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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.