Page 4 - Mark Rich News Today

Town and that was dan rosstankowski, a guy i knew from chicago, probably one of the two or three most powerful people in washington. at the end of this discussion you became deputy attorney general, and there was an episode at the very end of that administration, you were in charge of signing off on pardons from the justice department, and there was a fellow named mark rich, a very wealthy guy who had flouted the embargo of iran and he fled and left the country and then waged a very long and exp...

Puts your overall to 14. that is a very different ball game. >> she has a real sense of not only the human factor but also the impact on the rule of law and respect for the law, which i think she has demonstrated again and again which is very different in terms of mindset than judge ellis has evidenced. judge jackson clearly regards his witness tampering, his lying, his contempt for the law, feeling that the rules dont apply to him, and frankly, that is the mindset of, many feel, this administra...

Obviously in considering who they give pardons to and followed more of a process. but i think because donald trump clearly doesnt do that and he sent the message very clearly from the beginning he wasnt going to do that, it opens up these kinds of situations where you have somebody angling for a pardon the way manafort is. in such an ovaert way that i jut dont think in the past you would have been able to do that. >> jeff toobin, youve had plenty of sleazy people trying to get pardons from the p...

Up. >> thats right. bill clinton really shamed himself by pardoning mark rich, a fugitive. his brother. the end of the clinton administration was really a very bad low point. if i could go back to the lawyers for a second, i dont think theres anything necessarily improper about lawyers talking to each other when theyre all being investigated. i think whats really bizarre about all this is that manaforts lawyers are telling all this stuff to the trump lawyers and everyone else even though theyre ...

He sort of lied his way out of his cooperation agreement? >> i think it would be a clear case of obstruction of justice. look, the president has untraveled power under the constitution to grant pardons. but if he does it for a corrupt purpose, it can without -- i think, you know, there are some constitutional scholars that would disagree with this. i think most would say it is a crime and i think its a relevant precedent that bill clinton when he granted pardons to mark rich at the last days of ...

>> well, you know, it would be explosive thing for him to do. you know, every president who has waded into, you know, the investigations of people around him with a pardon ends up paying a political price. they usually do it after their last election when theyre on the way out of office. thats when george h.w. bush pardoned casper weinberger and bill clinton pardoned mark rich and others on the way out the door. for president trump to do it in the middle of the first term and the middle of the m...

5 1/2 months. its not as if these people have gotten off scot-free. you know, they suffered a hefty penalty for this. of all these people that he is considering pardoning, martha stewart probably makes the most sense from the standpoint of what eric holder was talking about, contrition and recognition of wrongdoing, having served her time, et cetera. the other ones im not as sure. and eric and i, i think, are making the same point. you go through the pardon attorney and get their recommendation ...

He had nothing to lose or gain other than he wanted to pardon his friend mark rich. the president has a lot to gain by issuing the pardons now, by sending signals to people that potentially could provide information against him. >> yeah. >> thats the issue have i with the pardons he is doing. now. >> and weve been talking about dinesh dsouza and some of the other folks. listen, lets get become to this issue. and you were talking about moral leadership, right? this is a gallup poll this week. and...

A lot of it is relationship driven and remember, he does so many things, he, donald trump, in opposition to what he doesnt like. so so much of his presidency to date has been what did barack obama do? okay. were doing the opposite. it doesnt even matter really what that is. its just the opposite. i think its relationship driven. and there is a score settling piece. i dont think there is any other question. one other quick thing to kirstens point, dont underestimate what a big deal it is. this is...

Elite. donald trump does so many things in opposition to what he doesnt like. so much of his presidency to date has been what did barack obama do? were doing the opposite. doesnt matter what that is. its relationship driven and its score settling. dont underestimate what a big deal this is. its a huge deal to pardon people. remember mark rich in the bill clinton days. this is a big deal. kirsten is right. we should not overlook it. >> just do it and dont say youre not doing it for that reason. s...