Five days after leaving office, former president Bill Clinton is coming under increasing criticism for one of his last acts in the White House - pardoning Mr Marc Rich, the discredited commodities dealer who fled to Switzerland in 1983 to avoid charges of tax evasion and illegal oil trading with Iran.
The last minute pardon of Mr Rich (66), a billionaire who still lives in Switzerland, was yesterday called a "shocking abuse of presidential power" by the New York Times, which accused Mr Clinton of undermining the pursuit of justice.
Much is being made of the fact that the request for a pardon came from the fugitive trader's ex-wife, Ms Denise Rich, who contributed more than $280,000 (£239,000) to the Democratic Party in the last two years.
Ms Rich contributed $7,000 to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign and $10,000 to Mr Clinton's legal defence fund, according to campaign finance records.
Mr Rich and his partner, Mr Pincus Green, were charged in 1983 with evading more than $48 million in taxes and illegally trading in oil with Iran during the crisis over the holding of US hostages in Tehran.
Mr Clinton told reporters at his New York State home in Chappaqua that he used the pardons to restore rights to individuals who had paid in full and were "out long enough after their sentence to show they are good citizens".
However, Mr Rich never stood trial because Switzerland does not allow extradition for tax evasion cases.
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan and current and former law Justice Department officials who have been pursuing the case for nearly two decades are said to be "livid" about the pardon.
The pardons of Mr Rich and his partner, who have always protested their innocence, were two of 140 granted by Mr Clinton hours before he left office on January 20th. Others granted presidential pardons included Ms Susan McDougal, a former partner in the Whitewater land deal.
Presidential pardons have proved controversial in the past, in particular President Gerald Ford's pardon of former President Richard Nixon who resigned in disgrace for his role in the Watergate affair.
In a letter to the president on December 6th, Ms Rich wrote that "the pain and suffering caused by that unjust indictment battered more than my husband - it struck his daughters and me. We have lived with it for so many years. We live with it now. There is no reason why it should have gone on. Exile for 17 years is enough."
The Bloomberg news agency quoted pardon documents to show that Mr Rich's lawyers provided 21 letters of support for a pardon from leading foreign and US political figures including the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Ehud Barak, and the Nobel Peace Prize winner, Mr Shimon Peres.
Mr Rich gave $3 million to the Tel Aviv Museum and $1.4 million to the Israel Museum in Jerusalem in 1999, part of a total of $100 million donated to charities.
Because of the outstanding charges Mr Rich did not return to the US when his daughter, Gabrielle died at 27 of leukaemia, a point made by several supporters.