Tony was a private investigator and process server. Hugh was a public defender. Neither was a political player.

All that changed when Bill Clinton became president and their sister Hillary Rodham Clinton became first lady.

These days, Tony Rodham is a Washington consultant who travels around the world in search of business opportunities. He has recently been to Taiwan, Dubai, Cambodia and the former Soviet Union. Hugh is a lawyer in Fort Lauderdale who works on class-action lawsuits and moves in political circles.

The brothers’ activities became a focus of attention last week as a congressional committee examined the controversial pardons and commutations President Clinton granted before leaving office in January. The House panel cited $434,000 that Hugh Rodham collected–and subsequently repaid–for lobbying the White House on behalf of two felons seeking presidential clemency. Tony Rodham acknowledged that he, too, lobbied his brother-in-law on behalf of a friend and business associate who was later pardoned, but said he didn’t receive money for his efforts.

The pardon cases provided new examples of the way that the brothers have sometimes entwined family relationships, personal business and political influence since the Clintons entered the White House in 1993.

In a number of cases, people have sought them out for their famous name–and the perception that it is valuable. In others, the two have made good use of the Democratic contacts that come from being part of the president’s family.

“You’ve got a man that is the brother-in-law of the president of the United States. He’s the brother of the first lady of the United States and certain people are going to know his name,” said Tennessee carnival owner Edgar Allen Gregory Jr., who hired Tony Rodham in August 1997 as a consultant for his business. “By nature of who he is, he is going to have various contacts throughout life.”

Gregory sent Tony Rodham to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates in 1998 to pursue a carnival deal there that never materialized. Last year, the New York Times reported this week, Rodham talked to President Clinton about Gregory’s desire for a pardon for a 1982 bank fraud conviction. Gregory received the pardon in March.

“It is absurd to even say that I used any kind of influence,” Tony Rodham said Friday night on CNN’s “Larry King Live.” “Yeah, I talked to my brother-in-law. I told him that Ed Gregory is a good guy, he is a guy that, you know, this was hurting his business. He needs it, his business, to support his family, and he is the kind of person that the pardon system was designed for.”

Friends of the brothers acknowledge that on occasion they have taken advantage of their special access to the Clintons but insist they did not demand special favors.

“They were very sensitive not to overstep the line,” said Gene Prescott, a Miami hotelier and friend.

Neel Lattimore, the former first lady’s press secretary, said Hillary’s younger brothers were familiar faces at the White House, where they visited often. “They seemed harmless,” she said.

Friends cite Hugh’s fees in the two clemency cases–which Hillary Clinton publicly called last month a “terrible misjudgment”–as an aberration. Both Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton said they were unaware of his fees and demanded he return the money.

By most accounts, Tony Rodham, 46, has been the most active in seeking business opportunities since the Clintons moved into the White House.

In the last four years, he has sought deals all over the world, sometimes using his political contacts.

“I just bring different peoples together. I help them negotiate deals. I solve problems for people,” Tony Rodman said on CNN.

In August 1999, he and Hugh traveled to the Republic of Georgia to set up a $118-million hazelnut company. Tony had met his partner in the deal, Stephen Graham, through the Democratic National Committee, where Tony went to work in the mid-1990s.

After U.S. officials complained that the deal was causing diplomatic friction, Hugh dropped out but Tony remained an active player. “Tony is a great salesman,” said Graham.

In 1998, Graham and Tony Rodham traveled to Cambodia in search of new business, meeting with Prime Minister Hun Sen. “It was just a trade possibility,” Graham said. That visit worried the State Department, which had been critical of the Cambodian government’s human rights record.

Last June, Tony and Hugh Rodham traveled to Taiwan, where they met with Vice President Annette Lu and other government officials over lunch.

“They were looking for some business opportunities,” said Parris Chang, a member of Taiwan’s national assembly who attended the meeting. “The trip was considered very hush-hush. Nobody wanted to talk about it because their brother-in-law was the president–because if China knew about the trip, they might raise issues.” Chang said no deal materialized.

Gregory, the carnival entrepreneur, said he met Tony at a Democratic fund-raiser. The Gregorys, their firm and its employees have contributed $228,850 to Democratic committees and candidates since 1993.

Gregory said he thought Rodham’s connections would be helpful to his business, and he was correct. Gregory said Rodham helped get information from the State Department. “He obviously has the ability to go into different places in Washington and around the world to receive information for a company like ours,” Gregory said.

Tony Rodham is also an investor in a Florida company called Environmental Energy Fuels, which has developed a gasoline additive. He got into the deal with M.J. Parker, an Orlando businesswoman and Democratic fund-raiser. She did not return phone calls.

Ben Welsh, an investor in the company, said Tony Rodham was helping the firm internationally but would not give details. “We have some things we have been working on for a long time that is great for the environment and for mankind,” he said. “We’ve had the assistance of some of the political people to get the project completed.”

Hugh, 50, a former Peace Corps volunteer, became involved in high-profile lawsuits after making an unsuccessful Senate bid in 1994 and working briefly as a radio talk show host. He jumped into the national class-action tobacco lawsuit, but when the Clinton administration began encouraging settlement negotiations with the tobacco companies in 1997, consumer advocate Ralph Nader criticized him for personally lobbying White House officials. The settlement deal eventually fell apart in Congress.

John Coale, another lawyer in the tobacco litigation who said he speaks with Rodham often, said Rodham is now part of a consortium of lawyers representing six cities suing gun manufacturers. He is also suing the manufacturers of the drug Ritalin and recently settled a case against a car manufacturer.

Rodham’s friends have not said how he became involved in the clemency cases. However, he is a friend of attorney Kendall Coffey, who represented Almon Glenn Braswell, the herbal remedy entrepreneur who paid Rodham $230,000 for his lobbying work on his pardon. Rodham also lobbied the White House for a commutation for convicted drug dealer Carlos Vignali, whose father is active in Democratic circles in Los Angeles.

Clayton Kaeiser, who once worked in the public defender’s office with Hugh Rodham, said his friend has not made a lot of money because of his famous relatives. The two-bedroom apartment where Rodham and his wife have lived for several years rents for about $700 a month, making it one of the least expensive places to live in leafy Coral Gables.

“If he was really trying to cash in on his status, he could have done a much better job,” Kaeiser said.

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Times staff writers Jim Mann, Henry Weinstein, Mike Clary and researchers Janet Lundblad and Sunny Kaplan contributed to this story.