Congressional staffers now are focusing on the accuracy of a list of Clinton library donors and fundraisers which was turned over to them by the former president’s lawyers a few days ago.
A source in the Clinton camp familiar with the library donor list insists: “There’s not going to be anything in the library that’s going to be an issue.” But investigators continue to ask whether there was a correlation between last-minute presidential pardons and financial support for the Clinton library.
Last week a longtime Clinton supporter, who says he has pledged to raise $1 million for the Clinton library, told Newsweek that he had lobbied the White House for two pardons which the president granted the day he left office.
New York supermarket tycoon John Catsimatidis says that in late December he sent the White House letters recommending that the president pardon both William Fugazy, a New York limousine magnate convicted of perjury, and Edward Downe, a socialite and former stockbroker convicted of insider trading.
Catsimatidis says that he phoned White House chief of staff John Podesta and asked him to make sure that the recommendations got to Clinton’s desk… A Clinton spokeswoman says that instead of putting the letters on the President’s desk, however, Podesta delivered them to White House lawyers. Clinton aides said that the Downe pardon was also supported by Connecticut Sen. Christopher Dodd and that Democratic politicians lobbied the White House on behalf of Fugazy. The Downe application was not vetted by the Justice Dept. Fugazy had previously applied to the Justice Dept. for a pardon, which was rejected on procedural grounds.
Catsimatidis called himself a generous Democratic contributor for years. “I enjoy having access,” Catsimatidis says. He denied that he has specifically used his political access to request favors, but says he believes that, in general, a presidential pardon requires political connections. Catsimatidis says he had not yet fulfilled his pledge to raise $1 million for the Clinton library but added that doing so would be “easy.”
