Denise Rich:

Rich is the estranged wife of fugitive businessman Marc Rich, who fled the U.S. for Switzerland after indictments in 1983 for tax evasion, fraud, and racketeering. The couple is in the middle of an ugly divorce (a settlement could cost him $500 million). Both are longtime supporters of Israel.

The National Enquirer is accusing Denise of having been a frequent visitor to the White House as a guest of the President -- even while Hillary was away, and that the first lady even knew about the affair!

New York-based Denise first came to prominence as a Manhattan socialite and wife of the billionaire commodities trader. She took up songwriting at around the same time, originally as a method of addressing her already-troubled marriage. But by 1986 - when one of her first compositions, "Frankie," became a number one R&B hit for Sister Sledge - Rich was pursuing her music in earnest. Since then, Rich's compositions having been recorded by Aretha Franklin and Mary J. Blige (their hit duet "Don't Waste Your Time"), Celine Dion, Marc Anthony, Patti LaBelle, Mandy Moore, Diana Ross, Donna Summer, Innosense, Allure, Terry Dexter, Taylor Dayne, Johnny Mathis, Oleta Adams, Phyllis Hyman, Chaka Khan, Martha Wash, Nana Mouskouri and Grover Washington Jr. "I have always found that the best success is when you write for the artist," Rich says. "That way you can talk with them and find out how they want to say it. It's more honest."

Despite her songwriting success, Rich is equally well-known in Manhattan social circles for her lavish, star-studded fundraising soirees (that's her in the photo above, giving bill hot sax), which have benefited humanitarian organizations like Lifebeat, as well as the Democratic National Committee. But her songwriting remains Denise Rich's most personal passion. "I think that I bring a very universal quality in my songs," she says, "because I listen and I write from feelings and emotions." You can visit her personal web site here.

Result: The ex-wife of pardoned financier Marc Rich said her political donations of more than $1 million to Democrats since 1993 were unrelated to President Clinton's grant of clemency to her ex-husband during Bubba's last few hours in office. But prior to 1991, Denise made no political donations to federal candidates for office, according to Federal Election Commission records. In 1991 and 1992, her political donations were just $3,000, most of it given to Republican Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania. But she donated over $1.1 million to the Democratic Party from 1993 through September; $7,000 to Hillary Rodham Clinton's Senate campaign committee and $20,000 to other Democratic candidates for Congress, according to the FEC database. She also donated a thousand dollars to Republican New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's exploratory Senate campaign committee in 1999 and $2,000 to Sen. Alfonse D'Amato, another Republican, following his Whitewater congressional investigation of the Clintons. The pardon has drawn strong criticism. Giuliani, a former Justice Department official and federal prosecutor who withdrew from his Senate race against the first lady, urged Congress to look into Clinton's pardon of Rich.

"For my next song, Lynn Anderson's 'I Beg Your Pardon...'"

U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White said her office had been ''bypassed'' by the Clinton White House as the president's aides considered the arguments of Rich, his indicted business partner and several other defendants charged in White's jurisdiction, the southern district of Manhattan. ''We were totally unaware that pardons for Marc Rich'' and his business partner ''were even under consideration,'' said White. Rich was a fugitive and ''I have a hard time seeing how he qualifies for a pardon,'' said Dick Thornburgh, who served as attorney general during the Reagan and Bush administrations. Thornburgh also objected because Clinton administration officials ''bypassed the normal process and kept the application secret from the law enforcement officials who brought the charges..."

---