The person largely responsible for key legal arguments cited in Marc Rich's
successful pardon application is not Jack Quinn, President Bill Clinton's
former White House counsel. It's I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, a longtime Rich
lawyer who is now chief of staff for Vice President Cheney.

Since 1985, when he left the State Department and was recruited by former
Nixon White House counsel Leonard Garment, Libby spent countless hours
reviewing legal documents and interviewing witnesses in a search for cracks
in the government's tax evasion indictment of Rich, according to sources.
"He spent the next two years traveling around the world," said a person
familiar with his work.

He traveled to England, New York, Texas and California, and met with Rich in
Switzerland at least eight times to discuss the case, the sources said.

"He's the best lawyer of all the many lawyers who have worked with me or for me,"
Garment said. "On this case, he didn't give in to anything. He was constantly skeptical
and helped me reach the conclusion that we had a meritorious case" to present to
New York prosecutors in attempts to negotiate a settlement.

"Scooter really believed" that Rich was innocent of the charges, said a source familiar
with his work. Libby was convinced Rich was a victim of an overzealous prosecution
that inappropriately used a federal racketeering statute known by its initials, RICO,
to squeeze him and his companies, sources said.

>From 1989 to 1993, Libby served in the Pentagon when Cheney was secretary of
defense. As soon as he went back into private practice, he resumed his role
as the specialist in the Rich case.

In 1994, he approached prosecutors again in a bid to lessen the charges, but
they balked, saying Rich would have to return to the United States before
they would seriously discuss the matter.

Libby briefed Quinn about the legal intricacies of the case in 1999 and
produced a document for the financier's legal team that October, attempting
to justify why prosecutors should talk to Rich even though he was a fugitive.

He has said he declined to work on the effort to win a pardon because he was
working for Cheney, sources said. But yesterday he was called as a witness
in a congressional hearing on the Rich pardon, and Libby said he had called
Rich to congratulate him when Clinton granted clemency.

Libby has declined repeated requests for interviews. But at the hearing, he said,
"I did not represent Mr. Rich in conjunction with the pardon or pardon application."

Libby said that he began working on the case with Garment and that they had
approached the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, seeking
dismissal of the criminal charges. "Approaching the Southern District of New York,
we were not seeking a pardon, but rather a negotiated settlement of the outstanding
charges," Libby said. He said he received $2 million in fees for his work on the case.

Libby said that last fall he was asked by Rich attorney Michael Green about
working on the pardon application but he said he was too busy working on a
potential Bush transition effort. "I informed Mr. Green that I would not
participate in a pardon application."
 

Staff writer James V. Grimaldi contributed to this report.

© 2001 The Washington Post Company