Pardon Mess Thickens

A new batch of provocative e-mails suggests that top advisers to fugitive financier Marc Rich first plotted nearly a year ago to send Rich's ex-wife, wealthy Democratic donor Denise Rich, on a "personal mission" to President Clinton-the first foray in an extraordinarily well-orchestrated pardon campaign that began long before lawyers for Rich have publicly acknowledged.

The e-mails, among Rich's lawyers and advisers, were subpoeanaed by congressional investigators and are due to be released today at a hearing of the House Government Reform Committee. They appear to show that the campaign to win Rich a pardon was far more elaborate-and may have begun much earlier-than was previously known.

Avner Azulay, a former top Mossad agent who now heads the Marc Rich Foundation in Israel, wrote an e-mail on March 18, 2000, to Robert Fink, one of Rich's lawyers in New York, which read: "We are reverting to the idea discussed with Abe--which is to send DR on a 'personal mission' to NO1 with a well-prepared script."

A congressional investigator said last night that the House Government Reform Committee believes Azulay's cryptic reference to "NO1" is in fact code for "Number One" or President Clinton. "DR" is a reference to Denise Rich. It was not immediately clear who "Abe" was.

Another Azulay e-mail suggests the former Israeli intelligence official had been contemplating a pardon plea for his boss even earlier than that. In a Feb. 10, 2000, e-mail, Azulay expresses his disappointment that federal prosecutors in New York had rejected an offer to negotiate a plea bargain of Rich's 1983 indictment on tax-evasion and racketeering charges while the financier remained overseas in Switzerland. Reacting with disgust to a report from Rich's lawyer Jack Quinn that the only thing the prosecutors are willing to negotiate is Rich's "surrender" to federal authorities, Azulay wrote: "I have to say that 'I told you so'..." Azulay then adds: "The present impasse leaves us with only one other option: the unconventional approach which has not yet been tried and which I have been proposing all along."

If so, the plotting for a presidential pardon in February and March of 2000 would contradict previous public accounts by Quinn that there was no consideration given to seeking a pardon for Rich until November 2000 when federal prosecutors in New York again rebuffed efforts to persuade them to drop the criminal charges against Rich.