Politics

Another Clinton Pardon Flap?

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

February 5, 2001 / 6:24 AM EST / CBS

A wealthy businessman convicted of crimes in the 1980s was under investigation for possible tax evasion and money laundering even as then-President Clinton pardoned him last month, a federal law enforcement source said Tuesday.

Herbal remedy marketer Almon Glenn Braswell, 57, was one of 140 people Mr. Clinton pardoned hours before leaving office Jan. 20. The pardon covered Braswell's 1983 conviction for fraud and other crimes, restoring his civil rights.

But as the pardon was being granted, federal prosecutors were investigating Braswell in connection with possible felonies involving offshore corporations and accounts, said the law enforcement source in Los Angeles, who spoke only on condition of anonymity.

It was unclear whether Mr. Clinton was aware of the current criminal investigation, or if the pardon would exempt Braswell from the legal inquiry.

The New York Times and The Washington Post first reported on the pending criminal investigations in their editions Tuesday.

After the pardon was announced, federal officials worried that Mr. Clinton had pardoned Braswell for any criminal charges that could arise from the current investigation.

The Justice Department has since assured Los Angeles prosecutors that the pardon covered only the 1983 case, and the prosecutors said they will pursue the current money-laundering and tax matters, according to the Post.

The pardon raised concerns among some law enforcement officials because it grants a full pardon without specifying the crimes.

Braswell was convicted in 1983 of mail fraud and perjury stemming from false claims about the effectiveness of a treatment for baldness. He was sentenced to three years in federal prison.

Braswell's pardon application was made at the last minute and was one of about two dozen that bypassed the traditional route through the Justice Department and the FBI and went straight to the White House.

A standard FBI background check would have highlighted Braswell's criminal probe and would have ruled out the possibility of consideration for a pardon, legal experts say.

Clinton White House officials declined to talk about the Braswell pardon but defended the process of considering candidates.

Braswell is a Republican. The Florida Republican Party and the George W. Bush campaign last fall returned $175,000 in contributions from him after learning he was an ex-felon.

The Braswell flap comes on the heels of the controversy over Mr. Clinton's last-minute pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich, a commodities trader who fled to Switzerland in the 1980s and remained there after he was charged with 51 counts of tax evasion and fraud.

The former president has defended the decision on Rich, which is irreversible, but still the subject of a congressional investigation. "On the merits, I don't think it was a wrong decision," he said.

Mr. Clinton and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton have run into other trouble in the twweeks since he left the White House.

On Monday, the Clintons said they'd be happy to return various furnishings they took from the White House if it turns out that the gifts were meant to dress up the executive mansion for future presidents, too.

Last week, amid accusations that they had kept various gifts not intended to be removed from the White House, the Clintons announced that they would pay back $86,000 for gifts they received in 2000.

That amount is less than half the value of the $190,000 in gifts they kept when leaving the White House.

In a statement, the Clintons said each of the gifts they accepted were identified by the White House gift office as a present to them. They said none of the gifts they took, including some $23,000 worth of household furnishings in question, was on a curator's list of official White House property.

Also Monday, in Boca Raton, Fla., Mr. Clinton was met by about a dozen demonstrators outside a Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co. conference, where he delivered a speech for a reported fee of $100,000. The demonstrators shouted "hide the women and silverware" and carried signs that read "Everything Still for Sale" and "Clinton Bonds Lack Principle."

The investment firm, based in New York, acknowledged that it had received several phone calls from customers who were irate that the former president was speaking at the company's annual junk-bond conference.

Critics have also questioned the former president's decision to rent an office in New York City that would have cost taxpayers more than $600,000 a year. Last week, he said his foundation would pay half the cost.