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-Songwriter also has Austrian citizenship through her late father -Former husband Marc Rich fled the country when indicted on charges of tax evasion - but was pardoned by President Clinton in 2001 -House of Representatives committee later found Denise Rich had swayed the decision through donations to Clinton campaign -Comes as the latest wealthy American to denounce citizenship Denise Rich, the wealthy socialite and former wife of pardoned billionaire trader Marc Rich, has given up her U.S. citizenship - and, with it, much of her U.S. tax bill. Rich, 68, a Grammy-nominated songwriter, top Democratic donor and glamorous figure in...

Denise Rich, the wealthy socialite and former wife of pardoned billionaire trader Marc Rich, has given up her U.S. citizenship - and, with it, much of her U.S. tax bill. Rich, 68, a Grammy-nominated songwriter, top Democratic donor and glamorous figure in European royalty circles, renounced her American passport in November, according to her lawyer. Her maiden name, Denise Eisenberg, appeared in the Federal Register on April 30 in a quarterly list of Americans who renounced their U.S. citizenship and permanent residents who handed in their green cards. ___Songwriter also has Austrian citizenship through her late father ___ Former husband...

Denise Rich, the wealthy socialite and former wife of pardoned billionaire trader Marc Rich, has given up her U.S. citizenship - and, with it, much of her U.S. tax bill. Rich, 68, a Grammy-nominated songwriter and glossy figure in Democratic and European royalty circles, renounced her American passport in November, according to her lawyer. Her maiden name, Denise Eisenberg, appeared in the Federal Register on April 30 in a quarterly list of Americans who renounced their U.S. citizenship and permanent residents who handed in their green cards. By dumping her U.S. passport, Rich likely will save tens of millions of...

It’s the city’s most expensive co-op apartment — and it can be all yours for a cool $65 million. Songwriter Denise Rich — ex-wife of presidential-pardon recipient Marc Rich — is putting her Fifth Avenue penthouse on the selling block. With such a staggering price tag, a buyer can expect a bit more than the basic luxury amenities. The digs are so expansive that Rich — who penned the lyrics to such hits as the Aretha Franklin-Mary J. Blige duet, “Don’t Waste Your Time,” and Mandy Moore’s “Candy” — once converted one of her three terraces into a professional-grade figure-skating...

Whether it's textiles in the Carolinas, paper in New England or steel in the Midwest, most industrial cities and mill towns "are on pins and needles," says Donald Schunk, an economist at Coastal Carolina University. "Day to day, week to week, any manufacturing facility seems vulnerable. People don't know if they'll be there." I could post endless pics of NE Ohio, and they'd look exactly like the one in this photo. In fact, at first I thought it was Niles or Youngstown, Ohio. Read more at floppingaces.net...

Special report: Next month’s UN report will drag British-based miner Xstrata into the controversy over surcharges paid to Saddam.... Glencore is also known as the company founded by Marc Rich, the commodities trader who fled to Switzerland from the US after being charged for embargo-busting in Iran following the Khomeini revolution. Four years ago, Rich was pardoned by President Bill Clinton on Clinton’s last day in the White House.

We have plenty of basis and evidence that [Binyam] Mohammed is dangerous. But Holder’s sense of “responsibility ... as attorney general ... for the safety of this nation” did not stop him from agreeing to Mohammed’s release and transfer to England — where he now plots freely while on the British dole. Naturally, having discerned that all the tough talk was just that, talk, British authorities are back on the administration’s doorstep, demanding the release of Shaker Aamer. He’s a bin Laden confidant who trained aspiring terrorists at al-Qaeda camps, met with shoe-bomber Richard Reid, and traveled widely in the...

Top brass flew to Baghdad with publicity-shy empowerment businessman Mzilikazi Wa Afrika, Jessica Bezuidenhout and Andre Jurgens Two of the ANC's most powerful officials travelled to Iraq with a controversial Johannesburg businessman just weeks before he landed a R1.2-billion state oil deal. Sandi Majali is one of about 270 people around the world who have been named in an alleged sanctions-busting scam involving oil from former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime. The names appeared in Iraqi State Oil Marketing Organisation documents found after the fall of Saddam. Majali, 41, who heads the media-shy empowerment company Imvume Resources, has for the...

Three times during his tenure as Deputy Attorney General, Eric Holder was made fully aware that intelligence sharing with the Criminal Division was not taking place. As the officer in charge of day-to-day operations at the Department of Justice, his lack of due diligence ensured that the 'Wall' between the intelligence and criminal divisions of the FBI that Jamie Gorelick had built would remain in place for the foreseeable future. The 'Wall' stood as the Clinton administration and intelligence community saw the rising threat of al Qaeda, Ramzi Yousef was prosecuted for making the bomb used in the 1993 attack...

Eric Holder’s intercession on behalf of fugitive Marc Rich is so inexplicable that he has always viewed ignorance as his best defense. It’s as though Holder believes that a deputy attorney general looks better for having remained studiously unaware of critical facts in a criminal case before throwing his weight around. But that’s Holder’s story, and he’s sticking to it: even if it turns out not to be true. Holder is President Obama’s choice to become attorney general. That means the Rich case is a big problem for him today—just as it was in 2001, when an outraged Congress demanded...

In his Senate confirmation hearing Thursday, attorney-general nominee Eric Holder responded to the two top criticisms leveled against him by (1) defending clemency for members of a terrorist group and (2) saying, “I will be a better attorney general for having had the Marc Rich experience.” Holder has been criticized for several controversial and suspected politicized decisions he made as deputy attorney general during the Clinton administration. Chief among these have been his role, which he says he regrets, in President Clinton’s pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich. Rich’s ex-wife, Denise Rich, had made large campaign donations to the Democratic...

Obama pick faces questions over bombers' clemencyBy PETE YOST Associated Press Writer Originally published Wednesday, January 14, 2009 at 2:05 PM WASHINGTON — New York police detective Anthony S. Senft's life changed forever when a bomb set by Puerto Rican separatists exploded, blowing him 15 feet in the air and blinding him in one eye. Now, he's angry that Eric Holder, who played a key role in awarding clemency to the bombers, is in line to be attorney general. Holder, as President Bill Clinton's deputy attorney general, worked closely with the Justice Department's pardon attorney to raise the possibility of...

Senate Republicans have invited the son of man killed in a 1975 Puerto Rican nationalist bombing as well as a former FBI agent who investigated two violent groups supporting Puerto Rican independence to appear at Eric Holder’s confirmation hearings. In particular, they question Holder’s role in President Clinton’s 2001 pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich as well as Holder’s involvement in Clinton’s 1999 decision to grant clemency to 16 violent Puerto Rican nationalists. To drive home those questions, Republicans have arranged for Joseph F. Connor, whose father was killed in the Jan. 24, 1975, bombing of Fraunces Tavern in New...

In two days, Sen. Pat Leahy (D-Vt.) will begin the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing on Eric Holder, former Clinton deputy attorney general who is President-elect Barack Obama’s highly controversial nominee to the office of Attorney General. Holder, best known for playing a major role in the Clinton pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich, will face skeptical Republicans, including ranking Republican Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.). Specter has run into a Leahy roadblock in his attempts to get some of the background documents on the nomination. Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy has refused to sign off on document requests by Republicans...

Many investors who have lost money as clients of the financier Bernard L. Madoff have done what anyone might be expected to do in that situation: seek recourse through the courts. But one potential victim, Marc Rich, is not likely to go that route because of his own legal issues. Mr. Rich is the commodities trader who fled to Switzerland in 1983 to escape prosecution for financial crimes and later received a pardon from President Bill Clinton on the last night of his administration in 2001.

No, this is not surprising. Christine Varney, a Clinton insider who worked for the Clinton administration, is charged with vetting Bill for the Hillary Sec of State nomination. Gee, there's no conflict of interest there, huh? Varney has been provided with important information about the MARC RICH PARDON that she is ignoring. This vetting process is a total fraud. The info has also been given to the office of Arlen Specter. Yes, you don't need to tell me. That's a dead end for the truth. Please send this info to the media. Maybe there is an honest reporter left in...

This morning I called Senator Arlen "Magic Bullet" Specter's office. Not only is he on the Senate Judiciary Committee, responsible for Eric Holder confirmation hearings, he has been making noises about wanting to know more about the Marc Rich pardon. His office transferred me to his representative at the Senate Judiciary Committee. After hearing the info, the woman wanted me to forward her the information. Okay, Sen. Specter, you are now in possession of important information that needs to be part of the confirmation hearings. What are you going to do about it? LISTEN TO THE AUDIO FROM CONFIDENTIAL WITNESS...

Soon after Bill Clinton pardoned Marc Rich, the former president and I had a brief telephone conversation. I had been downright heated about the pardon, a lot angrier than I had ever been about Monica Lewinsky. Clinton implied that I had things historically backward. Long after the Rich pardon had been forgotten, he said, the Lewinsky scandal would remain a vivid memory. That day is yet to come. The Rich pardon is back. The vehicle for this lingering echo from the year 2001 is the choice of Eric Holder as Barack Obama's attorney general. Holder was Clinton's deputy attorney general...

Eric Holder, Jack Quinn and the Rich pardon (updated below - Update II) Two weeks ago, in a largely positive assessment about Obama's likely Attorney General nominee -- entitled "Preliminary facts and thoughts about Eric Holder" -- I wrote: Holder's involvement in the sleazy Marc Rich pardon is definitely a blemish, though, given his peripheral role, it's a relatively minor one. Since then, The New York Times has published two pieces -- an Op-Ed by George Lardner and this article today by Eric Lichtblau and David Johnston -- which make conclusively clear that the word "peripheral" is inaccurate. Though Holder...

President-elect Barack Obama said this week that Eric Holder, his nominee for attorney general, "has the combination of toughness and independence" needed for the job. Eric Holder The key questions here are "toughness" about what and "independence" from whom? Certainly Mr. Holder was tough during his time as No. 2 official in the Clinton Justice Department. He overrode the recommendations of career prosecutors and consistently carried out Attorney General Janet Reno's "see no evil "approach to the burgeoning Clinton scandals, whether they involved illegal Asian fundraising during the 1996 campaign or Al Gore's "no controlling legal authority" meeting at the...