The More Things "Change" the More They Stay the Same....

Hillary Clinton: Sec of State

Rahm Emanuel: Clinton advisor

Eric Holder: Clinton Deputy Attny General



Holder Top Prospect for Attorney General

Rich, of course, was the commodities trader who fled the country in 1983 to escape prosecution for tax evasion, racketeering, and trading with the enemy. Rich’s attorneys circumvented normal procedures, took the pardon to the White House attorneys, and gained pardon for their client, whose wife just happened to be a friend and major donor to the Clinton library, the Democratic Party, and Clinton’s legal defense fund. A firestorm ensued as did congressional investigations in which Democrats as well as Republicans excoriated the Clintons’ conduct. The federal prosecutors who indicted Rich are especially livid, particularly because, by definition, Rich appears to be ineligible for a pardon: He never took responsibility for his actions or served any sentence. The congressional panels were called to investigate the path to Rich’s pardon — which, as various documents seem to indicate, did not follow usual channels. In testimony Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee, U.S. pardon attorney Roger Adams says when the White House sent over Rich’s name for pardon consideration — only a few hours before the president was due to leave office — there was never any mention of Rich being a fugitive.


Holder’s role is not in dispute. Without him this travesty would likely not have occurred, as described:



Mr. Holder, the [Congressional] report says, played a major role, steering Mr. Rich’s lawyers toward Jack Quinn, a former White House counsel. Mr. Rich hired Mr. Quinn, whose Washington contacts and ability to lobby the president made the difference, according to the report. It says that Mr. Holder’s support for the pardon and his failure to alert prosecutors of a pending pardon were just as crucial. …

The panel criticized Mr. Holder’s conduct as unconscionable and cited several problems. It cited his admission last year that he had hoped Mr. Quinn would support his becoming attorney general in a Gore administration.-from , March 13, 2002


No less than Maureen Dowd remarked that on this one the Clintons:

perverted the legal system and may have traded a constitutional power for personal benefit. … The Clintons ran a cash-and-carry White House. They were either hawking stuff or carting it off.


So to be clear, Holder helped steer the attorney for Rich, a fugitive whose pardon request would likely have been rejected through normal channels due to his status as a fugitive, to the man Holder wanted assistance with in getting his next job. Now there’s a man who knows something about conflicts of interest.


Eric H. Holder Jr., a former second in command at the Justice Department who served as President-elect Barack Obama's campaign co-chairman, is almost certain to be selected as U.S. attorney general, according to knowledgeable Democratic sources.

Holder recommended to Bill Clinton when he served as Pres Clinton’s Dep. Attny General that he should pardon fugitive Marc Rich. Rich was a fugitive from justice in Switzerland at the time and his Rich’s wife promised millions of dollars for Clinton’s library as well.