Clinton foundation subpoenaed

Congressional investigators issued a subpoena Tuesday to the Little Rock
foundation raising money for the Clinton presidential library, directing it to
disclose by next week all contributors who have given or pledged more than
,000 toward the project.
The House Committee on Government Reform is looking into whether
there's any connection between donations to the William J. Clinton
Presidential Foundation and the last-minute pardon of Marc Rich, a
commodities trader who fled the country after he was indicted on fraud,
racketeering and tax-evasion charges in 1983.
Rich's ex-wife, Denise, told committee members last week that she had
contributed an "enormous sum of money" to the Clinton foundation for the
library. Denise Rich then invoked her Fifth Amendment right against
self-incrimination. She reportedly donated ,000 to the library project in
three transactions.
"When someone says she gave an enormous, enormous amount of money
to the foundation, it opened our eyes to the foundation," said Mark Corallo,
spokesman for the committee. "This is an investigation. You follow the leads
where they go."
In addition to contribution and pledge lists, the subpoena seeks all records
relating to Denise and Marc Rich; their daughters, Danielle and Ilona Rich;
son-in-law Philip Aouad, who was married to Gabrielle who died of leukemia
in 1996; and companies associated with the family.
Clinton attorney David Kendall received the subpoena in Washington,
D.C. He suggested to The New York Times that the foundation would resist
releasing the donor list, which is due Tuesday at 5 p.m. The committee plans
to hold its first hearing today on the Rich pardon.
It's the second time in two weeks that the Clinton foundation has found
itself under the national microscope for actions Clinton took after he left
office. When Clinton was strongly criticized for choosing to rent an ,000
office in Manhattan, the foundation agreed to reduce taxpayers' cost with an
annual ,000 subsidy. Clinton on Tuesday toured a less-expensive suite in
Harlem, which he has chosen as his new office.
Now the foundation is in the middle of the Rich pardon investigation, and
Skip Rutherford of Little Rock and president of the foundation, is being
ordered to disclose the list of donors he vowed would remain confidential.
Rutherford did not return phone calls Tuesday.
Since it formed in 1998, the foundation has raised an unknown sum of
money at private dinners across the country, including at a luncheon at Barbra
Streisand's Malibu estate.
Foundation members have solicited money from tens of thousands of
potential donors in a national direct-mail campaign. Now that Clinton is no
longer president, the fund-raising effort has extended overseas, seeking
millions of dollars from foreign governments and other foreign supporters.
The library center and its components are expected to cost up to
million. Though tax records indicate that the foundation finished 1999 with
.9 million in the bank, they didn't indicate dollars pledged. It's uncertain
how much the organization has raised since then.
"What we're doing now is following the law, which requires no disclosure
of specific contributors, and following the precedent set by President
Reagan's campaign when he started a foundation during his second term also,"
Rutherford said recently. "The law does not require it. We have President
Reagan's precedent to follow."
Like other presidential foundations, the Clinton foundation is considered a
nonprofit organization under guidelines set by the Internal Revenue Service.
The George Bush Presidential Library Foundation has a list of high-dollar
donors printed on a wall outside the library in College Station, Texas, but with
donors' permission.
The Clinton Legal Expense Trust, which has raised more than .2 million
to offset Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton's legal expenses, also falls under that
classification.
But unlike the Clinton foundation, the Clinton Legal Expense Trust has
disclosed all 107,000 or so contributors and what each of them gave.
The Government Reform Committee issued two other subpoenas: One to
the Democratic National Committee for the "checks and check-tracking
records" for Denise, Marc, Danielle and Ilona Rich, and other entities listed
on the Clinton foundation subpoena; the other was served to Denise Rich for
her bank records, Corallo said.
The committee also sent letters to a variety of sources for more information
about the Riches. Among them are letters to:
The Secret Service seeking information that would show how often
members and supporters of the Rich family visited the White House before
the pardon.
The National Archives and Records Administration, which is storing all
papers from the Clinton administration in the gray renovated warehouse at
1000 LaHarpe Blvd. in Little Rock, seeking all e-mail and telephone records
concerning Denise or Marc Rich from June 1, 1999, to Jan. 20, 2001,
relating to calls between Clinton, several members of his staff and Democratic
fund-raisers.
The Central Intelligence Agency to declassify material related to Marc
Rich's case.
The Defense Intelligence Agency to produce all material it possesses on
the Rich case, as well as Pincus Green, a fugitive commodities trader whom
Clinton pardoned.
Despite the range of requests, Corallo said, evidence keeps returning to the
Clinton foundation and its bank records. "We just want to get the information
and wrap this up."


This article was published on Wednesday, February 14, 2001

Sen. Hutchinson plan lowers tax on benefits
Social Security recipients would see less of their benefits
taxed under legislation introduced Friday by Republican Sen. Tim Hutchinson
of Arkansas.
The bill is designed to roll back a 1993 law that increased to 85 percent
the share of Social Security benefits that could be taxed for individuals making
above ,000 and couples making above ,000. Before 1993, those
recipients were taxed on only 50 percent of their benefits.
The rollback would result in a revenue loss of billion over five years.
"I think there is a lot of support for this," Hutchinson said. "The 1993
increase has unfairly penalized seniors who have tried to save wisely for
retirement or want to continue to work." But he added that it will face a lot of
competition from other tax proposals.
Noting projected budget surpluses of almost trillion over the next
decade, President Bush has proposed a $1.6 trillion tax cut. Bush is especially
adamant about cutting marginal rates -- tax rates applied to income of
different levels within ranges called brackets -- which will consume at least
billion to billion of the $1.6 trillion.
"There is going to be great competition for the other [ billion],"
Hutchinson said.
"My point is, if you're doing the child tax credit and [eliminating] the
marriage penalty, we ought to do something for seniors."
But William Gale, tax policy expert at the Brookings Institution, a liberal
think tank, said bills like Hutchinson's will further slant this year's tax
proposals toward upper-income groups. That has been a key criticism of
Bush's proposal.
"Most lower- and middle-income taxpayers that are elderly don't pay taxes
on their Social Security benefits," Gale said. "It's not clear to me that's the
highest priority use of the surplus, but that's a value judgment."
Gale added that Hutchinson's bill "will be one of about 8,000" tax-cut
proposals to hit the floor of Congress this year.


This article was published on Saturday, February 10, 2001

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