Marc Rich

only thing I would say is that usually you wait until the end of your administration to make that a full scam.

So they always usually wait until the last couple of months to do the pay-for-play shakedowns, like Mark Rich with Clinton and so forth.

Yeah.

They started this as soon as he was in.

Traditionally, presidents can, you know, use pardons to exercise some kind of a public policy good.

It's based on issues or some kind of scale, though, of course, presidents have abused it in the past, like President Clinton's pardon of Mic- uh, Mark Rich and others.

But Donald Trump has taken that to a much bigger scale.

What I didn't expect to see is the huge amount of financial entanglements and the private amount of profit that Trump is generating for himself and his family off government decisions that he makes.

And I, again, I have yet to find someone who can also, uh, kind of offer a, a satisfactory, uh, kind of explanation.

Um, you were talking about kind of early on in the crisis that you thought that, again, given your, given your background reporting on the, the commodity trade houses, that, you know, from the very beginning, from, like, the days of Marc Rich, like, this was an industry that found profitable ways around difficult situations, difficult geopolitical and wartime situations.

Um, and this was the mother of all arbitrage opportunities.

Um, you know, the, the price difference on other side of the strait was, like, $100 a barrel or more at various points.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, Marc Rich.

I, I'm kinda curious-

It's Marc Rich

...

Marc Rich.

Yeah.

Yes.

And I can't remember him saying anything about it at the time, actually.

Or Mark Rich, who Bill Clinton pardoned on the way out the door after his wife committed a million dollars to the Democratic candidates and a half a million to the Clinton Presidential Library.

So these scandals happen.

They are happening.

Next, a quarter century earlier, March 1st, 2001, the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee.

It's a hearing on presidential pardons granted in the final days of the Clinton administration, specifically the pardon of financier Marc Rich.

The first witness, former Democratic National Committee finance chair, Beth dozoritz.

Here's Republican Chris Shays.

My question is: at any time while you were discussing the Marc Rich pardon with President Clinton, did either you or the president mention Denise Rich contributions to the Clinton Library or the Democrat National Committee?

Upon the advice of my counsel, I respectfully decline to answer that question based on the protection afforded me under the United States Constitution.

Let me ask you this.

President Ford pardoned Richard Nixon.

President Clinton, Marc Rich after donations.

President Biden, his son Hunter and Anthony Fauci.

President Trump, he's developed his own vetting system, pardoning political allies, including all of the January 6th rioters, as well as a string of unrepentant financial con men who argued, just like him, that they were wrongly prosecuted.

I studied it.

It was about the worst of the Clinton pardons besides the Mark Rich pardon and the FLA and terrorists.

It was right up there with those.

Okay, and this guy, Mignoli, was unrepentant.