the
White House and that the 'timing is good' for Mr. Rich's request
for a pardon." In fact, the email was not written by Holder. Rather,
Quinn sent it on November 18 to several recipients not including Holder.
According to the majority report, the subject line of the
email was "eric," and the body of the email said: "spoke to
him last evening. he says go straight to wh. also says timing is good. we shd
get in soon. will elab when we speak." The majority report said, "assuming the
'eric' referenced [in the email] is Eric Holder, this e-mail
contradicts the heart of Holder's defense." While Seper noted that Holder "told lawmakers during
the investigation that he thought he had done nothing wrong" and that
Government Reform Committee report "was approved by Republicans, led by
Rep. Dan Burton of Indiana, over the objections of Democrats,"
Seper did not note that the Minority Views Report --
signed by 14 members of the committee -- stated that it is "unclear that
'eric' even refers to Eric Holder" and that "[a]ssuming
the e-mail accurately reflects the words of Mr. Holder, it shows that he
advised Mr. Quinn to submit the pardon petition directly to the White House.
But this is not proof of wrongdoing." The minority report continued:
"As Beth Nolan testified, the Pardon Attorney in the Justice Department
had indicated by then the he would not process any more pardon applications,
while the President was continuing to accept clemency applications at the White
House."
Indeed, according to the Nexis database transcript of a March 1, 2001,
Government Reform committee hearing, then-committee ranking member Rep. Henry
Waxman (D-CA) asked Nolan: "Did the pardon attorney's office tell the
White House in September or October of 2000 that they couldn't take any more
pardon applications and that they weren't going to be able to review them or
get the information to the White House?" Nolan responded: "They
told us that sometime in the fall, I'm not sure of the exact date."
From the Minority Views Report:
The evidence before the committee
also does not prove the majority's accusation that Mr. Holder worked with
Mr. Quinn to cut other Justice Department officials out of the pardon review process.
In retrospect, it is clear that Mr. Holder should have done more to include
other Justice Department
officials in the review process. Indeed, Mr. Holder conceded as much during
testimony. This mistake in judgment is not evidence of misconduct.
The majority points to a November
18, 2001, email message as proof of a conspiracy between Mr. Holder and Mr.
Quinn. The subject line reads "eric." The text of the message
reads: "spoke to him last evening. He says go straight to wh. Also says
timing is good. We shd get in soon. Will elab when we speak." Neither Mr.
Quinn nor Mr. Holder testified about this message, however. Indeed, as the
majority itself acknowledges, it is unclear that "eric" even refers
to Eric Holder.
Assuming the e-mail accurately reflects
the words of Mr. Holder, it shows that he advised Mr. Quinn to submit the
pardon petition directly to the White House. But this is not proof of
wrongdoing. As Beth Nolan testified, the Pardon Attorney in the Justice
Department had indicated by then the he would not process any more pardon
applications, while the President was continuing to accept clemency
applications at the White House.
Seper also reported that "[t]he House committee
concluded in the March 2002 report that Mr. Holder played a significant role in
facilitating the pardon, first by recommending Mr. Quinn to Mr. Rich's legal
representatives." Indeed, the majority report read: "After numerous
failed attempts to have his case settled, Marc Rich hired Jack Quinn to
represent him. Quinn was hired after a recommendation from Deputy Attorney
General Eric Holder."
Seper did not note that the minority report, however, stated
the following of the claim that Holder "recommended" Quinn:
"To reach the conclusion that Mr. Holder 'recommended' Mr.
Quinn to Mr. [Gershon] Kekst, the majority ascribes great significance to a
chance social encounter in late 1998 between Mr. Holder and Mr. Kekst, who had
never before met." It continued:
According to Mr. Kekst, he found
himself seated next to Mr. Holder at a large corporate event. After Mr. Holder
indicated that he "worked at Main Justice," Mr. Kekst recalled
asking him general questions about the system of accountability at the
Department of Justice and, in particular, to whom U.S. Attorneys were
responsible. Mr. Holder apparently responded that they were accountable to him;
that was his job. He recalls asking Mr. Holder what a person would do if he
believed he was the victim of an overzealous prosecutor. Mr. Kekst said that Mr.
Holder suggested hiring a lawyer in Washington,
D.C., who knows the process. He
recalled that Mr. Holder then spotted Jack Quinn and said words to the effect
of, "There is Jack Quinn, someone like that." According to Mr.
Kekst, Marc Rich's name never came up in the conversation.
From the House Committee on Government
Reform's March 1, 2001, hearings on President Clinton's pardons (from
Nexis):
REP. HENRY WAXMAN (D-CA):
Did the pardon attorney's office tell the White House in September or October
of 2000 that they couldn't take any more pardon applications and that they
weren't going to be able to review them or get the information to the White
House?
NOLAN: They told us that
sometime in the fall, I'm not sure of the exact date.
WAXMAN: And so around the
time that the pardon attorney's office at the Justice Department was telling
the White House that it would process no more pardon applications, the
president was seeking out more applications and there was also an increase in
pardon requests. Isn't that right?
NOLAN: Right, there had
been in fact a great increase all through the year in applications, so the
pardon attorney's office had more applications and hadn't been able to move
them in any significant, faster rate.
WAXMAN: In December and
January, did you feel overwhelmed by the amount of pardon requests that you
were asked to process?
NOLAN: We were really
inundated with pardon requests, and, in fact, sometime around Christmas week, I
think, I spoke with Mr. Podesta and said, "We have to have a cut off. We
can't possibly finish what we have, if more pardon requests come in
and..."
WAXMAN: Where were they
coming from?
NOLAN: They were coming
from everywhere, Mr. Waxman. 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. There wasn't anybody -- I
refused to go to holiday parties because I couldn't stand being -- nobody
wanted to know how I was, thank you very much. They wanted to know about a
pardon. So I just didn't go.
WAXMAN: So let me make
sure I understand this. The White House was involved in closing up its
operations, but still trying to issue new regulations and negotiating a Middle East peace agreement. The president was insisting
that you consider as many pardon applications as possible, despite the fact
that the Justice Department wouldn't take any more applications after October
of 2000, and you were being besieged by members of Congress and others to
consider an ever-growing number of pardons. And on top of that, I suspect you
weren't even aware of some of the pardon activities. Is that a fair statement
of what was going on at the White House?
NOLAN: I think that is a
very fair statement. I would add that we were also doing this shortened
transition period and trying to work with the incoming administration, so that
was another...
WAXMAN: And, Mr. Podesta,
is that an accurate statement from your point of view?
JOHN PODESTA (former
White House chief of staff): I think that's accurate, yes.
WAXMAN: You were hearing
from members of Congress, and I even called you on behalf of a constituent, who
I thought deserved consideration for a pardon, Mike Milken, who did not get a
pardon.
NOLAN: That's right.
WAXMAN: And I understand
you got calls from congressman and senators. Did any of them suggest you not
follow the Justice Department Guidelines?
NOLAN: Yes, certainly.
Several of them suggested that they knew it was too late, really, to go through
the Department of Justice, but they wanted to send the pardon application
directly to the White House.
WAXMAN: How many
contacts, if you know, did you get from members of Congress, House and Senate?
NOLAN: I don't no, sir. I
had probably 30 or 40 phone calls. And I think I took less than half of the
calls. I just couldn't possibly respond to all the calls I had.
WAXMAN: Mr. Podesta, do
you have any idea of how many calls you...
PODESTA: I would guess
it's in the high double or in the triple digits.
WAXMAN: Were there any
examples that stand out in your mind of congressman or senators that were
asking you to issue pardons and not follow the Justice Department guidelines?
PODESTA: Well, let me
clarify one thing. I don't think that members of Congress said, "Please
issue a pardon, and, by the way, don't follow the Justice Department
guidelines." I think they basically just didn't care whether we followed
the Justice Department guidelines.
For example, I think in
one particular case in which we did issue a pardon for Mr. Lake, that was done
at the end, and I think did not go through the Justice Department. I think both
the chairman and the Senate Judiciary Committee and the chairman of the
counterpart committee to your committee in the Senate called on his behalf, or
at least made their views known on his behalf.
WAXMAN: Senator Hatch?
PODESTA: Senator Hatch
and Senator Thompson. I don't think they really cared whether that had gone
through the Justice Department guidelines or not.
From the Times
article:
The former prosecutor whom
President-elect Barack Obama wants to run the Justice Department bypassed the
agency's career lawyers during one of the most controversial final decisions
made by President Clinton in January 2001 -- the pardon of billionaire fugitive
financier Marc Rich, congressional records show.
Eric H. Holder Jr., then the deputy
attorney general, worked with former White House Counsel Jack Quinn to ensure
that department officials --
particularly federal prosecutors in New York who handled the Rich case -- "did not have the
opportunity to express an opinion on the Rich pardon before it was
granted," the Republican-led House Government Reform Committee concluded
in a 467-page report in 2002.
The committee's evidence included an
e-mail in which Mr. Holder told Mr. Quinn to "go straight" to the
White House and that the "timing is good" for Mr. Rich's request for
a pardon. Normally, pardon requests are reviewed by career prosecutors before a
recommendation is forwarded to the White House.
Mr. Quinn responded in a typewritten
note to Mr. Holder, just 10 days before Mr. Clinton issued the pardon,
"Your saying positive things, I'm told, would make this happen. Thanks for
your consideration."
Mr. Holder was not available for
comment on Wednesday. But he told lawmakers during the investigation that he
thought he had done nothing wrong.
[...]
The House committee, which finished
its investigation in 2002, concluded from its interviews and the documents that
Mr. Holder helped bypassed the normal procedure for pardons in Mr. Rich's case.
The report was approved by Republicans, led by Rep. Dan Burton of Indiana, over the
objections of Democrats.
"The evidence amassed by the
committee indicates that Holder advised Quinn to file the Rich pardon petition
with the White House and leave the Justice Department out of the process,"
the report said.
[...]
The House committee concluded in the
March 2002 report that Mr. Holder played a significant role in facilitating the
pardon, first by recommending Mr. Quinn to Mr. Rich's legal representatives,
and by delivering what it called a favorable opinion of the last-minute pardon
to the president from a position of authority.
Media Matters - Wash. Times cited House GOP accusations of wrongdoing by Holder, but not Dem response {...} In a Washington Times article, Jerry Seper repeated accusations in a House Republican report of wrongdoing by Eric Holder -- reportedly President-elect Barack Obama's choice for attorney general -- in the 2001 pardon of Marc Rich. In doing so, Seper falsely suggested that Holder was the author of an email telling Rich's attorney that "the 'timing is good' for Mr. Rich's request for a pardon," and did not report the refutation of the allegations by House Democrats. {...} Published: November 22, 2008, 3:03 am - Indexed: November 23, 2008, 1:26 pm - Page Size: 26KB |