Why David Geffen Hates Hillary & Bill Clinton

Thursday, Feb. 22, 2007 1:11 p.m. EST

Why David Geffen Hates Hillary & Bill Clinton

Why does movie mogul David Geffen hate the Clintons so much?

His personal attack made this week on Hillary Clinton harkens back to then-President Bill Clinton’s refusal to pardon an American Indian activist Geffen believes was falsely convicted of murder.

DreamWorks co-chairman Geffen and Bill Clinton were once close, and Geffen raised some $18 million for Clinton. He was even a guest in the White House's Lincoln Bedroom during the Clinton presidency.

Geffen turned his back on his friend when he pardoned fugitive financier Marc Rich in the last days of his administration – after rebuffing Geffen’s request for a pardon for Leonard Peltier.

In June 1975 – during protests by the American Indian Movement – federal agents entered a ranch on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota. Following a shootout, two agents were found shot at close range through the head.

Peltier, who was on the reservation that day, fled to Canada but was later extradited, convicted of murder and sentenced to two consecutive life terms. He remains behind bars. Supporters, including Geffen, have claimed that authorities falsified evidence and withheld other evidence at the trial, and have long sought a pardon for Peltier, now 62 and in poor health.

In his recent anti-Clinton remarks that were quoted by New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, Geffen called Bill Clinton a "reckless guy,” criticized Hillary’s stand on the Iraq war, and asked if there is "anybody more ambitious than Hillary Clinton?”

Geffen, who is supporting Sen. Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination for president, also said: "Marc Rich getting pardoned? . . . Yet another time when the Clintons were unwilling to stand for the things that they genuinely believe in.”

Word from Hollywood sources was the Geffen, at first, had taken Clinton’s decision not to pardon Peltier in stride.

But Geffen went ballistic when he learned that President Clinton issued pardons to wrongdoers like Rich and 139 others in his final days in office. Among the pardons that sparked the most controversy:

Marc Rich was indicted on tax evasion, commodities fraud and other charges in 1983 and fled to Switzerland. After Clinton pardoned him, a House committee probing Clinton’s pardons sought testimony from Rich’s ex-wife Denise, who had been a major contributor to Democratic causes – including Hillary’s Senate campaign and the Clinton Presidential Library. Denise Rich invoked the Fifth Amendment.

Almon Glenn Braswell was pardoned of his mail fraud and perjury convictions after paying about $200,000 to Hillary’s brother, Hugh Rodham, to represent his case for clemency. He later returned the payments, but he too invoked the Fifth Amendment during a Congressional hearing.

In 2000, Clinton pardoned Vonna Jo Gregory, owner of the carnival company United Shows International, and her husband Edgar for a 1982 bank fraud conviction. After the pardon, the company gave Hillary’s brother Anthony Rodham $107,000 in "loans” that he has never repaid.

On his last day in office, Clinton pardoned his old friend Susan McDougal, who had already completed her sentence for her role in the Whitewater scandal.

Clinton also pardoned his brother Roger on drug charges, and former Housing secretary Henry Cisneros, who was convicted of lying to the FBI about payments to a mistress.

Clinton slashed the prison sentences of four men convicted of stealing millions in federal grants. The men were from a community of Hasidic Jews in New Square, N.Y., which voted 1,400 to 12 in favor of Hillary Clinton in her first Senate race.

Clinton also commuted the sentences – over the objections of the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office – of 11 members of a Puerto Rican nationalist group that set off more than 100 bombs in the U.S. The large Puerto Rican community in New York City supports Democrats.