Fox goes looking for Rich. Swiss police intervene.
Captain Marlow sent this transcript of last Friday’s O’Reilly Factor, which narrates what happened when Jonathan Hunt of Fox News tried to knock at Marc Rich’s door:
Marc Rich Mum on Oil-for-Food Allegations

SNOW: Marc Rich got a pardon from Bill Clinton. It was one of those, you know, 12 — 11th hour pardons by the former president. And the first thing he did was he went off to Switzerland, went back into hiding and apparently went back to his old tricks.

HUNT: Went straight back to busting sanctions against Iraq. It was within days of that pardon that he was brokering these dodgy deals, paying Saddam Hussein more than $1 million, according to Paul Volcker, those investigating the oil-for-food scandal, in illegal bribes. Straight back to it.

SNOW: Marc Rich is no stupid guy. What did he get for it?

HUNT: He — well, basically Marc Rich’s role was Saddam wanted to bribe somebody. He gave them oil vouchers. These were politicians or dignitaries. They didn’t know how to deal with these oil vouchers. They went to a guy like Marc Rich, who’s been busting sanctions in terms of oil for many years, Libya, South Africa, et cetera, et cetera, Iran. He knows how to make — how to make these deals work. He gets a big commission off the top.

SNOW: So — exactly, so he’s a middleman. He gets a slice of the action.

HUNT: Exactly. A big slice.

SNOW: And furthermore, most of his fortune has been, in fact, wrapped up in doing commodities deals. He’s been selling raw goods all over the world for a long time, and that’s his expertise.

HUNT: Yes. And he knows how to connect people who want to do bad deals, who want to launder money. He’s a bad man.

SNOW: Why do you think the Swiss government is covering for him?

HUNT: Five billion dollars a year in profit that he generates. He employs 500 people in that small town of Zug. He’s a very popular man.

You heard the policeman. This was a riot cop, as well. This wasn’t a normal street cop. This was a riot cop who came to have us thrown out of there and said Marc Rich is a VIP. It’s all about money.

Previous posts on Marc Rich October 28, December 2, 2004, December 3, and December 13.

(technorati Marc Rich Oil-For-Food)