There’s more to Rich than just “a little” Iraqi Oil-For-Food — there’s the Iranian Oil deals, the oil slicks, the oiled palms
For those not familiar with Marc Rich’s story, here’s the Time Magazine primer, complete with photo of his ex-wife Denise before her nose job, multiple facelifts and botox, and hair extensions. He was indicted in 1983 by then-U.S. Attorney Rudolph Giuliani for racketeering, illegal trading, scheming to defraud the IRS and dodging a tax-bill of $48 million, moved to Switzerland, and was later pardoned by Bill Clinton. Forbes had details on Rich’s business practices,

Rich was also accused of trading oil with Iran during the U.S. hostage crisis in 1980. Before that, he allegedly earned millions by creating an oil-trading daisy chain that evaded U.S. oil price controls. Oil that was supposed to be regulated emerged, through Rich’s financial sleight of hand, unregulated.

The U.S. Department of Justice International Interagency Outlook offered this “case detail” about Rich: “Tehran, Iran, November 4, 1979. Iranian militants invade the U. S. Embassy. For the next fourteen months, they hold fifty-three Americans hostage. Thousands of Iranians march through the streets, chanting, ‘Death to America!’ But one American quickly becomes popular with the new government in Tehran.”

That American, now restored to full citizenship, was Marc David Rich. The U.S. had offered to pay a reward for information that led to his arrest and, if necessary, to relocate individuals who fingered him. But Rich remained a fugitive even after reaching an out-of-court settlement in the U.S. for about $150 million in taxes.

The Economist mentioned that, additionally,

Mr Rich has also been linked to efforts to circumvent trade sanctions imposed on South Africa, as well as to a successful cornering of the aluminium market.
. . .
Many efforts have been made to extradite Mr Rich to face charges. By itself, “trading with the enemy” could send him to jail for 80 years. Now he can fly home and, because he has renounced American citizenship, his fortune would seem to be immune from American taxes.

Why was he let off? Mr Rich’s former wife, Denise Rich, is a big contributor to the Democratic Party in general and to Hillary Clinton in particular; his lawyer, Jack Quinn, is a former general counsel to Mr Clinton and was chief of staff to the former vice-president, Al Gore. Mr Giuliani criticised Mr Clinton’s actions, saying Mr Rich had never paid his dues to society. Apparently there is more than one way to pay.

Rich’s activities span the globe, with union busting in Ravenswood, West Virginia (Correction: I had first posted Ravenswood, Virginia but reader Mark Poling, whose father was a steelworker at the plant at the time of the incident, corrected my error. It’s in West Virginia) in 1990, his ownership of the company responsible for the Prestige oil spill off the coast of Spain in 2002, and his probable ownership(?) of Metaleurop-nord. The Metaleurop-nord factory, France’s worst polluter, closed in 2003 since it wasn’t able to meet EU pollution standards – it is claimed that eight tons of gold and money disappeared mysteriously from the site prior to its closing. Rich is also rumored to be connected to anything from the CIA to the Russian Mafia.

Therefore I’m not surprised that he’s been involved in the Oil-For-Food crimes. What’s surprising is that it took this long for his name to come up. The Freepers were talking about it back in April, as was the Wall Street Journal, since Rich’s longtime associate Patrick Maugein (referred to by the WSJ as “a billionaire with close ties to Jacques Chirac”) is directly involved with the Oil-For-Food principals.

Now the story is that Former American fugitive Marc Rich was a middleman for several of Iraq’s suspect oil deals in February 2001, just one month after his pardon from President Clinton, according to oil industry shipping records obtained by ABC News.

Rich flows the Don, as the saying goes.