Immunity For Ms. Rich On Hold

Denise Rich is ready to testify before Congress about President Clinton's pardon of her ex-husband, fugitive financier Marc Rich, in exchange for immunity from prosecution, CBS News Correspondent Phil Jones reports.

But a House committee probing the pardon won't grant immunity until federal prosecutors are finished with their own investigation, a spokesman said.

"Apparently there is a criminal prosecution under way," in the U.S. attorney's office in New York, spokesman Mark Corello said. "The committee will do nothing to impede the U.S. attorney's investigation."

U.S. attorney Mary Jo White, a Clinton appointee, has opened a criminal investigation into whether money played any role in Mr. Clinton's last-minute pardon of Rich.

Denise Rich, a succesful songwriter, has contributed an estimated $450,000 to Mr. Clinton's presidential library, more than $1.1 million to the Democratic Party and at least $109,000 to Hillary Rodham Clinton's Senate campaign in New York.

Senate and House committees are also looking into the controversial pardon, one of 141 granted by President Clinton on Jan. 20, his final day in office.

The questioning also will reach into the Bush administration, a committee source said, with Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, one of Rich's former lawyers, likely to be called to testify.

President Clinton himself pointed out the Cheney connection in an interview Thursday.

"I mean, (Rich) had three big-time Republican lawyers, including Dick Cheney's chief of staff," he said in a telephone call to Geraldo Rivera, host of CNBC's Rivera Live.

Mr. Clinton, according to Rivera, said there was "not a single, solitary shred of evidence that I did anything wrong, or that his (Rich's) money changed hands. And there's certainly no evidence that I took any of it."

Mr. Clinton's comments were not recorded. A transcript of Rivera's notes was provided to The Associated Press.

But the man who led the government's original prosecution of Rich called it "inconceivable that anybody would have considered a pardon for the biggest tax cheat in the history of the United States. A person who renounced his citizenship, who's been a fugitive for 17 years, it's just inconceivable."

Morris "Sandy" Weinberg, former assistant U.S. attorney and lead prosecutor in the original case against Rich , told CBS News' Early Show he was "shocked" and "astonished" by the pardon.

"It is particularly troubling that no on that knew anything about this case was consulted. No one from the U.S. Attorney's office, no one from the IRS, not me, not anyone that had any knowledge of the prosecution was consulted by the White House prior to the pardon," Weinberg said.

Rich, who fled to Switzerland in the 1980s, was wanted by the Justice Department on charges of evading more than $48 million in taxes, fraud and participating in illegal oil deals with Iran.

Mr. Clinton has claimed heavy lobbying by officials in Israel was one of the major factors in the pardon. And in an interview with CBS News, the mayor of Jerusalem, who wrote a letter to Mr. Clinton on Rich's behalf, said Rich had given $21 million to various causes.

"He's been one of the biggest contributors to many different institutions and projects in the city of Jerusalem for a long period of time," said Mayor Ehud Olmert. "Always very gracious and always very low profile."

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer reiterated Thursday that President Bush would simply prefer "we should move on" from the matter rather than delve further into it.

But Fleischer added that Mr. Bush didn't think it was the role of the president to dictate to Justice Department or the Congress "what investigations they should or should not conduct."

Separately, the Senate Intelligence Committee is investigating Mr. Clinton's pardon of former CIA Director John Deutch for mishandling classified documents n his home computer, sources close to Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., chairman of the panel, said Friday.

The committee sent a letter to CIA Director George Tenet to determine whether he or anyone else in the intelligence community was consulted before Clinton issued the pardon. A senior intelligence official responded that neither Tenet nor anyone else had advance knowledge, according to The Washington Post.

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