Isaac Toussie Was Helped By Greenwich Resident And Greedy Bear Sterns Executive Robert Steinberg
New York City's Hometown Newspaper Covers The Greenwich Player In The George Bush Pardon Scandal
NY Daily News
BY JAMES GORDON MEEK
President Bush yanked back his pardon of convicted Brooklyn housing scammer Isaac Toussie on Wednesday after red-faced White House officials said it was approved too fast.
The stunning about-face came after the Daily News reported that Toussie's father, Robert, gave $28,500 to the Republican National Committee earlier this year - and recounted the outrage and pain of homebuyers who said they were fleeced by the father-and-son developers.
The News also learned that Toussie's bid got help from a politically wired former Bear Stearns executive - and asked the White House to explain why the pardon process bypassed the usual Justice Department vetting channels......
.....A source who was closely involved in pardons for two administrations said Bush's flip-flop was unprecedented.
"I don't know of any case in which the President said, ‘Oops, I changed my mind,'" the lawyer said......
.....Bush's staff lawyers said they didn't know about the RNC donation, or that Toussie had duped hundreds of struggling blacks and Latinos into buying overpriced dumps on Long Island.
"The real question is how did his name end up on the pardon list in the first place?" snapped Naomi Seligman, deputy director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
Word of Bush's reversal came late in the day as The News was set to report that three Toussie family friends were "affiants" who vouched for him in writing, including GOP donor Robert Steinberg of Greenwich, Conn......
Steinberg was a senior managing director at Bear Stearns before it collapsed in March.
The same page of campaign finance records that lists Robert Toussie's donation also show a Robert Steinberg giving $30,800 to the RNC and the John McCain campaign on the same day.
Steinberg and his wife, Suzanne, also gave a total of $9,200 to Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney.
"I don't know why [the pardon] would be controversial," Steinberg scoffed in a call from his oceanfront winter retreat in Highland Beach, Fla.
Steinberg is a "good friend of the family" and was Robert Toussie's college roommate, said Isaac Toussie lawyer Henry Mazurek.
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