June 4, 2008

The last time Washington attorney Eric Holder participated in a high-profile vetting, it was for fugitive financier Marc Rich.

The episode in 2001 became the final scandal of the Clinton administration and landed Holder, at the time the No. 2 official at the Justice Department, in the middle of a congressional investigation.

Now Holder, a co-chairman of Barack Obama’s campaign, is one of three big names who will lead the search for a potential running mate for the presumed Democratic presidential nominee.

The others are Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of the late President John F. Kennedy, and longtime Washington insider Jim Johnson.

In the Clinton pardon scandal, Holder was deputy attorney general when his duties intersected with the efforts of Rich’s lawyer, Jack Quinn, who had been White House counsel earlier in the Clinton administration.

The entire matter was handled in an unorthodox manner – on a straight line from Rich’s lawyer to the White House, with a consulting role for Holder.

To make matters worse, Holder had asked Quinn for his help in becoming attorney general in the event then-Vice President Al Gore won the 2000 election.

Rich did not even qualify for a pardon under Justice Department guidelines, which say no pardons can be requested until five years after completion of a sentence in a criminal case.

Prosecutors on the Rich case testified that no one consulted with them before a recommendation went to the president on the Rich pardon.

Rich has been based in Switzerland since 1983, just before he was indicted in the United States, accused of tax evasion on more than $100 million in income, fraud and participating in illegal oil deals with Iran.

Politics | Holder’s reputation dinged by Marc Rich pardon | Seattle Times Newspaper