Denise Rich Denies Wrongdoing
April 27 -- Denise Rich admits that wealth helped her gain unique access to the first family, but says that she never had sex with President Clinton or even spent the night at the White House.
"I don't even know what the Abraham Lincoln bedroom looks like," she tells 20/20's Barbara Walters in her first television interview since Clinton's controversial pardon of her ex-husband on Jan. 20.
"I never had a sexual relationship or anything else that's improper," she says. "Any kind of relationship that would be improper with President Clinton."
Rich, 57, also says she never understood the gravity of her ex-husband's alleged crimes and never intended her appeal for a presidential pardon to get her friend Clinton into trouble.
Marc Rich fled prosecution on tax-evasion charges in 1983 and was pardoned by Clinton in the final hours of his presidency.
"I'm not here to defend him, I'm not his lawyer," she says. "To this day, I don't really know what he's done and what he hasn't done."
Rich says her husband simply told her, "'I'm having tax problems with the government, we're going to have to leave.' And my response was, 'I am his wife, these are my children, I'm not going to split up my family.'"
They fled to Switzerland with their three daughters, and Marc Rich became one of America's 10 most wanted fugitives.
No Ulterior Motive
Denise Rich declined to discuss the specifics of the pardon, since it is currently under investigation by Congress.
It is known, however, that she attached a personal letter to Clinton with her ex-husband's pardon petition. "I support his application with all my heart," she wrote. "Marc is not a criminal."
Rich denies that her generous gifts to Clinton campaigns helped buy the pardon, or that she had any ulterior motive in giving them. "I feel what I did was right and I would do it again," she says.
Regrets and Reconciliation
She tells Walters she regrets the pardon caused such a controversy for the former president.
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