Democratic Underground - The Clinton Tax Returns: What's the Holdup?

The Clinton Tax Returns: What's the Holdup?

Pressure Is High for Clinton to Release Her Tax Returns Since She Loaned Her Campaign $5 Million
By AVNI PATEL
March 10, 2008

After weeks of intense pressure, and more than a year after announcing her presidential candidacy, Sen. Hillary Clinton has offered little explanation for why she has delayed releasing the tax returns made public by most other Democratic presidential candidates in recent years.

"What is the holdup?" said Sheila Krumholz of the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonprofit group that tracks the role of money in politics. "She hasn't exactly made it clear as to what process is making it so cumbersome to just release them."

Past Democratic presidential candidates have set a precedent for releasing their tax returns before or during the primary season. Sen. John Kerry released his in December of 2003, and former Vice President Al Gore's were in the public domain while he was in office. Clinton's opponent, Sen. Barack Obama, released his 2006 return last April.

"This is a level of disclosure the American people have come to expect and deserve from those in the White House, or those who aspire to the White House," said Mary Boyle of Common Cause, a government reform advocacy group.

The pressure on Clinton to release her tax returns has been intensifying since it was revealed that she loaned her campaign $5 million in January. Clinton had repeatedly stated that she would release her tax returns upon becoming the Democratic nominee, but her spokesman Howard Wolfson said last week that the campaign now planned to release the returns "in or around April 15." Wolfson did not respond to requests for comment for this story.

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The article mentions Vin Gupta and Ron Burkle, but since 2000, the list has been growing. Bill Clinton's pardons:

Rodham says he has repaid fees for clemency cases

February 24, 2001
Web posted at: 10:37 p.m. EST (0337 GMT)

CORAL GABLES, Florida (CNN) -- Hugh Rodham, brother-in-law of former President Bill Clinton, said Saturday he has repaid all of the $400,000 in fees he received to represent the two convicted felons that Clinton granted clemency to on his last day in office.

Rodham also expressed frustration about reporters' efforts to prompt him into revealing more details about his relationship with Carlos Vignali, whose sentence was commuted, and Glenn Braswell, who received a presidential pardon.

A report in Saturday's New York Post quoted unnamed sources as saying Rodham had only repaid "roughly $300,000" due to "a cash flow problem."

On Thursday, his lawyer said Rodham had returned "most" of the fees to both clemency clients.

On Saturday, Rodham was asked if he had returned the fees. "Absolutely," he told a reporter camped outside his two-story house. "Everything I had."

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Rodham's sister, U.S. Sen. and former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, confirmed that Rodham accepted about $400,000 in contingency fees. "I knew nothing about my brother's involvement in these pardons," the New York Democrat said during a Thursday news conference. "I knew nothing about his taking money for his involvement. I had no knowledge of that whatsoever. I'm very disappointed and I'm very disturbed."
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Owner takes Fifth in Senate 'miracles' probe

September 10, 2001 Posted: 7:18 PM EDT (2318 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A businessman pardoned by President Clinton for mail fraud invoked the Fifth Amendment and refused Monday to testify before a Senate committee investigating whether his multi-million-dollar dietary supplement company markets "blatantly false" products to senior citizens.

The company, G.B Data Systems Inc., is owned and operated by Almon Glenn Braswell, who was pardoned in January by Clinton for a 1983 conviction on mail fraud related to a hair-loss product.

Braswell, appearing with his attorney, refused to answer any questions posed by Sen. John Breaux, chairman of the Senate Special Committee on Aging.

Earlier, the former chief executive officer with Braswell's company testified that its products -- which promise miracle cures -- are "laden with lies and deception," and he faulted government regulators for doing little to stop the practice.

Mike O'Neil, the former top financial executive at the California-based company, described for the Senate panel a company that preys on the elderly. He talked about a monthly advertising vehicle -- the Journal of Longevity -- that portrays itself as a medical magazine, but is chock full of articles written by company employees with no medical expertise.

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Probe: $1.8B diverted to Hussein regime

Volcker recommends 'fundamental administrative reform' at U.N.

Thursday, October 27, 2005; Posted: 6:59 p.m. EDT (22:59 GMT)

UNITED NATIONS (CNN) -- Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein manipulated the United Nations oil-for-food program so that his regime received $1.8 billion in illicit payments, a U.N.-backed independent report said Thursday.

The investigation, led by former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, said kickbacks came from some 66 member states and illicit surcharges came from 40 member states.

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The company decided not to furnish any contrary evidence, the report said, though its vice president and general counsel said in a letter to the commission, which was published in the report, that the conclusions were not supported by the evidence.

The report said Marc Rich & Co. financed 4 million barrels of oil under a 9.5-million-barrel contract awarded to the European Oil and Trading Co., a French-based shell company.

"Surcharges were imposed on the oil," the report said, and "Marc Rich & Co. directed BNP Paris not to disclose its identity to BNP NY in connection with its financing of the U.N. contract."

It added, "According to an individual familiar with the companies, EOTC and Marc Rich & Co. agreed that the premium paid to EOTC would cover a commission and a surcharge. The premium paid by Marc Rich & Co. of 30-40 cents per barrel was sufficiently high to cover both."

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Volcker endorsed Obama

In 2001, Bill tried to explain the pardons:

February 18, 2001

My Reasons for the Pardons

By WILLIAM JEFFERSON CLINTON

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The pardons that have attracted the most criticism have been the pardons of Marc Rich and Pincus Green, who were indicted in 1983 on charges of racketeering and mail and wire fraud, arising out of their oil business.

Ordinarily, I would have denied pardons in this case simply because these men did not return to the United States to face the charges against them. However, I decided to grant the pardons in this unusual case for the following legal and foreign policy reasons: (1) I understood that the other oil companies that had structured transactions like those on which Mr. Rich and Mr. Green were indicted were instead sued civilly by the government; (2) I was informed that, in 1985, in a related case against a trading partner of Mr. Rich and Mr. Green, the Energy Department, which was responsible for enforcing the governing law, found that the manner in which the Rich/Green companies had accounted for these transactions was proper; (3) two highly regarded tax experts, Bernard Wolfman of Harvard Law School and Martin Ginsburg of Georgetown University Law Center, reviewed the transactions in question and concluded that the companies "were correct in their U.S. income tax treatment of all the items in question, and (that) there was no unreported federal income or additional tax liability attributable to any of the transactions"; (4) in order to settle the government's case against them, the two men's companies had paid approximately $200 million in fines, penalties and taxes, most of which might not even have been warranted under the Wolfman/Ginsburg analysis that the companies had followed the law and correctly reported their income; (5) the Justice Department in 1989 rejected the use of racketeering statutes in tax cases like this one, a position that The Wall Street Journal editorial page, among others, agreed with at the time; (6) it was my understanding that Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder's position on the pardon application was "neutral, leaning for"; (7) the case for the pardons was reviewed and advocated not only by my former White House counsel Jack Quinn but also by three distinguished Republican attorneys: Leonard Garment, a former Nixon White House official; William Bradford Reynolds, a former high-ranking official in the Reagan Justice Department; and Lewis Libby, now Vice President Cheney's chief of staff; (8) finally, and importantly, many present and former high-ranking Israeli officials of both major political parties and leaders of Jewish communities in America and Europe urged the pardon of Mr. Rich because of his contributions and services to Israeli charitable causes, to the Mossad's efforts to rescue and evacuate Jews from hostile countries, and to the peace process through sponsorship of education and health programs in Gaza and the West Bank.

While I was troubled by the criminalization of the charges against Mr. Rich and Mr. Green, I also wanted to assure the government's ability to pursue any Energy Department, civil tax or other charges that might be available and warranted. I knew the men's companies had settled their disputes with the government, but I did not know what personal liability the individuals might still have for Energy Department or other violations.

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A year later, he expressed regret:

03/31/2002 - Updated 02:25 PM ET

Clinton regrets Marc Rich pardon

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Clinton says he regrets the last-minute pardon he gave to fugitive financier Marc Rich because it has tarnished his reputation.

Asked if he would do it again, "probably not, just for the politics," he said in an interview with Newsweek magazine. "It was terrible politics. It wasn't worth the damage to my reputation. But that doesn't mean the attacks were true."

A list of 177 pardons and clemencies was released by the Clinton White House just hours before Clinton left office and George W. Bush was sworn in on Jan. 20, 2001.

Since then, they have been investigated by federal prosecutors and Congress. That scrutiny, Clinton said, made him "just angry that after I worked so hard and after all that money had been spent proving that I never did anything wrong for money, that I'd get mugged one more time on the way out the door."

Rich was indicted in 1983 on federal charges accusing him of evading more than $48 million in income taxes and illegally buying oil from Iran during the 1979 hostage crisis. He left the United States before the indictment and now lives in Switzerland.

Rich is the ex-husband of Denise Rich, a financial contributor to the Democratic Party and to Clinton's presidential library.

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Federal investigators in New York are investigating whether any of Clinton's last-minute pardons were offered in exchange for contributions.

Clinton denied all wrongdoing in regard to the Rich pardon. "The fact that his ex-wife ... was for it and had contributed to my library had nothing to do with it," according to the Newsweek interview released Sunday.

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