PRESIDENTIAL PARDONS

Dear Mr. President:

Just in case I do not get another chance to speak to you in the next few days, I want to make several points about the lengthy pardon petition 1 filed on behalf of Marc Rich and Pinky Green.

On a personal note, I believe in this cause with all my heart. When first approached about getting involved, I was highly skeptical. But, I studied the facts and the law carefully and became convinced of both Marc’s innocence and the outrageously prejudicial and unfair treatment of him by the then-new U.S. Attorney in New York, Mr. Guiliani.

Marc was indicted on charges (e.g., RICO and mail fraud) that, under Department of Justice policy and case law, could not be brought today. The core of the charges against him, however, was a tax case which two of the most prominent tax professors in America (Marty Ginsburg at Georgetown and Bernard Wolfman at Harvard) conclude was no case at all. Perhaps, more importantly, the United States Department of Energy, which was changed with enforcing the energy regulations underlying his dispute with the Government, concluded that Marc’s tax accounting ofthe transactions was proper More specifically, the indictment arose out of “linked” domestic and foreign transactions in 1980 and early 1981 undertaken by corporations in which Marc and Pinky were principals, with major oil companies on the other side, including ARCO. During the period of oil price controls (which came to be universally regarded, even by the regulators charged with their enforcement, as confusing and of questionable soundness), such “linked” transactions were common.

The nature of the transactions were not originated by the Marc’s corporations; indeed, Marc was told about them and implored to enter them by others (who were not indicted). At the time, many, and perhaps most, of the etitities in the oil tradig business were engaged in similar efforts to avoid the impact of the price control regulations. Yet there were no indictments for any of the transactions even remotely resembling the linked transactions that are the subject of Marc’s case. All other cases -- and there literally were several thousand of them -- were handled as civil administrative matters. This included the enforcement claim against ARCO. Significantly, much of the ARCO case was based on the very linked transactions which formed the basis of the bulk of the indictment against Marc. However -- and this is important -- in the civil case against ARCO the Department of Energy took the position that Marc’s corporations had properly accounted for the transactions and that ARCO had not. Based on that position, which is contrary to the position taken by the Southern District in Marc’s case, the government obtained a consent judgment for many, many millions of dollars from ARCO.

Marc, though, was not only singled out for prosecution. He was tried in the press. An avalanche of leaks to the New York press made a fair trial, in his eyes, impossible. Together with the grossly exaggerated nature of the charges against him, this led him to remain out of the country and not return to face the charges. Whether this was wise on his part or not is beside the point. But, it is worth mentioning that no one has ever suggested that Marc was in any respect legally culpable for ren]aining outside the United States. Our pardon petition is meritorious. No one other than you can and will resolve this matter. His may not be the only injustice out there, but that cannot be a reason not to correct this one. I hope you will.

Best regards.

Jack Quinn

SOURCE: House Committee on Government Reform, "The Controversial Pardon of International Fugative Marc Rich", February 8, 2001, Exhibit 17. Click for PDF file of Exhibits 11-20.

—————————————————————————————