A Rush to Judgment

"The full dimension of who this guy was and what he was charged with didn't come in evidence even after those initial news stories," Holder says, referring to articles printed after Clinton's Jan. 20 pardon. "It was not something that ever commanded a lot of my attention while I was there."

Elsewhere in the law enforcement community, particularly at the New York office that pursued him, Rich was a big name. A grand jury indicted him on 65 counts in 1983, alleging that he had hidden nearly $100 million from tax authorities and had traded with Iran while U.S. citizens were held hostage there.

Rich hired a battalion of big-time lawyers and obtained Spanish and Israeli citizenship to help avoid extradition. His proxies, both Republican and Democratic, said the charges were a product of overzealous prosecution. Along the way, however, his companies pleaded guilty to 78 felony counts and paid nearly $200 million in fines while Rich stayed abroad and free.

A pardon would allow Rich to return to the United States, and he wanted one badly. He hired Jack Quinn, a power player in the Clinton administration, a man who could get a face-to-face meeting with the president. As Quinn spun into gear, he skipped the established Justice Department pardon procedure and avoided contact with the Manhattan prosecutors who he knew would scream bloody murder.

Quinn went directly to Clinton with his thick petition, minimizing the chance that Justice would open a file. That meant no automatic background checks, no telephone calls to the FBI, no conversations with prosecutors. Such a review was routine in clemency petitions routed through Justice, but would not have been taken in this case unless Clinton ordered an analysis or Holder expressed concern when Quinn alerted him.

Neither did. When the White House called on Jan. 19, Holder was not prepared.

"It was almost unimaginable to Eric that an unvetted pardon could be under consideration at that late date and time," a colleague says. "It was a very savvy strategy by Quinn to circumvent all the safeguards of the system."

Transparent Disclosure? Quinn says he did nothing improper as he guided Rich's case through the system. He declined to be interviewed for this article. But with the help of a hired public relations man, he argues that he kept Justice sufficiently informed -- through Holder.

The disagreement over what Quinn told Holder -- and Holder's response -- is central. The interests of the two former Clinton administration colleagues have diverged.

"I want to emphasize at the outset that the process I followed was one of transparency at both the Department of Justice and the White House," Quinn told the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee.

"On more than one occasion I urged the White House counsel to seek the views of the Justice Department," Quinn said. "In point of fact, I believed the consultation by the White House with Mr. Holder would help me make my case because, for over a year, since October 1999, I have had a series of communications orally and in writing with him about Mr. Rich's case."

Quinn says it was Holder's responsibility to seek more information if he needed it, according to spokesman Peter Mirijanian.

Martin Auerbach, who worked the Rich case as a New York prosecutor, takes another view. He believes Holder "dropped the ball" but suggests that Quinn was selective about the information he gave the White House and in his discussions with the deputy attorney general.

"Give me a break," says Auerbach, now a defense attorney. "There are efforts to keep this under the radar that are explicitly discussed. There's just no interest in transparency. I think what Jack Quinn is saying, when he uses the word 'transparent,' is he wanted it to be invisible."

Steps Toward Clemency Holder and Quinn have testified to three conversations about Marc Rich.

The first occurred in late 1999, when Quinn asked Holder to help arrange a meeting with the Manhattan prosecutors, who had refused to negotiate while Rich was a fugitive. Holder backed the move, saying he supported the principle that lawyers should talk. Early last year, Quinn sent Holder a two-page analysis of the case as seen by the Rich lawyers.

Another talk took place on Nov. 21, at the end of a large meeting at Justice on another topic. Quinn said he told Holder he was sending Rich's petition to the White House. Holder says he does not recall the brief discussion. Thinking back, he reasons that he expected Quinn also to send the petition to the Justice pardon attorney. If the case became important, Holder figured, paperwork would cross his desk in due course.

An e-mail revealed Tuesday identifies another conversation that neither man recalled when testifying. The Nov. 18 message from Quinn to fellow Rich attorney Kathleen Behan is titled "eric." Quinn wrote: "spoke to him last evening. he says go straight to wh. also says timing is good. we shd get in soon." Holder adamantly denies giving Quinn any such advice.

The next development was Jan. 10, when Quinn dispatched a letter to Holder about the Rich application. The cover sheet said, "Your saying positive things, I'm told, would make this happen." But the envelope was misaddressed and did not reach Holder. It turned up on Jan. 18 in the pardon office, where attorney Roger C. Adams assumed it concerned a future case and set it aside.

A Life-Changing Phone Call The third Quinn-Holder conversation, and the most important, happened the night before Clinton left office.

At about 6:30 p.m. on Jan. 19, Quinn reached Holder at Justice to say that White House counsel Nolan would be phoning to ask his opinion. Nolan soon called, and Holder said he noted the "significant piece of new information" that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak strongly supported the pardon.

Holder uttered his now well-known phrase, "neutral, leaning towards favorable."

By describing himself as "neutral," Holder says, he meant that he knew too little about Rich to make a recommendation on the legal merits. The reference to "leaning towards favorable" meant deferring to the White House if foreign policy interests warranted.

Holder hung up and went to his next meeting, a strategy session about reports that President Bush's inaugural motorcade would be attacked with stink bombs and Molotov cocktails on its way to the White House. The last thing Holder wanted was a calamity in his first hours as acting attorney general.

"That's one of the things where you look back and say, 'What if?' If after those couple of phone calls at 6:30 I had simply said . . . 'Hey, what's the status of the Rich case?' I assumed it was being worked by someone in the department."

In fact, Rich's case was not being considered by anyone in the agency. Holder told the Judiciary Committee that the White House must have been aware that he and the Justice Department were not fully informed.

"I don't know if it's inadvertence, design, whatever," Holder testified. "But somebody had to know that any recommendation or comment from Holder is not based on the kinds of materials that he normally has access to."

Throughout the night, Holder spoke with assistant Deborah Smolover, who stayed in contact with the White House and kept him posted on a range of clemency cases. She also was in touch with the Manhattan prosecutors, who were monitoring a series of pardons but knew nothing of the Rich petition.

Longtime Associates In a political town where careers intersect and alliances are formed, Holder and Quinn have known each other for years and dealt with each other in the upper reaches of the Clinton administration. Even after he left government for private practice, Quinn was able to reach Holder on the telephone. And in December, Holder sent the re{acute}sume{acute}s of two job-seeking colleagues to Quinn.

Holder also discussed his ambition to become attorney general with Quinn, who was a longtime adviser to Gore. As he recalls, Holder told Quinn that he hoped he could count on his support if Gore were elected. They testified that the conversation probably took place before the election, and certainly before Quinn delivered his two-inch-thick pardon request on Dec. 11.

Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.), chairman of the House committee, asked Holder whether the two men had arranged a quid pro quo. Holder testily said they had not. His integrity, he asserted, should not be in question.

"The notion that career advancement was somehow related to this, that somehow Quinn would have been able to help me," Holder says, "it didn't enter into my decision-making at all."

'Somewhat Responsible' "Integrity" is a word used repeatedly by Holder's admirers.

"A guy of the utmost integrity," says Joseph DiGenova, a former U.S. attorney who now represents Quinn. A onetime colleague recalls Holder routinely telling his prosecutors, "Do the right thing."

"If you're inclined to look at this with a sinister, cynical eye, you could read the worst into it," says former solicitor general Seth Waxman. "But I believe Eric's version of this without hesitation, because I have such a high opinion of his integrity."

Almost every day new characters join the pardon circus that is spinning outward to include party fundraisers, presidential relatives, a New York socialite and a purveyor of bogus herbal remedies. But the chances are good that Holder has not answered his last question on the matter.

New York lawyer Auerbach, the former Rich prosecutor, speaks of two reactions often heard when Holder's name is mentioned. The first is sadness that Holder is entangled in a mess largely of Clinton's making. The other is frustration that he did not explore the Rich case and speak out.

"I feel very bad for him. I think he was terribly compromised by this. I think he, too, was seeing part of the picture and being encouraged that he didn't need to look any harder at it," says Auerbach. But he adds, "How you could say you were neutral about a man who was a longstanding fugitive is puzzling to me."

Former Democratic Party chief Robert Strauss believes Holder "has unquestionably taken scars from this, some deserved, but he will recover. This, too, will pass."

Holder is taking a few months off as he considers job offers and spends time with his family. It is probably too soon to know what effect the Rich case might have on his prospects in public life. Washington scandal stories have a tendency to grow and scatter, disappear and resurrect themselves like the images in a kaleidoscope.

"My emotions change from day to day. There are times when I'm very angry about the situation. There are other times when I hear about things, read about things, that are hurtful," Holder says. "But these are choices I have made. It is not all everybody else's fault. I am somewhat responsible.

"This is Washington, a city that I love. This is one of the uglier parts of the city," he says. "It doesn't make me want to leave the city or be any less committed to the causes I feel are important."