Barak Wants No Part of Clinton Scandal
Barak Wants No Part of Clinton Scandal
Aides to outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak tried to distance him from the controversy surrounding former US President Bill Clinton and the “pardongate” scandal, refuting claims on Saturday that Barak had made three calls to Clinton that ultimately persuaded him to pardon fugitive financier Marc Rich.
Clinton has attempted to place responsibility for the highly-contentious Rich pardon on the “profound” influence of Barak and dozens of other Israeli leaders, who wrote letters and made phone calls on Rich’s behalf. And in testimony before a US congressional committee late last week, three of Clinton’s top former aides claimed the president reversed his decision at the last minute and granted the pardon only after a third and decisive phone call from Barak the day before Clinton left office.
Sources in the Prime Minister’s Office, however, came to Barak’s defense this weekend by sharply disputing the version of events offered by Clinton and his former White House staff. “The prime minister made one call and the matter was only raised at the end of the phone call, where Barak stressed Marc Rich’s contribution to Israeli society,” a source at the Prime Minister’s Office said.
A source close to Barak expressed great surprise that people close to Clinton have passed the responsibility for Rich’s pardon on to Israel. “It is obvious that a marginal telephone mention did not play a deciding role in the granting of the pardon. Even if it is convenient to say so, it is untrue, especially when other requests by Barak in which he invested much greater effort, like [Jonathan] Pollard, were not granted,” said the source.
The Rich pardon has been widely criticized not only because of the gravity of Rich’s criminal offenses, but also due to the numerous financial contributions his former wife Denise Rich has made to the Clinton presidential library, the Democratic party and even the Senate candidacy of First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton. Committees in both houses of the US Congress lave launched inquiries into whether Clinton granted pardons and commutations to Rich and others before leaving office in exchange for financial gifts, political contributions or other remuneration.
Marc Rich is a wealthy American Jewish businessman who fled the US for Switzerland 18 years ago to avoid prosecution on racketeering, wire fraud, income-tax evasion, and illegal oil trading charges. Among his alleged offenses, Rich was wanted in one of the largest tax fraud cases ever, and for violating laws that banned trade with Iran even while American hostages were still being held by Islamic militants in Tehran.
Since fleeing the US in the early 1980s, Rich has ingratiated himself with many prominent Israeli leaders, especially in the Labor party, by giving large sums to charitable causes in Israel and reportedly using his extensive global business ties to help Israeli intelligence with sensitive assignments involving endangered Jewish communities abroad. As a result, a number of leading Israeli politicians, including Barak, sent letters urging Clinton to pardon Rich, citing his generous philanthropy and assistance to the Mossad.
Meanwhile, it has emerged that the main possible link between Rich, Barak and Clinton involves one Beth Dozoretz, the former finance chair of the Democratic National Committee after the Clinton impeachment. She repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment when called to testify last week before a congressional committee investigating the pardon. Reports have surfaced indicating that she had close ties with Ehud and Nava Barak, and that she solicited $450,000 in donations to the Clinton presidential library from Denise Rich. The last $100,000 of the sum was pledged in 2000, at the height of the lobbying campaign on behalf of a pardon for Rich. Denise Rich has also declined to answer questions before the congressional committee.
Dozoretz, who has many links to Israel, served on the board of the Rabin Medical Center in Petah Tikva. Nava Barak has been the head of the Israeli Friends of the Rabin Medical Center for five years.
Last year she was appointed to the board of directors of US Technologies Inc., a firm with Israeli investments and a number of prominent directors, including former US senator George Mitchell, currently heading the commission of inquiry into the origins of the renewed Palestinian intifada.
At the time of her appointment, Dozoretz was also serving on the board of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, as well as on the executive committee of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the powerful American Jewish lobby on US-Israel relations.
In an interview in THE NEW YORK TIMES on February 17, Dozoretz was quoted as saying she was “close to” Ehud Barak, and that before he became prime minister a mutual friend arranged a meeting with Barak and his brother at her home. “We talked for two hours,” she told the paper, “and I was mesmerized. He was a lot like Clinton.”
Used with Permission from International Christian Embassy Jerusalem.