Pardon Me, Boys

(2 of 3)

What really threw Mrs. Clinton off stride last week was her brother's decision to accept $400,000 to lobby for two controversial clemency petitions: those of Carlos Vignali, a Los Angeles drug dealer, and A. Glenn Braswell, a Florida marketer of dubious health treatments. Rodham, who often spent the night at the White House, insisted last week that he purposely never spoke to his sister or his brother-in-law about his clients.

What he did do for them is unclear, especially in the case of Braswell, convicted of mail fraud, perjury and tax evasion in connection with questionable marketing of his health-care products. Rodham was brought into the case sometime in Clinton's final two weeks as President and was paid $200,000 as a "success fee" when Braswell's pardon came through.

Hugh's work for Vignali was of longer duration, beginning when the drug dealer's father Horacio asked Rodham to work on the clemency application. Rodham, a former public defender in Florida, was reluctant at first, but finally agreed. The elder Vignali, a wealthy Los Angeles businessman, had some sense of politics. He contributed generously to politicians in both parties, beginning in earnest in 1994 shortly before his son was to stand trial on conspiracy and cocaine-distribution charges. Prosecutors said the son deserved no quarter and expressed no remorse. Carlos was a key financier of a drug ring that transported about 800 lbs. of cocaine from L.A. to Minnesota in the early 1990s, and he came across as a blustery bully in tapes of wiretaps. He was sentenced to 15 years behind bars.

Having a lobbyist--much less your brother, staying upstairs, much less at the White House--was probably enough to force the junior Senator from New York to explain what she knew and when she knew it as quickly as possible last week. On Thursday she gave what is becoming her trademark, smile-through-adversity press conference. In a 45-minute session, Clinton explained that she first heard about Rodham's involvement as a pardon broker two weeks ago, when reporters began to make "inquiries of a vague nature." But she said she did not get "specific information" until Feb. 19, when she was told while watching a movie in a theater. She said she did not tell her husband until early the next morning "because he was traveling and not available...to be told." It was then that they decided to force Rodham to give the money back.

The Senator did not deny that she might have conveyed other pardon requests to her husband's staff. "When it became apparent around Christmas that people knew that the President was considering pardons, there were many people who spoke to me, or, you know, asked me to pass on information to the White House counsel's office...You know, people would hand me envelopes, I would just pass them." Asked what she thought about what her husband had done in the end, she said, "You'll have to ask him or his staff about that."

Congressional investigators, meanwhile, have their sights on Roger Clinton, the rock singer who got his own pardon last month for a long-ago drug conviction, but not before asking his brother to grant clemency to half a dozen buddies. Clinton didn't, and Roger maintains he was never paid any money for those appeals. But two sources tell TIME that Horacio Vignali told associates he paid Roger $30,000 to work on the commutation of his son's sentence. A spokesman for Roger Clinton said he claims never to have accepted money from Vignali; an attorney for Vignali had no comment. Rodham's lawyer said there was no connection between Rodham's work and any Roger may have done.

Congressional investigators also want to talk to Beth Dozoretz, the Democratic fund raiser involved as a kind of legal midwife in the Rich pardon. A close friend of Rich's ex-wife Denise, Dozoretz brought Rich into Clinton's political orbit, brokering a $450,000 donation to his presidential library and what sources say was hundreds of thousands to the Democrats. No one knew of Dozoretz's link to the pardon until Rich's lawyers released an e-mail last month describing a Jan. 10 phone call she had had with Clinton in which he said he wanted to grant the clemency.

But sources tell TIME that Dozoretz played a bigger and earlier role than previously known. Closer to Clinton than Rich's lawyer Jack Quinn, Dozoretz enjoyed regular access to the White House. In late November she apparently established the first direct contact with Clinton on the pardon, telling him Quinn was representing Rich. Clinton told her to have Quinn get in touch with deputy counsel Bruce Lindsey. About two weeks later, Quinn delivered a book-size pardon application to the White House.

Dozoretz's discussions with Clinton on the pardon ended on the night of Jan. 19. As word of the Rich pardon leaked from the White House, she called the President at about 11 p.m. to thank him. Clinton was so busy with last-minute decisions he did not appear to understand what she was thanking him for, a source said. It was at least an hour before the Department of Justice's pardon lawyer, Roger Adams, was informed by the White House that Rich might be on the pardon list. That means Dozoretz, a personal friend and fund raiser, knew of the decision before the lawyer charged with carrying it out. The House Government Reform Committee subpoenaed Dozoretz last week to testify at its second hearing on the pardons this Thursday. Republicans are likely to question if she sought the pardon for Rich in return for the funds she raised from his ex-wife. Dozoretz pledged to raise $1 million for the project and saw Denise Rich as the source for much of it. Dozoretz's lawyer, Tom Green, declined to comment.