FEBRUARY 2001
THE LIST
Ties between the pardoned
and the pardoner
Linda Medlar Jones: fraud
and obstruction of justice in Cisneros case. Was Cisneros' lover
Roger Clinton: conspiracy
to distribute cocaine. Bill's half-brother
Tom Bhakta: tax evasion.
His family gave $5,000 to Hillary's campaign Outcome: Pardoned
Almon Glenn Braswell: Vitamin
peddler convicted of mail fraud and perjury. Hillary's brother
Hugh Rodham lobbied for pardon.
Carlos Vignali Offense:
cocaine trafficking. Hugh Rodham lobbied for him
John Bustamante: fraudulently
obtaining a loan and stealing from a woman's estate. Former adviser
to Clinton friend Jesse Jackson
Melvin Reynolds: bank fraud
and having sex with underage staffer. Jesse Jackson asked Clinton
for commutation.
Henry Cisneros: lying in
independent-counsel probe. Served in Bill Clinton's Cabinet
Dorothy Rivers Offense:
Embezzled federal aid for homeless children. Jesse Jackson associate.
John Deutch: security violations.
Served Bill Clinton at CIA
Robert Clinton Fain and
James Lowell Manning: tax charges. William Cunningham, Hillary's
Senate campaign treasurer, acted as their lawyer.
Susan McDougal: fraud in
Whitewater scandal; refusal to testify against Bill Clinton.
Longtime friend and Whitewater partner of the Clintons.
Edward R. Downe Jr.: securities
fraud. Hillary donor.
Alvarez Ferrouillet laundering
money to cover loan for congressional campaign of Mike Espy's
brother. Espy was Clinton's agriculture secretary; petition was
pushed by Clinton pal Terry McAuliffe Outcome.
Ronald H. Blackley: Former
Espy chief-of-staff convicted of making false statements related
to Espy probe. Espy asked for clemency 27-month sentence commuted
along with those of four others convicted of lesser charges in
Espy probe
Arnold Paul Prosperi: Convicted
in 1997 of filing false tax returns and using fake bank records
to hide embezzlement. College buddy of Clinton.
Peg Bargon: Possessing
eagle feather that her son found in a zoo. She gave feather to
Hillary Clinton.
Charles D. Ravenel: bank-fraud
conspiracy. Clinton friend since 1980.
Richard Riley Jr.: federal
drug charges. Son of Clinton's education secretary.
Stephen A. Smith and Robert
Palmer: charges related to Whitewater. Smith was former Clinton
aide; Palmer worked as appraiser on Whitewater.
Christopher V. Wade: Whitewater
bankruptcy fraud. One of the original developers of Clintons'
Whitewater.
Marc Rich: 50 felony counts,
including tax evasion of $48 million. Former Clinton counsel
Jack Quinn urged Bill Clinton to grant pardon; ex-wife, Denise,
a major Clinton donor
John Fife Symington III:
false statements to obtain loans. Longtime Clinton friend; once
saved Bill's life in boating mishap.
Harvey Weinig: Helped launder
at least $19 million for drug cartel. A relative, former White
House aide David Dreyer, asked Clinton confidants for clemency.
NY
POST
CLINTON
SCANDALS
1985: A RELATIVE OF BILL
CLINTON IS RAPED. Wayne Dumond is arrested and imprisoned in
the case. While awaiting sentencing, Dumond himself is sexually
assaulted and castrated by two masked men. A local sheriff, later
sentenced to 160 years for extortion and drug dealing, displays
Dumond's testicles in a jar on his desk under a sign that read,
"That's what happens to people who fool around in my county."
A parole board, upon receiving new evidence of Dumond's innocence,
will vote to release him after 4 1/2 years in prison. Governor
Clinton -- according to the managing editor of the Arkansas Democrat
Gazette -- stages a "romping, stomping fit" and blocks
the release . . . STEVE DUNLEAVY, NY POST: Both as governor of
Arkansas and president, the one pardon [Clinton] forgot about
was Wayne Dumond. In 48 years on this job on six continents,
I have never seen or heard of a miscarriage of justice in these
United States like the one visited on Wayne Dumond . . . Armed
with a semen sample off a pair of jeans worn by the victim and
which the state claimed came from Dumond, I went to Atlanta.
I presented the sample to Dr. Moses Schanfield, one of the most
respected DNA experts in the country. Dr. Schanfield told me:
"No way, zip, nada. No way Dumond was the donor of that
sperm. Not in a million years." We ambushed Clinton, who
wasn't as talkative as governor of Arkansas as he was as president.
"There is no merit to review this case, and as governor
I can't comment," he said at the time. In 1999, Wayne Dumond
was released, saying he wanted to be bitter but just couldn't
get there. Twelve years in jail for a crime he did not commit,
castrated, framed and denied any process by a Gov. Clinton and
a President Clinton and he couldn't get bitter. NY POST
ROGER CLINTON,
pardoned by his half-brother in the last hours of the Clinton
presidency for a drug conviction in 1985, came under subsequent
FBI scrutiny several times, Newsweek has learned, including one
episode in which he allegedly sought to play middleman in the
purchase of presidential pardons. No charges were ever brought,
and a Clinton spokeswoman says the former president knew nothing
of the FBI's interest in Roger. But the White House did make
a point of bypassing the FBI and processing the Roger Clinton
pardon directly through high-level Justice Department officials,
Newsweek reports in the current issue.
BRIAN BLOMQUIST & DEVLIN
BARRETT, NY POST: Manhattan US Attorney Mary Jo White launched
a probe of whether fugitive billionaire Marc Rich bought his
pardon - blocking an immunity deal to let his ex-wife, Denise,
tell all . . .
The Justice Department told congressional investigators to halt
their plan to give Denise Rich criminal immunity to compel her
to testify publicly about the pardon that has sparked a furor
. . . Denise Rich, who gave more than $1 million in campaign
contributions to the Democrats and $450,000 to the Clinton library,
has so far refused to answer questions about her ex-husband's
pardon, citing her right to avoid incriminating herself.
DRUDGE REPORT: Time claims
Clinton is dragging down Democratic fundraising. In Florida where
Democrats say they need at least $12 million to defeat Governor
Jeb Bush in 2002, a money man told Time normally dependable givers
are refusing because of the allegation that Clinton gave pardons
for campaign cash. "One problem with the Clinton defense
that he pardoned Marc Rich to please Ehud Barak is that Israelis
downplay the former prime minister's role, saying it consisted
of a brief mention during one phone call, Time reports. Sources
close to Clinton contend there were at least three calls. DRUDGE
REPORT
BLOOMBERG: Michael Rankowitz,
the Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co. official who hired former
President Bill Clinton to speak and sparked a firestorm of criticism,
has resigned.
EARLY RETURNS: The first
contributions Denise Rich made in the 1990s went to none other
than Senator Arlen Specter reports the Washington Post.
NY TIMES, MAY 16, 1998
- Moments after President Clinton gave videotaped testimony for
the criminal trial of James and Susan McDougal, his former Whitewater
partners, he privately agreed to give Mrs. McDougal a pardon
if she was convicted, a new book by James McDougal says. "I'm
willing to stick with it, but if it doesn't work out, or whatever,
can you pardon Susan?" McDougal recalled asking Clinton
shortly after the president had completed his testimony, in the
Map Room at the White House two years ago. "You can depend
on that," Clinton is said to have replied quietly in the
private conversation, apparently out of earshot of others. McDougal
then asked, "Like I say with all lawyers, I mean promptly?"
The president grinned and nodded, by McDougal's account, and
said, "If you hang with me, I'll do it."
WALL STREET JOURNAL: For
the sake of argument and good manners, let us concede the possibility
that the US Attorney for the Southern District really will, in
short order, unravel whatever paper trail and money trail may
exist between Marc and Denise Rich and the former President of
the United States. But before everyone else shuts up shop on
the Rich pardon and awaits the results from US Attorney White,
let us just say for the record: Been there, done that . . . The
last time other investigators passed through this door was in
early 1999. That year and the year before, Rep. Pete Hoekstra's
House Oversight and Investigations Committee was holding hearings
into the financial irregularities involving the Teamsters presidential
election, the AFL-CIO and campaign fund-raising by the Democratic
Party. At the request of the Department of Justice, Mr. Hoekstra
and his investigators agreed to steer clear of allegations that
money had been illegally laundered among these entities, deferring
that task to the US Attorney's office in the Southern District
under Mary Jo White . . . Ms. White in fact has been investigating
the Teamster affair since 1997, securing guilty pleas and convictions
of various small fry and just last month indicting her first
major figure, former Teamster President Ron Carey. Even with
this, the case presumably will rattle on into the indefinite
future . . . The Bush Administration keeps suggesting it wants
the pardon scandal to go away, so perhaps Ms. White's blockade
serves their purposes as well as Mr. Clinton's.
LESS WE FORGET: Marc Rich
is America's record tax evader.
o
SYMMETRY
WHILE EVERYONE NOW KNOWS
that the Clinton years ended with a dubious pardon, few know
they started much the same way . . . THE REVIEW, FEBRUARY 1993:
When Clinton was inaugurated, Arkansas Governor Jim Guy Tucker
came to Washington to see his old boss sworn in. That left the
state under the control of the president pro tem of the senate,
Little Rock dentist Jerry Jewell. Jewell used his power as acting
governor to issue a number of pardons, one of them for a convicted
drug dealer, Tommy McIntosh. The pardons were a big subject of
controversy in Arkansas and not the least of the questions was:
how did McIntosh get included?
Enter Robert "Say"
McIntosh, father of Tommy, and a colorful political activist.
According to the Washington Times, many in the state "say
it was a political payoff, offered in exchange for dirty tricks
Mr. McIntosh played on Clinton political opponents during the
presidential campaign, or as a payoff for stopping his attacks
on Mr. Clinton." It seems that the elder McIntosh had worked
for Clinton in his last state campaign and, according to McIntosh
in a 1991 lawsuit, had agreed not only to pay him $25,000 but
to help him market his recipe for sweet potato pie and to pardon
his son. He also alleged that Clinton expected McIntosh's help
in covering up a trail of sexual indiscretions.
McIntosh dropped his lawsuit
a month after Clinton was elected president and, he claims, after
the president-elect agreed to get his son out of jail . . . The
younger McIntosh was released 18 years before he was eligible
for parole.
CLINTON SCANDALS
ROD DREHER, NY POST: Overlooked
so far is [Marc]Rich's role in the looting of the disintegrating
Soviet Union by Communist Party officials and their associates
in the early 1990s. You can read about it in "Godfather
of the Kremlin," an exhaustively researched book about Russian
oligarch Boris Berezovsky, which was published last fall. The
author is Paul Klebnikov, an expert on Russia and a Forbes magazine
senior editor. The book details the myriad ways Berezovsky and
his minions stole untold sums from the Russian people through
international financial schemes. According to Klebnikov, Rich
came into the picture around 1990, when the Soviet Union began
to open up to outsiders. "Governmental authority began to
crumble. All these local Communist Party bosses got to strike
deals on their own," the author tells me. Based in Switzerland,
with its secretive banking laws, Rich was in a prime position
to help Russia's plunderers carry out their dirty work. Klebnikov
reported that Rich dealt in oil, aluminum, zinc and other raw
commodities. "He'd strike a deal with the local party boss,
or the director of a state-owned company," explains the
author. "He'd say, 'OK, you will sell me the [commodity]
at 5 to 10 percent of the world market price. "'And in return,
I will deposit some of the profit I make by reselling it 10 times
higher on the world market, and put the kickback in a Swiss bank
account.'" For at least two years, as the Soviet Union was
in its death throes, Rich was that nation's largest trader of
aluminum and oil on a spot basis. "He made a complete mint
off of Russia," says Klebnikov. NY POST
UPI: The head of the largest
Jewish denomination in the United States Thursday criticized
Jewish leaders who lobbied in favor of a pardon for Marc Rich
calling it a "moral stain" for Jews. "Charged
with massive tax evasion and breaking an embargo on trading with
Iran, Rich is a multimillionaire fugitive from justice who lives
in luxury in Switzerland," Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president
of Reform Judaism's Union of American Hebrew Congregations, wrote
in an op-ed piece in the New York-based Jewish Week. "I
am in no position to judge Rich's legal claims, but neither are
the many Jewish leaders and luminaries who contacted President
Clinton in support of the pardon. Why their interest in a man
who appears to have traded illegally not only with Iran but with
Iraq and Libya, rogue states devoted to Israel's destruction?
The answer is simple: They were bought," added Yoffie. "Rich
contributed generously to Jewish causes and charities around
the world, and then, in a carefully orchestrated campaign, called
in favors to put pressure on the president." UPI
NEWSMAX: The Washington
Times columnist who first reported the looting of the presidential
airplane used by the Clintons for their farewell flight home
has no plans to retract the story, despite President Bush's statement
this week that the incident never took place. "I stand by
what I wrote," John McCaslin told NewsMax . . . "All
the allegations that they took stuff off Air Force One are simply
not true," [Bush] told reporters. The White House refused
to say whether Bush actually investigated the looting incident
. . . Two days after McCaslin's initial report, the Times front
paged news that a number of items bearing the Air Force One logo
had turned up on the internet auction site eBay. "These
are very hard-to-get items," one collectables dealer told
the paper. "They are not mass-marketed and are made only
for the White House." Citing that report, McCaslin reiterated,
"I'm standing by what I wrote right down to the stolen toothpaste."
NEWSMAX
HAMILTON JORDAN, WALL STREET
JOURNAL: If I'd have had the nerve to walk into the Oval Office
to discuss a pardon with Mr. Carter, I would have been peppered
with questions: "Hamilton, why on earth are you bringing
this to me? What does (Attorney General) Griffin Bell think?
Why isn't Lloyd Cutler (the White House counsel) here? What is
the case history and rationale for this pardon? What are the
extenuating circumstances that merit my overturning the judgment
of a jury and our court system? Do the former prosecutors favor
a pardon, and if so, why?" After a series of my answering
"I don't know," President Carter would have surely
given me one of his famous icy stares and admonished me, "Pardons
are serious legal business and not your business, Hamilton. Don't
ever come in here again to talk to me about a pardon." If
I had summoned the courage to say, "But Mr. President, this
pardon is for someone who contributed generously to our campaign
and has even promised to contribute to the Carter Presidential
Library," he would have thrown me out of the Oval Office
and probably fired me on the spot." . . . Grifters was a
term used in the Great Depression to describe fast-talking con
artists who roamed the countryside, profiting at the expense
of the poor and the uneducated, always one step ahead of the
law, moving on before they were held accountable for their schemes
and half-truths. No longer able to dominate the national news
with moving speeches or policy initiatives, the First Grifters
have been unable to move beyond the Marc Rich pardon, White House
gifts and other events related to their noisy and ungraceful
departure from office. Robbed of the frills of high office, we
can now examine these last-minute pardons--and the Clintons--for
what they are. WALL
STREET JOURNAL
KENNETH R. BAZINET, NY
DAILY NEWS: Controversial gifts taken by former President Bill
Clinton and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton were specifically solicited
for them by friends of the Clintons, a top aide confirmed for
the first time. "Did friends of Mrs. Clinton not solicit
others and say, 'Would you please buy this silverware, these
gifts for Mrs. Clinton for her new houses?'" ex-White House
chief of staff John Podesta was asked on NBC's "Meet the
Press." "Yes, that happened," Podesta conceded,
adding that he thought it was a mistake . . . Up until Podesta's
comments, aides to both the senator and the former President
had denied anyone had solicited gifts for them. NY
DAILY NEWS
POLITICO: The Associated
Press reports that "President Clinton's pardon of Carlos
Vignali Jr. could prove trouble for two mayoral candidates who
interceded for the convicted cocaine dealer." US Rep. Xavier
Becerra and former California Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa
are among several candidates vying to become mayor POLITICO
SPOOKY STUFF
Larry King Show, February 8
KING: We're going to spend
[some] minutes with Howard Safir, good friend and former New
York City Police . . . He was chief of operations for the US
Marshall Service, headed the pursuit of fugitive Marc Rich. Why
was he so hard to get?
HOWARD SAFIR, FORMER NEW
YORK CITY COMMISSIONER: He was hard to get because he had a great
deal of influence in a lot of countries, and we were pretty much
restricted to just a few countries where we could apprehend him.
He had Bolivian passport, he had a Spanish passport. The Israelis
were very clear they weren't going to help us apprehend him.
So it was very difficult to get him, plus he had a lot of money
. . .
KING: Howard, are you hinting
at or saying bribe here? Are you saying quid pro quo? What are
your feelings? We don't have facts yet.
SAFIR: We don't have facts.
What I'm saying is the appearance: the appearance of fugitive's
ex-wife contributing over $1 million to the Democratic Party.
You are talking about an individual, when I did a spy exchange
in 1986, he had a lawyer from East Germany offer $225 million
for him and Pinky Green if the prosecutions were wiped out. Well,
we told them at the time: Justice is not for sale.
[As reported by Rod
Dreher of the NY Post, Rich was deeply involved with the Russians
who, at the time of the offer to Safir, included East Germany
in their empire. While we know Rich subsequently made tens of
millions helping the old regime (including members of the KGB)
loot their country in the name of capitalism, we don't know why
they, or the East German Stasi, considered Rich and Green worth
$225 million]
PHILIP SHENON, NY TIMES:
The chairman of Morgan Stanley has told clients that the Wall
Street investment company "clearly made a mistake"
by having former President Bill Clinton speak at a conference
in Florida, saying the firm understood their unhappiness in light
of "Mr. Clinton's personal behavior as president."
. . . "We should have thought twice before the speaking
invitation was extended," the e-mail message continued.
"Our failure to do so was particularly unfortunate in light
of Mr. Clinton's actions in leaving the White House." NY
TIMES
NEWSMAX recalls that former
Arkansas state trooper L.D. Brown claims he was strong-armed
by the now director of the Clinton Presidential Foundation just
as the Whitewater probe was heating up. Brown, a Clinton body
guard, says in his book, "Crossfire: Witness in the Clinton
Investigation," that Skip Rutherford called him in and asked
him about the Madison investigation and for a list of women that
the media knew about. At one point, said Brown, Rutherford said,
"L.D., you wouldn't want all your credit card receipts splashed
all over the front page of the newspapers, now would you?"
Brown said the incident led to his decision to come forth with
his story, in which he told investigators of that Clinton knew
about an illegal SBA loan for Susan McDougal and about the drug
running operations in Mena. NEWSMAX
TITLE 18, CHAPTER 12, SECTION
201, US CODE: Whoever, being a public official ... directly or
indirectly, corruptly demands, seeks, receives, accepts, or agrees
to receive or accept anything of value personally or for any
other person or entity in return for being influenced in the
performance of any official act . . . shall be fined under this
title not more than three times the monetary equivalent of the
thing of value . . . or imprisoned for not more than fifteen
years, or both, and may be disqualified from holding any office
of honor, trust, or profit under the United States
THE KERRY REPORT ON BCCI,
1992: Many investigative leads remain to be explored, but cannot
be answered with devoting substantial additional resources that
to date no agency of government has been in a position to provide.
Unanswered questions include, but are not limited to, . . . the
alleged relationship between the late CIA director William Casey
and BCCI; the extent of BCCI's involvement in Pakistan's nuclear
program; BCCI's manipulation of commodities and securities markets
in Europe and Canada; . . . the use of BCCI by central figures
in the alleged "October Surprise," . . . its involvement
with foreign intelligence agencies; the financial dealings of
BCCI directors with Charles Keating and several Keating affiliates
and front-companies, including the possibility that BCCI related
entities may have laundered funds for Keating to move them outside
the United States; BCCI's financing of commodities and other
business dealings of international criminal financier Marc Rich
KERRY
REPORT
the public about their
knowledge of and support for the operations . . . Abrams pleaded
guilty in October 1991 to two counts of withholding information
from Congress about secret Government efforts to support the
contras, and about his solicitation of $10 million to aid the
contras from the Sultan of Brunei . . . At the time President
Bush pardoned Weinberger and Clarridge, he also pardoned George,
Fiers, Abrams, and McFarlane."
Abrams is now, believe
it or not, president of something called the Ethics and Public
Policy Center, and is featured on programs like PBS' 'Think Tank'
and speaks at places such as Princeton, where a news release
gracefully side-stepped his pivotal role in Iran-Contra: "Abrams,
who served in the State Department during all eight years of
the Reagan administration, was assistant secretary of state first
for international affairs, then for human rights and humanitarian
affairs, and finally for Inter-American affairs. In 1988, he
received the Secretary of State's Distinguished Service Award
from Secretary George P. Shultz for his work in the department."
This is the way the American
establishment works. Get on the tenure track early and you too
can deceive Congress with impunity. It will not surprise us to
learn in the near future that the noted intentional financier
Marc Rich has been given a chair at the Harvard Business School.
After all, the approved expert is never wrong for long.
RICHARD A. SERRANO &
STEPHEN BRAUN LOS ANGELES TIMES: A third of those granted last-minute
pardons or commutations by President Clinton last month skirted
the normal Justice Department review process and instead appealed
directly to the White House in the waning days of his presidency
. . . 47 people - nearly twice as many as the two dozen originally
reported - were granted presidential relief without applications
first being fully examined by the Justice Department's pardon
attorney's office. Most of them never filed normal clemency applications
with the Justice Department. Others had been denied pardons by
Clinton earlier or simply were not qualified for a pardon under
Justice Department rules.LA
TIMES
TIME: The former wife of
fugitive financier Marc Rich contributed about $400,000 to the
Clinton presidential library, legal sources tell TIME. This revelation
is likely to deepen suspicions of congressional investigators
looking into the controversial pardon given to Rich by President
Clinton - that Denise Rich's financing of Clinton political and
personal projects influenced his decision to give amnesty to
her ex-husband. The sources said Denise Rich gave money to the
library after consulting with Beth Dozoretz, a close Clinton
friend and major Democratic fund-raiser who discussed the pardon
of Marc Rich with the President nine days before he granted it.
The timing of the library contribution and its proximity to the
pardon were not immediately obtainable. Denise Rich's generosity
aroused the suspicion of Republican investigators from the moment
Clinton pardoned her ex-husband of 1983 charges that he evaded
$48 million in taxes and engaged in illegal oil sales with Iran.
She gave over $1 million to Democratic campaigns in the Clinton
era and at least $70,000 to Hillary Clinton's US Senate race
as well as $10,000 to the President's legal defense fund. TIME
GEORGE LARDNER JR. WASHINGTON
POST: Among the gifts that former president Bill Clinton says
he is keeping as personal presents he accepted last year are
$28,000 worth of furnishings that documents and interviews indicate
were given to the National Park Service in 1993 as part of the
permanent White House collection . . . Two of the furniture makers
whose donations Clinton took with him on leaving the White House
last month say they gave them to the White House as part of a
widely publicized, $396,000 redecoration of the executive mansion
and not to Clinton personally . . . Two former Internal Revenue
Service commissioners, one a Republican and the other a Democrat,
said that Clinton's taking the furnishings under such circumstances
would appear to be an improper "conversion of government
property" that could require the Clintons to pay taxes on
them. They said they were not suggesting criminal wrongdoing
by the president. "It's the intent of the giver that counts,"
said Sheldon S. Cohen, who headed the IRS under president Lyndon
B. Johnson. "If it was given to him [Clinton], it's his.
But if it was given to the United States, then it is improper
for it to end up in his hands unless he buys it." Donald
C. Alexander, who was IRS commissioner under Richard M. Nixon
and Gerald R. Ford, said: "If someone gave something of
value to the White House as the White House and not to the president,
that is a gift to the government of the United States . . . a
charitable contribution." The Clintons, he said, "have
no business taking it with them. That is conversion of government
property and income to them." WASH
POST
[This is not the first
time the Clintons have run into problem with conversion of government
property.]
REPORT OF THE HOUSE COMMITTEE
ON GOVERNMENT REFORM AND OVERSIGHT: The story of the White House
Database is one about a White House that disregarded the difference
between the official business of the United States government
and the political business of reelecting the President. Because
the line between official business and campaigning was obliterated,
this President and his White House subordinates proceeded to
spend at least $1.7 million of government funds on a complex,
centralized computer system known as the White House Database
or "WhoDB." It was used not just for official purposes;
senior White House staff planned and, in fact, used it to advance
the campaign fundraising objectives of the Democratic National
Committee. This conversion of government property to the use
of the DNC constitutes a theft of government property under 18
USC § 641 . . .
[Incidentally, two familiar
names that have cropped up in the Clintons' post-White House
activities also appeared in the House committee report]
The committee believes
that there is substantial evidence that in September 1996 then-Associate
(now-Deputy) Counsel to the President Cheryl Mills, with the
knowledge and concurrence of then-White House Counsel Jack Quinn,
knowingly and willfully obstructed the investigative authority
of this committee by withholding documents that were plainly
responsive to the committee requests for documents and information.
Moreover, when this obstruction was brought to light in a hearing
before the committee, Ms. Mills lied under oath about the documents
and the circumstances surrounding their non-production. Ms. Mills's
actions, withholding responsive documents from the committee,
delayed the committee for more than a year from obtaining important
evidence . . . Moreover, the failure to produce these documents
when they were discovered in September 1996 had the effect of
delaying the committee's investigation long enough to allow memories
of relevant witnesses to fade for more than a year until they
could plausibly testify that they could no longer remember the
meetings or conversations reflected in the documents. The committee
believes that Ms. Mills was fully aware of these potential effects
and deliberately engaged in the withholding of documents for
that purpose. In the second term, she was promoted from Associate
Counsel to the President to Deputy Counsel to the President.
HOUSE
REPORT
18 USC § 641: Whoever
embezzles, steal, purloins, or knowingly converts to his use
or the use of another, or without authority . . . conveys or
disposes of any record, . . . or thing of value of the United
States or of any department or agency thereof . . . ; or Whoever
receives, conceals, or retains the same with intent to convert
it to his use or gain, knowing it to have been embezzled, stolen,
purloined or converted - shall be fined under this title or imprisoned
not more than ten years, or both . .
NILES LATHEM, NY POST:
Billionaire Marc Rich lived a double life during his 20 years
as a fugitive, funneling secret data to Israeli and other intelligence
services about some unsavory governments. Sensational details
about Rich's ultimate high-wire act as a spy for Israel and other
countries were provided to The Post as congressional committees
prepare to hold hearings into former President Bill Clinton's
controversial decision to pardon the fugitive commodities trader.
Among the issues that will be explored by the House Oversight
Committee in its probe of the hotly disputed Rich pardon, according
to congressional sources, are:
* Rich's lengthy relationship
with the Israeli Mossad.
* His numerous contacts
with federal prosecutors in New York, during which his lawyers
offered to provide intelligence to the CIA in return for leniency.
A CIA spokesman denied
any relationship with Rich and said no one from the agency participated
in behind-the-scenes White House discussions about his pardon.
But Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak repeatedly cited Rich's
contributions to Israel's "national security" in phone
calls to President Clinton last month in which he lobbied for
Rich's pardon, according to Barak spokesman Gadi Baltiansky.
And a letter from former Mossad chief Shabtai Shavit to Clinton
confirming that Rich provided "assistance" to the Israeli
spy agency that produced results "beyond the expected"
was among the documents released last week by Rich's lawyer Jack
Quinn to support the Rich pardon. NY POST
JACKIE JUDD, ABC: The investigations
still dogging former President Clinton more than three weeks
after the end of his term are beginning to make a dent in his
earnings. A few days after another financial giant acknowledged
it made a "mistake" by paying Clinton about $125,000
to speak last week, the UBS-Warburg financial services company
announced it has scrapped negotiations to have the former president
address a conference in April. UBS-Warburg, parent company of
PaineWebber, was in discussions to have Clinton speak at conference
of institutional investors. But UBS pulled out of the talks because,
according to a spokesman, "It would not be in the best interests
of the firm, because of the likely client reaction." . .
. The spokesman also acknowledged the decision to take a pass
on Clinton came after Morgan Stanley Dean Witter faced criticism
from clients for hosting Clinton last week. After Clinton spoke
to a Morgan Stanley conference in Florida last week, some Clinton
critics cut their ties to the firm . . . In an e-mail to investors
apologizing for the Clinton appearance, Morgan Stanley CEO Philip
J. Purcell said the Clinton invite was a mistake. "We should
have been far more sensitive to the strong feelings of our clients
over Mr. Clinton's personal behavior as president," Purcell
wrote. "We should have thought twice before the speaking
invitation was extended." ABC
ORACLE: Former President
Bill Clinton to Deliver Opening Keynote at Oracle AppsWorld!
Monday, February 19 5:00 PM - 6:00 PM. Monday isn't just President's
Day ... it's opening day at Oracle AppsWorld. So who better to
kick-off the biggest event in e-business than former United States
President Bill Clinton? . . . ORACLE'S REPLY TO COMPLAINT: When
we accepted Bill's offer to speak at AppsWorld, we knew that
it would create controversy in some quarters. Be assured that
the positive comments have far outweighed the negative comments.
Love him or hate him, Bill presided over the USA at an incredible
time in US and World history - the Internet boom, the "new"
economy, the B2C revolution, the B2B boom - all of which are
very relevant to our audience. Furthermore, the announcement
of Bill's presence has dramatically increased registrations for
our event, meaning that more potential customers will attend
our premier event and hear Oracle's message - that's good for
shareholders and great for future revenue. We've taken your comments
and ensured that they are included in all the feedback we've
had. Thanks for taking the time to send us them. Best Regards,
Oracle Web Marketing
EASTERN BANK REPLY TO COMPLAINT:
For 10 years, Eastern Bank has been one of the corporate sponsors
of the Salem State College speaker series. The college has hosted
former presidents Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, and George Bush,
and world-renowned figures such as Bishop Desmond Tutu of South
Africa. Next month, the college will host former president Bill
Clinton . . . Our sponsorship does not reflect an endorsement
of any speaker. Instead, it's a commitment to support an educationally
significant speaker series. We appreciate your thoughts on the
former president's appearance and hope you will join us in respecting
the College's right to host such events.
WALL STREET JOURNAL: Will
the torment never cease? It's been three long weeks since Bill
Clinton left the White House, and still the wails of agony, the
cries of outrage and the shouts of denunciation continue. And
that's from the former president's friends . . . We about fell
off our chair when The Washington Post's E.J. Dionne finally
mustered up enough moral outrage after eight years to quote an
equally outraged [Rep.] Barney Frank. That most fervent of all
Clinton apologists now calls the Rich pardon a 'betrayal' and
'contemptuous.' Even Joe Conason took a shot at his heroes, which
is like Boswell doubting Dr. Johnson. Who's next? Sid Blumenthal?"
ROBERT WINDREM, NBC NEWS
Newly available financial data shows that Denise Rich's giving
to the Democratic Party and the Clintons intensified dramatically
over the past two years, ending in a final rush as the Clintons
neared their White House exit. An NBC News analysis of documents
on file with various federal agencies, including the Federal
Election Commission, the Internal Revenue Service and government
ethics office shows that while Rich gave at least $1.5 million
to Clinton-related political, legal and charitable organizations
during the last decade, the majority of the giving - more than
$900,000 - came over the final two years of the Clinton era -
just before her ex-husband, Marc Rich, was pardoned. More than
$200,000 came in a spurt during the final six months, $140,000
of that in September, October and November, as her ex-husband's
team of lawyers, led by former White House counsel Jack Quinn,
began pressing Clinton for a pardon. NBC
YOU CAN'T ALWAYS
TELL A LIBRARY
BY ITS COVER STORY
MARA LEVERITT, ARKANSAS
TIMES, Sep. 24, 1999: I've heard about the site for the library,
the financing of the land for the library, the naming of the
street that leads to the library, the training for leadership
at the library, the architect for the library, and even the architect's
vision for the bridge outside the library - a bridge, he suggested,
that makes him imagine a rainbow with the library as its pot
of gold. What I have not heard mentioned at all is what the library
will hold. What will visitors find, after the land has been paid
for, and the library has been built, and the lid is taken off
that pot of gold? I know someone, somewhere, must be contemplating
the library's contents. Surely. But the matter of what's to go
in and what's to stay out certainly hasn't gotten public attention.
And that strikes me as unfortunate, for we might end up with
a library that, for all its elaborate trappings, is missing a
few central features. I expect that there will be a number of
biographical documents relating to the background of Bill Clinton;
records from his early years in Hope and Hot Springs and Fayetteville,
for instance. But what about the records from his years as governor?
Will they ever see the light of day?
MARA LEVERITT, "THE
BOYS ON THE TRACKS:" Reporters seeking to research records
from Clinton's administrations in Arkansas . . . found that that
was impossible. Arkansas is one of five states that allow governors
to keep their official papers out of the public domain. [The
others are Iowa, Maryland, Rhode Island, and South Dakota.] At
first Clinton had indicated he would make his official records
public. After his defeat for reelection as governor in 1980,
he deposited the records from his first tow-year term in the
archives of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. They remained
there after he regained the office in 1982. However, when Clinton
launched his presidential campaign in 1991, he ordered the records
from his first term removed from the university archives. When
he left office as governor, they, along with all his office's
records from 1982 through 1991 - some four thousand boxes in
all - were placed in private storage an undisclosed location.
In 1998, even as planning was begun for the Clinton presidential
library in Little Rock, it was impossible for anyone without
a court order to see records from Clinton's administration as
governor.
RE-IMPEACHMENT
We initially dismissed
out of hand Snarlin' Arlen Specter's idea of re-impeaching Bill
Clinton. But a Nixon impeachment committee staffer has pointed
us towards some history that makes it wise to bring the matter
before the Review's committee of the whole.
The problem with the current
view of impeachment, compounded by the recent unpleasantness,
is that we tend to see it as the equivalent of ordinary indictment
and trial when, in fact, it is more like being disbarred or kicked
out of a club for offensive behavior. At stake is not so much
the punishment of the offender as the honor of the institution
and of its by-laws.
Thus it was in 1997, long
before Monica Lewinsky, that the Review offered wording for the
impeachment of Bill Clinton. It wasn't hard to do; with the exception
of the named impeachee and a few other words, it came exactly
from the document prepared in the case of Richard Nixon. For
example:
"He has failed to
take care that the laws were faithfully executed by failing to
act when he knew or had reason to know that his close subordinates
endeavored to impede and frustrate lawful inquiries by duly constituted
executive, judicial, and legislative entities."
The later House articles
of impeachment against Clinton began in a similar vein:
"In his conduct while
President of the United States, William Jefferson Clinton, in
violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the
office of President of the United States and, to the best of
his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of
the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty
to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has willfully
corrupted and manipulated the judicial process of the United
States for his personal gain and exoneration, impeding the administration
of justice, in that. . . ."
Now, you can't take a president
down to the precinct house and book him on charges of failing
to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed,"
but you can impeach him for it. Clinton got off in no small part
because his lawyers -- skilled defenders of white collar criminals
that they were - convinced the Senate that it was no more than
a jury hearing a case at DC Superior Court when, in fact, it
was supposed to be making a critical moral choice between politics
and honor.
The old Greeks understood
this better, and - recognizing the process as a good way to hold
their leaders in check - used impeachment trials with a vigor
that might shock us. For example, Thucydides, an elected general,
had his forces in the wrong place in the wrong time in the winter
of 424 and as a result lost the city of Amphipolis to the Spartans.
The Athenians reacted by impeaching General Thucydides and sending
him off to exile for some two decades. He didn't waste his time,
however, but used it to begin a tradition of failed leaders in
foreign affairs parading as experts in what they had done badly
- a tradition that continues to this day with the likes of Henry
Kissinger and Colin Powell.
The strictures that the
Senate is allowed to impose in cases of impeachment are limited.
It can not imprison, send into exile, or hang a president; it
can, however, remove the president from office, deny him the
emoluments of same, and bar him from holding public office in
the future. Should an ex-president be found to have raped someone
or taken bribes for pardons, then it can be reasonably argued
that Congress still has the power and obligation to uphold the
honor of the state and impeachment is about the only recourse
it has.
Admittedly, the case law
on this is limited. But one fascinating incident not only sheds
some light, but intersects almost mystically with current circumstances
in a number of other ways. In July 1917, Texas Governor Pa Ferguson
was indicted on nine charges, including the misapplication of
public funds, embezzlement, and diversion of a special fund.
He was also said to have sold pardons. That was the same year,
incidentally, that Ferguson vetoed a bill financing the teaching
of foreign languages in schools, explaining, "If English
was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for the school children
of Texas." Ferguson was also impeached and the Senate, after
three weeks of deliberation, convicted him of ten counts, including
receiving $156,500 from someone he declined to identify. Ferguson,
however, resigned the day before the judgment and argued that
it therefore did not apply to him. The decision was eventually
upheld in court.
In 1924, Ferguson's wife
ran for governor on the slogan, "Two governors for the price
of one" but lost reelection thanks in part to news of the
number of pardons she had issued: 2,000, or about 100 a month.
In the mid thirties, a Board of Pardons and Paroles was established
under a law that limited the governor's pardon authority. Today,
the Texas governor - according to the AP and contrary to the
impression held by many of George Bush's critics - "may
only issue a one-time, 30-day reprieve or act on a recommendation
of the parole board to grant a stay, commute a sentence or issue
a pardon." All thanks to Ma Ferguson, who sold pardons,
and Pa Ferguson, who was convicted in an impeachment trial after
he had left office.
There remains one other
curious if distant possibility: not only could Bill Clinton be
re-impeached but his wife could be in the Senate docket with
him. This thanks to yet another impeachment uncertainty. We do
know that the House once impeached, and the Senate came close
to convicting, a member of Congress - the financially strapped
Senator William Blount of Tennessee. Blount was found to have
been plotting to have frontiersmen and Indians help the British
conquer Florida and Louisiana. He was expelled from the Senate
in 1797 for a "high misdemeanor entirely inconsistent with
his public trust and duty." In 1799, the House sent his
impeachment to the Senate, which thought better of the matter
and dismissed it for lack of jurisdiction after Blount argued
that members of Congress were not the "civil officers"
described in the Constitution, nor were they appointed by the
President. The vote to dismiss passed by only 14 to 11 and no
other member of Congress has ever been impeached, but the question
of the Senate's power has never been finally settled.
NEWSMAX: Ex-President Clinton's
fundraising team tried to get millionaire Democrat donor Denise
Rich to fork over a whopping $25 million for the William J. Clinton
Presidential Library Foundation, a report hitting newsstands
claims. "Clinton fund raisers pressed the flamboyant singer-socialite
for.... as much as $25 million for the library fund," Rich's
friends tell US News & World Report. NEWSMAX
IS IT THAT TIME ALREADY?
WASHINGTON TIMES: As far
as Bill Clinton's recent pardoning shenanigans, Sen. Joseph I.
Lieberman has urged everyone to forget about it. "I certainly
think that the pardon of Marc Rich was a mistake," he said.
"But it's time to move forward."
JANUARY 2001
JACQUELINE TRESCOTT, WASHINGTON
POST: In an unheard-of last-minute gambit, Ronald I. Dozoretz
resigned from the Kennedy Center board and then was reappointed
to it last month by President Clinton. The maneuver by the outgoing
president gives Dozoretz an additional four years in a post considered
one of the choicest plums of Washington art and social circles.
Dozoretz is a friend of the Clintons and has given thousands
of dollars to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's Senate campaign and
other Democratic Party organizations. WASHINGTON
POST:
JERRY SEPER, WASHINGTON
TIMES: Marc Rich, the fugitive financier pardoned on Inauguration
Day by President Clinton, personally devised and oversaw an elaborate
scheme to funnel to Swiss banks more than $70 million in illegal
profits from the resale of crude oil. According to federal law
enforcement authorities and government records, Mr. Rich - as
part of an extensive plot to evade US taxes and federal energy
regulations - successfully hid millions of dollars in illegal
profits that he and his partner, Pincus Green, also pardoned
by Mr. Clinton, accumulated in the 1980s. The scheme, described
by authorities as one of the biggest tax-fraud cases in US history,
continued over nine months while the illegal profits were secretly
being routed from the United States to banks in Switzerland.
Records show the profits had been obtained through the purchase
and later resale of $200 million of Iranian oil after President
Carter had banned trade with that country.
DAVID WASTELL, LONDON SUNDAY
TELEGRAPH: Former President Clinton is offering to repay the
cost of vandalism by his outgoing staff when they left their
offices on Jan. 20, once he is given a complete list from the
Bush White House of the damage reportedly done . . . President
Bush has ordered that no action be taken against officials of
Mr. Clinton and Al Gore, the former vice president, in effect
granting his first presidential "pardon." Mr. Bush's
order was an attempt to calm the massive uproar in the media
over reported theft and damage in the White House that was beginning
to overshadow the opening days of his administration and sour
relations with his predecessor. Mr. Clinton, however, has asked
for a detailed accounting of what went wrong during his staff's
departure amid suspicions that the Bush camp overplayed the charges
against his aides. The Sunday Telegraph has learned that the
former president's office contacted the White House on Friday
to request a written report. Jake Siewert, Mr. Clinton's former
press secretary, said: "We'd like a fuller explanation of
what, if anything, was amiss. I was one of the last to leave
the West Wing, and I saw nothing obviously wrong. If there was
any serious vandalism, it's something President Clinton would
like to hear about and have some way of redressing." . .
. NEWSMAX: A top Democrat's charge that aides to former President
George Bush trashed the White House before leaving in 1993, much
the same way Clinton administration staff did last Saturday,
was contradicted by NBC reporter Andrea Mitchell. "I covered
the Clintons coming in," Mitchell told radioman Don Imus.
"There was a lot of bitterness because the hard drives were
missing from some of the computers." . . . But Mitchell
went on to dispel any notion that former Bush aides had deliberately
tampered with White House computers to sabotage the incoming
Clinton administration. "It turned out that the missing
hard drives were taken by special prosecutors who were looking
into a Bush campaign, a Bush White House issue," Mitchell
told Imus.
NEWSMAX o TELEGRAPH
JEWISH WEEK: The furor
over President Bill Clinton's pardon of fugitive commodities
trader Marc Rich could entangle the US Holocaust Memorial Museum
in new controversy as lawmakers probe what some say was a politically
motivated action by the outgoing president. The Jewish Week learned
that Rabbi Irving Yitzî Greenberg, chair of the U.S. Holocaust
Memorial Council, wrote to Clinton asking for a pardon for Rich.
More important, Rabbi Greenberg wrote his appeal on official
council stationery. A council source expressed concern that the
letter, which Rabbi Greenberg said was put on council stationery
by mistake, could further inflame congressional critics of the
successful by sometimes-controversial museum on the Mall in Washington.
THOMAS DeFRANK, New York
Daily News: Washington resident Bush makes his first trip abroad
as America's leader next month, but Gary Wright couldn't care
less - thanks, he says bitterly, to Hillary Rodham Clinton. For
32 years, circling the globe with Presidents was Wright's livelihood.
Assigned to the White House Travel Office, he logged millions
of miles on press charters, accompanying seven Presidents to
every continent and scores of world capitals. These days, Wright,
now 58, pulls 12-hour shifts as a $22,000-a-year correction officer
at a North Carolina state prison. "It helps pay the mortgage,"
says Wright, one of the seven civil servants summarily sacked
eight years ago in the first scandal of the Clinton era. To this
day, he's convinced that now-Sen. Clinton masterminded the Travelgate
firings to turn the lucrative White House travel business over
to Arkansas cronies. Dale, his deputy Wright and their entire
staff were sacked in May 1993 after charged of financial mismanagement
- charges that proved bogus. The firings triggered a firestorm
of media and congressional scrutiny implicating Clinton and her
pal Harry Thomason in the coup . . . In June, independent counsel
Robert Ray declined to file charges, but cited "substantial
evidence she had a 'role'" in the ousters and that her concerns
"ultimately influenced" the decision.
NEWSMAX: Rare presidential
souvenirs similar to the ones taken from Air Force One when Bill,
Hillary and Chelsea Clinton used the aircraft for their final
trip home to New York have popped up on the Internet auction
site E-Bay.com, United Press International reported. Giving the
first family the benefit of the doubt, UPI suggested the missing
items had been taken by "Clinton staffers" and noted,
"there is no indication that some of the (auction) items....
were among items taken from the plane." But dealers in collectibles
told the wire service that it was unusual for such a large number
of presidential souvenirs to become available so soon after the
transfer of power . . . The items up for sale included a White
House guest bathrobe, current bid $305; a leather air travel
bag, with Air Force One logo ($360) and an Air Force One humidor
- item # 544207091 -- emblazoned with the president's seal, for
more than $2,000 - 48 cigars included. The presidential souvenirs
were put on sale between Jan. 17 and Jan. 21. NEWSMAX
WHITE HOUSE TRASH
AMERICAN SPECTATOR: Facilities
managers at the Old Executive Office Building and the Government
Services Administration estimate it will cost as much as $250,000
to clean up the mess left by outgoing Clinton and Gore staff
in the Old Executive Office Building. The Washington Post thought
it funny that the outgoing crew left "pranks" for the
new Bushies: prying the "W" from computer keyboards,
shifting the signs on the Men's and Ladies' rooms. But according
to an inspector at the GSA who was called in to inspect the vandalism,
several executive desks were damaged to the point that they must
be replaced, several more offices must be repainted due to graffiti
. . . The GSA has told the Bush administration that it will seek
reimbursement for some of the expenses. That's because the GSA
and maintenance office of the OEOB still has records of who inhabited
the vandalized offices in the Clinton administration's final
days and can collect damage costs from these former government
employees . . . DRUDGE REPORT: President Bush told senior advisers
on Thursday that he would not be inclined to order any prosecution
for acts of vandalism and destruction of federal property caused
by previous tenants at the White House . . . "We are looking
at each and every computer," said a White House source.
"We have reason to believe that some computers may have
been infected with a virus." The source indicates that new
computers will likely be purchased for incoming staff. SPECTATOR
F SCOTT FITZGERALD: They
were careless people -- they smashed up things and creatures
and then retreated into their money or their vast carelessness
or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people
clean up the mess they had made.
JACK QUINN isn't just Marc
Rich's lawyer. He was one of Al Gore's top aides, who went to
the White House as counsel in an extraordinary case of a president
allowing a veep capo in on his secrets. We speculated at the
time that it was part of a deal between Gore and Clinton to keep
the vice president from defecting from the scandal-ridden president
. . . JACK NEWFIELD OF THE NY POST writes "We are just lucky
that those seven escaped killer convicts from Texas didn't have
time to hire Clinton's former counsel, Jack Quinn, the way Marc
Rich did. Otherwise, Clinton might have pardoned them mid-flight."
NOW THEY TELL US
[It's taken less than
a week for the media power-suckers to turn on their former heroes,
the Clintons. This is pretty speedy even by Washington standards.
Some cases in point, compiled by the Wall Street Journal]
WASHINGTON POST: The list
[of house gifts] demonstrates again the Clintons' defining characteristic:
They have no capacity for embarrassment. Words like shabby and
tawdry come to mind. They don't begin to do it justice.
MARY MCGRORY: The liberating
effect of this terminal tackiness and greed was immediately felt.
NEW YORK TIMES: We are
particularly troubled by the numerous instances in which Mr.
Clinton granted pardons or commutations without proper consultation
with federal prosecutors, often to reward friends or political
allies or gain future political advantage."
NEWSDAY: Leave it to Bill
Clinton to close out his presidency with one last helping of
his signature dish: a pungent stew of campaign contributions,
ethical shortcuts and what-the-hell disregard for likely consequences.
WALL STREET JOURNAL: What
seems to be happening now is the liberals' realization that in
fact the Clintons don't give a damn what anyone thinks, including
them. Very hard on them, poor souls. The Clintons' latest is
not just a thumb in the eyes of the low, sloping forehead conservative
rabble; it's their blazing-in-neon sign to the world that they
now don't care what anyone says, not the New York Times (which
endorsed her for Senator), not the progressive elites, not anyone.
This fact came home hard to liberal commentators when the Clintons
finally abandoned all pretense to style, which was very important
to his enablers, for a lot of whom the most important warring
values are not those of good vs. evil, but tacky vs. stylish.
[Whatever is involved,
if you want locked box evidence that the Clinton era is over,
check this remarkable movie review in the pages of the Style
section of the Washington Post. Style serves as daily value fix
for the capital estalbishment.]
STEPHEN HUNTER, WASHINGTON
POST: "The Wedding Planner" is one of the first big
studio releases of the post-Clinton era, but it feels like a
pure Clintonian artifact. It seems written and directed by a
savvy Washington PR firm: It's mostly spin in which people do
terrible things to other people but it's never their fault, and
they never have to face any consequences. Jennifer Lopez plays
Mary, a highly talented wedding planner whom the movie seems
to admire profusely, as it introduces her talking a terrified
bride through a severe case of nerves. That characterizes Mary
as a caring, feeling, compassionate woman; only later do we learn
that her pep talk was shtick for such situations . . . The nonentity
director Adam Shankman steers the movie relentlessly toward sugary
romantic fantasy. It's as if the tone is at war with the content.
Bright and bubbly, it endlessly chronicles bad behavior spun
toward the positive. Dr. Steve, for example, is never judged
for cheating on Fran by going out with Mary, and he never even
has to 'fess up. Not even Jesse Jackson got off that easy. Twice,
brides and grooms are dumped at the altar, but the movie labors
to convince you that it's not the fault of the dumpers, who are
somehow portrayed as victims, and that it was in everybody's
best interest. A father whose $600,000 wedding investment is
trashed doesn't even get any screen time to lament his fate.
WASHINGTON
POST
CLINTONISTAS TRASH WHITE
HOUSE,
STRIP AIR FORCE ONE
DRUDGE REPORT: The Bush
Administration has quietly launched an investigation into apparent
acts of vandalism and destruction of federal property -- after
incoming Bush staffers discover widespread sabotage of White
House office equipment and lewd messages left behind by previous
tenants . . . The damage left by departing Clintonites goes "way
beyond pranks, to vandalism", said a close Bush adviser
. . . Bush's staff has been cautioned not to go public with the
extent of the damage and the worst is being closely held among
very top staffers for fear of leaks. But, according to sources,
so far Bush officials have found: Phone lines were cut . . .
Voice mail messages were changed to obscene, scatological greetings
. . . Many phone lines misdirected to other government offices
. . . Desks found turned completely upside down and trash deliberately
left everywhere . . . Computer printers that were filled with
blank paper but interspersed with pornographic pictures and obscene
slogans that would be revealed only as items were run off the
computer . . . 'W' keys weren't just pried off more than 40 keyboards,
some were glued on with Superglue; some were turned upside down
and glued on . . . Filing cabinets glued shut . . . VP Office
space in the Old Executive Office Building found in complete
shambles. Mrs. Gore had to phone Mrs. Cheney to apologize . .
. Lewd Magic Marker graffiti found on one office hallway. DRUDGE
REPORT
JOHN MCCASLIN, WASHINGTON
TIMES: Now that Bill Clinton is gone — after the longest
goodbye anyone remembers — an Air Force steward tells us
about the former president's "official" farewell flight
to New York on Inaugural Day.
The presidential plane was "stripped bare." . . . Missing
from the plane on arrival in New York, Inside the Beltway is
told, was all the porcelain china, silverware, salt and pepper
shakers, blankets and pillow cases — most of it bearing
the presidential seal. What most astonished the military steward
was that even a cache of Colgate toothpaste, not stamped with
the presidential seal, was snatched from a compartment beneath
the presidential plane's sink. WASHINGTON
TIMES
JEANNE CUMMINGS & DAVID
CLOUD, WALL STREET JOURNAL: The pardon [of Marc Rich] is causing
considerable discomfort among overseas business executives who
plotted with US officials to capture Mr. Rich. Some of these
individuals now fear he might learn their names, and have asked
the Justice Department to move preemptively to seal US government
files related to their efforts before anyone seeks them under
the Freedom of Information Act. Justice Department officials
said they were considering the request . . . James Kallstrom,
the former head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation field
office in New York, said any names included in publicly released
documents "would be redacted. The question is how well it
is redacted. Some of the information in there doesn't take a
rocket scientist to figure out who it came from."
CLINTON LAWYER David Kendell
tells the Arkansas Democrat Gazette that the president's de facto
plea agreement with special prosecutor Robert Ray does not prevent
him from seeking legal fees in other investigations.
REUTERS: President George
W. Bush has lost his middle initial from many computer keyboards
at the Old Executive Office Building in the White House complex
. . . Bush aides said that the W was marked out in some cases
but often the key had been removed -- and sometimes taped on
top of doorways -- or damaged with the spring broken. The new
team was studying whether any of the keyboards could be salvaged,
but it appeared in many cases they would simply have to be replaced.
In the West Wing, the computers seemed not to have been vandalized.
"I have my W," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer
said . . . Bush aides were working to repair or replace the keys.
AMERICAN SPECTATOR: Any
illusions Al Gore might have had that he could still be leader
of the Democratic Party were wiped out when he was invited by
DNC head Terry McAuliffe to the Andrews Air Force Base sendoff
of the Clintons -- and told he could not speak. "McAuliffe
didn't want him to speak, and the president didn't want him to
speak," said a DNC source. "McAuliffe really didn't
want him there, and wasn't going to encourage it. The send-off
was about good memories, success stories. And the vice president
isn't either." . . . So why go to such petty lengths to
keep Gore from addressing the administration faithful? "McAuliffe
is heading the DNC, but Clinton is going to run the party. Whoever
runs for president in 2004 is going to be Clinton's candidate,
and that isn't going to be Al Gore," said another DNC operative.
SPECTATOR
WASHINGTON POST EDITORIAL:
Hillary Rodman Clinton and her husband accepted more than $190,000
in gifts last year, according to the financial disclosure statement
issued as they were preparing to leave the White House . . .
Under Senate rules, Mrs. Clinton could not have accepted such
expensive gifts once sworn in, absent a waiver from the ethics
committee . . . No previous president appears to have accepted
parting gifts of such magnitude, nor did the Clintons approach
their last year's total in prior years . . . The list demonstrates
again the Clintons' defining characteristic: They have no capacity
for embarrassment. Words like shabby and tawdry come to mind.
They don't begin to do it justice. WASHINGTON POST
NY TIMES EDITORIAL: Bill
Clinton's last-minute pardon of Marc Rich, the shadowy commodities
trader who fled to Switzerland in 1983 to avoid American justice,
was a shocking abuse of presidential power and a reminder of
why George W. Bush's vow to restore integrity to the Oval Office
resonates with millions of Americans who otherwise disagree with
the new president's politics. Unchecked by any other branch of
government, the president's authority under the Constitution
to pardon anyone charged with federal crimes is meant to be exercised
with great restraint to correct an injustice or to further some
societal good. Bestowing undeserved beneficence on a fugitive
accused of evading $48 million in taxes and illegally trading
with Iran in oil during the hostage crisis is hardly what the
Constitution's framers had in mind. NY
TIMES
CLINTON SCANDALS
REID IRVINE, CHATTANOOGA
TIMES: A federal judge has ordered the Office of the Independent
Counsel to release five crime scene photographs of the late White
House Deputy Counsel Vincent W. Foster Jr. Nearly four years
ago, attorney Allan J. Favish filed a suit under the Freedom
of Information Act to obtain these and other photos taken by
US Park Police officers when they found Foster's body in Fort
Marcy Park on July 20, 1993. Favish presented evidence to show
that the official findings that Foster killed himself where his
body was found were wrong. He argued that the [ten] photos should
be made available to the experts who question the official story
. . . The judge ruled that five of the photos were so "graphic
and extremely upsetting" that their release would violate
the privacy of Foster's family . . . Favish, who filed his suit
in March 1997, will appeal to get all the photos released. The
one showing the right side of Foster's face and shoulder has
been reported by those who have seen it to show evidence of trauma
on Foster's neck just below the jaw line. This is where paramedic
Richard Arthur, who examined the body at Fort Marcy Park, said
he saw a small-caliber bullet wound. Miquel Rodriguez, the prosecutor
who began the grand jury investigation initiated by Ken Starr,
had this photo enhanced. He is said to believe that the dark
spot is evidence of a bullet wound. The location is one that
is favored by some professional hit men to fire a small-caliber
bullet into their victim's brain, killing with a minimum of mess
. . . The judge's claim that all the photos showing Foster's
face are graphic is disputed by Pete Simonello, the Park Police
officer who took many photos of Foster at the park. Simonello
says there is nothing graphic about them. There was very little
visible blood and no sign of an exit wound in the back of the
head. ALLAN
FAVISH WEB SITE
NEWSMAX: Disgraced former
top Justice Department official Webster Hubbell is angry he was
left off President Clinton's 11th-hour pardon list, says reporter
and Hubbell friend Ellen Ratner, who lunched with the Whitewater
convict on Monday. "I can tell you that Webb Hubbell is
not a very happy camper right now," Ratner told WKDR Burlington,
Vt., radio host Mark Johnson. "He's actually getting somewhat
angry, which I think is quite good for him, because this is a
man that never gets angry." No doubt the Clintons owe their
former friend big time for keeping his lip buttoned through eight
years of independent counsel investigations. In one telling episode,
jailhouse recordings released in 1997 show Hubbell promising
White House aide Marsha Scott that he'd "roll over one more
time" in order not to implicate Hillary in any Whitewater
criminality. Ratner said the reason Clinton didn't pardon Hubbell
may have something to do with the fact that he pleaded guilty
to bilking the Rose Law Firm out of hundreds of thousands of
dollars, which meant he stole from his law partners Vince Foster
and Mrs. Clinton. Another possibility, she said, was that a Hubbell
pardon might look like the Clintons were trying to influence
the case against Indonesian billionaire and Clinton friend James
Riady, who signed a last-minute no-jail time plea bargain two
weeks ago with the Clinton Justice Department. NEWSMAX
ROBERT RAY INSPIRES MICROSOFT
SATIRE WIRE: Only hours
after President Clinton struck a deal to avoid prosecution by
admitting he lied in court about Monica Lewinsky, Microsoft CEO
Steve Ballmer announced the entire company will admit to an affair
with Lewinsky if the government will drop the case against it,
too. In a prepared statement, Ballmer said people were "sick
and tired" of both the Clinton proceedings and the Microsoft
trial, and noted that both defendants should be given the same
settlement, "especially since we're both guilty of the same
thing. Microsoft did have an inappropriate relationship with
that woman, Miss Lewinsky, and it was wrong of us not to testify
to that in court," the statement said. "This has been
painful to the entire Microsoft family of products, and I hope
our actions today will help bring closure and finality to the
matters."
FINAL WORDS
ROBERT RAY'S DEAL with
Clinton can be explained in part by the reality of how a jury
would react to the thought of convicting a former president.
What verges on the inexplicable, however, is the language Ray
permitted in the deal. In short, the prosecutor let the president
use evasive and misleading language in a de facto plea agreement
in which he admitted using "evasive and misleading"
testimony. In a literary sense at least, Ray thus compounded
the felony by permitting Clinton to continue to do what got him
in trouble in the first place. So weaselly was Clinton's language
that his supporters were promptly on the airwaves denying that
the president had admitted he had lied. The only conceivable
excuse was that Clinton threatened to pardon himself if Ray didn't
go along . . . NEWSMAX: NewsMax has learned exclusively that
Clinton will in fact be able to seek reimbursement for all legal
costs not related to the OIC's Monica Lewinsky probe, a sum that
could be as high as eight million dollars. "This has been
misreported a bit," Deputy Independent Counsel Keith Ausbrook
told NewsMax late Friday. "Clinton could seek reimbursement
with respect to other parts of the Whitewater investigation."
Ausbrook said that Clinton would have to submit an application
to the court, which would determine his eligibility for the recovery
of legal costs run-up during the non-Lewinsky phase of the Whitewater
investigation, as well as the Travelgate and Filegate probes.
Since Mrs. Clinton was not a target of Monicagate prosecutors,
the entire cost of legal bills incurred during the seven year
investigation of her role in the unrelated scandals could be
recovered. If the Clintons are reimbursed, it's not clear whether
they'd be required to refund the six million dollars collected
since 1994 by their legal defense fund. NEWSMAX
DAILY MAIL: Bill Clinton
bid a reluctant farewell to the White House on Saturday, taking
an unprecedented $200,000 worth of furnishings to remember it
by. The items included works of art, chinaware and rugs - many
of them gifts from the ex-president's supporters in Hollywood
- amassed during his eight years in office . . . An emotional
Mr. Clinton did not reach Chappaqua until almost 6pm on Saturday,
inauguration day for his successor George W Bush, after telling
misty-eyed supporters at Andrews Air Force Base: 'I've left the
White House but I'm still here.' . . . WASHINGTON POST: In their
financial disclosure forms, the Clintons reported a variety of
assets and receipts, including "over $1 million" in
a Citibank personal account in New York; blind trusts, insurance
policies and some common stock worth more than $1 million; and
the payment of $1.05 million in legal fees by the Clinton Legal
Expense Trust. Bill Clinton continues to owe "between $1
million and $5 million" to each of two law firms, Williams
and Connolly and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, resulting
primarily from his defense in House and Senate impeachment proceedings,
along with a number of other investigations. Many of the gifts
the Clintons are taking with them are from Hollywood figures,
Democratic donors and a wide array of friends and associates,
including his Georgetown University classmates. Most of the gifts
are artworks, flatware, furniture, china and rugs for a couple
who for nearly two decades have not had a home of their own but
now suddenly have two large houses, one in Northwest Washington,
the other in Chappaqua, NY . . . In seven previous years, the
most the Clintons had reported receiving in gifts was $23,602
in 1999. Clinton's predecessor in the White House, George Bush,
listed $52,853 in gifts in 1992. WASHINGTON
POST
FEEDBACK
BETH MAXWELL BOYLE: Hi
Sam, Get over it. You are still trying to change history by printing
bile on Bill Clinton. We really would like a little more news
about the world. Using your Progressive Review as a Clinton bashing
tool is getting very old and is damaging your credibility. We
know how you feel now can we get on with life already? It seems
against the very nature of the "Review" to be so slanted
and so obsessed. Please can we move on!
[Since this is presumably
the last such letter I'll get during the Clinton administration,
I'd like to point out an interesting anomaly. While I have received
many letters attacking my reporting of the Clinton story, I can
not recall one that challenged me on the facts with the exception
of those that accepted the basic coverage but disagreed on some
details of events. In other words, the corrections and disputes
have all come from those accepting the notion that we have been
dealing with severe corruption and criminality. Those who have
thought otherwise have typically responded to the presentation
of facts with presumptions of motivation, perceptions of paranoia,
and allegations of hatred and bile.
Although I have written
critically of nine presidents, this is the first time anything
like this has occurred. Some of this reaction is a tribute to
the skill with which the Clinton administration has demonized
its critics. Some is a product of a postmodernism in which facts
not longer matter, but only perceptions and the repackaging of
facts.
But there has also been
a stunning change in the culture, values, and ethics of journalism.
A few cases in point:
- When I started out,
more than half the reporters in this country didn't have a college
education. As a result, more than half of the reporters in the
country were closer, in a sociological sense, to the readers
than to their employers and official sources. This is no longer
true. The national journalist has become part of the elite. And,
too often, a part of the problem.
- A reporter, like a
detective, starts with the evidence, not a theory. If you start
the other way, you will find yourself constantly trying to stuff
facts into places they don't belong. The great failing in the
reporting of Clinton is that the Washington media spent eight
years justifying a theory it had developed during the 1992 campaign.
When facts didn't fit, they were simply jettisoned.
- The traditional reporter,
no matter how biased, tended to put the story first. This has
gone out of fashion, and now political reporters are often but
extensions of the op ed pages, spin doctors for a cause rather
than sympathetic but still independent observers who might at
any moment defect because a few facts got in the way. It disloyalty
to one's own presumptions in the face of contrary evidence that
is the hallmark of a good reporter.
Thus, the observant
reader will find here few unified theories concerning the Bush
administration. Nor have I joined the liberal rush to assign
pernicious motivation to various appointees. Rather, I have --
just as I did during the Clinton years -- gone about looking
for things that are amiss, a friendly or ugly fact, an anecdote
that tells infinitely more than an ad hominem attack, unless,
of course, the latter is funny or an appealing metaphor.
I don't trust these
folk, and some are up to no good. But I have not the skill, desire,
or cynicism to try - in the current journalistic manner - to
convince you of this without any evidence. And so, for the most
part, I will continue to bring you items from the scene of the
crime. With enough of them, and enough time, maybe we'll figure
out what the hell is going on.]
RENO INTO THE TANK
ONE LAST TIME
WILLIAM SAFIRE, NY TIMES:
As he rages against the dying of the spotlight, Bill Clinton
can breathe one final sigh of relief: the man with whom he established
the illegal "Asian Connection" that heavily financed
his 1992 and 1996 campaigns has been given a walk by Reno Justice.
James Riady, the Indonesian billionaire with close ties to Beijing's
leaders, was allowed to plead guilty to conspiring to defraud
the US One of his banks will pay a fine of $8 million, to him
a painless penalty. Because no threat of jail hangs over the
Clinton money man who evaded subpoenas for almost five years,
he is not induced to tell the whole truth about his hugely successful
purchase of White House influence . . . Consider the unprecedented
scope of what even the most ardent Clinton partisan must admit
is a criminal conspiracy. In a limousine with Clinton shortly
after the 1992 nomination, Riady - well known by Clinton to be
a foreign national - stated his intent to raise a million dollars
for the campaign . . . Riady then gave [John] Huang a million-dollar
"bonus" and ensconced him in a sensitive post at the
Commerce Department. Records show Huang had the run of the White
House and kept in close touch with Riady interests in Asia. He
used his "bonus" to fill campaign coffers of Clinton
and his allies throughout the first term. NY
TIMES
NEWSMAX: Moctar Riady's
plea bargain, reached just days before President Clinton leaves
office, was the Justice Department's way of preventing a Republican
attorney general from pursuing the Chinagate case and exposing
the president's role in that scandal, says former Clinton adviser
Dick Morris. Appearing on Paula Zahn's "The Edge" on
Fox News, Morris said that the timing of the plea bargain, which
let Riady off with nothing more than a fine and no jail time,
was deliberate and was meant to keep Riady from spilling the
beans about Clinton's involvement in the scandal . . . Morris
said that the deal could keep a future GOP attorney general from
getting to the bottom of the Clinton-Riady connection because
the Indonesian mogul could not be threatened with jail time for
the offenses covered in the plea bargain. The deal bought Riady's
continued silence, Morris charged.NEWSMAX
PAUL SPERRY, WORLD NET DAILY: The
White House is rushing to "wipe clean" the hard drives
of computers used by President Clinton's aides before the Jan.
20 changeover, a public-interest law firm claims. Normally, when
employees leave the White House, computer workers take a snapshot
of the contents of their hard drives and store them as part of
official records, as required by law. Then they reformat the
hard drives for the next users. But according to Judicial Watch,
political aides have ordered computer workers to first run the
hard drives through a software program by the firm Jetico, called
BC, or Best Crypt, which "wipes clean the drives so the
next administration can't retrieve any files." "They're
starting with [the hard drives of] the most important people
first -- the [White House] lawyers -- and working their way down,"
said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. "And they're working
through the weekend." He added: "It's the equivalent
of burning records, according to our sources," who are White
House employees. WORLD
NET DAILY
ROBERT RAY INSPIRES MICROSOFT
SATIRE WIRE: Only hours
after President Clinton struck a deal to avoid prosecution by
admitting he lied in court about Monica Lewinsky, Microsoft CEO
Steve Ballmer announced the entire company will admit to an affair
with Lewinsky if the government will drop the case against it,
too. In a prepared statement, Ballmer said people were "sick
and tired" of both the Clinton proceedings and the Microsoft
trial, and noted that both defendants should be given the same
settlement, "especially since we're both guilty of the same
thing. Microsoft did have an inappropriate relationship with
that woman, Miss Lewinsky, and it was wrong of us not to testify
to that in court," the statement said. "This has been
painful to the entire Microsoft family of products, and I hope
our actions today will help bring closure and finality to the
matters."
DECEMBER 2000
AX FALLS ON CLINTON'S
INDONESIAN CONNECTION
THE IMPORTANCE OF THE PLEA
BARGAIN described below can not be underestimated. It establishes
beyond doubt the criminal relationship between James Riady and
Bill Clinton's political machine. Almost alone in the media,
the Review pointed out that as early as May 1992 there was an
unsavory connection between Riady's father, Mochtar, and Clinton.
For some 25 years, as our timeline below indicates, Mochtar Riady,
and later his son James, served as godfather figures lurking
behind the Clintons. Why, we asked, would an Indonesian billionaire
get involved in a backwater state like Arkansas in the 1970s?
Why would James Riady wish to help purchase a bank in a tiny
town of 5,000 named Mena?
In his criminal plea agreement,
Riady states that the purpose of the illegal foreign campaign
contributions was to buy influence for his Lippo Group and LippoBank,
which were huge multinational conglomerates with ties, among
other things, to BCCI. As often happens in such matters, the
plea bargain is only the tip of the iceberg. But it establishes
some of the illegal depths of the Clinton machine. As we wrote
some times back:
"Mochtar Riady, an
Indonesian billionaire closely tied to China, came to a tiny,
depressed, corrupt state called Arkansas in the late 70s and
hooked up with a rising young politician named Bill Clinton.
In the mid-80s, with Clinton in the state house, Riady made a
sudden multi-million dollar investment in the Worthen bank that
some suspect was a bailout for disastrous investment by the state
pension fund. Riady would perform many other favors for Clinton.
And vice versa.
"By 1983, Charlie
Trie was running a Little Rock restaurant thanks to a SBA loan
that had used Clinton as a reference. He also tried to contribute
$640,000 to the Clinton legal defense fund but the money was
turned back after it was noticed that the checks had signatures
matching those on other checks numbered sequentially but from
separate cities.
"Riady and Trie joined
those -- such as the CIA, drug traffickers, and other members
of the Dixie Mafia -- who already understood the utility of a
rising politician without morals or shame. Someone you could
do business with -- and perhaps blackmail when you couldn't.
By the early 1980s, the story we are reading about today had
already begun."
NEWSMAX: Indonesian billionaire
James Riady has agreed to pay a record $8.6 million criminal
fine for illegally funding Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign,
the Justice Department said. According to the Associated Press
and other wire services:
In a plea bargain filed
in US District Court in Los Angeles, Riady agreed to plead guilty
to one felony count of conspiracy for concealing foreign contributions,
which are illegal in the US He will not face jail time. The government's
court filing said the goal of the contributions was to buy influence
for Lippo Group and LippoBank. Riady is to surrender and come
to the US at an unspecified future date - even though there is
no extradition treaty between Indonesia and the United States.
NEWSMAX: http://newsmax.com
ASSOCIATED PRESS: In addition,
LippoBank California, a California state-chartered bank affiliated
with Lippo Group, agreed to plead guilty to 86 misdemeanor accounts
charging that its agents, Mr. Riady and Huang, made illegal foreign
campaign contributions from 1988 through 1994. The total of $8,610,000
in fines is the largest ever imposed in a campaign finance case
in U.S. history, the department said . . . Mr. Riady is one of
26 persons and two corporations so far charged by Justice's campaign
finance task force since it was established four years ago .
. . Mr. Ray's office has prosecuted former Justice official and
Clinton friend Webster L. Hubbell and has investigated whether
payments to him, including $100,000 from Lippo Group, after he
resigned were designed to keep him from testifying against Mr.
Clinton or his wife, Hillary. A videotape of a December 1995
White House "coffee" also shows Mr. Gore talking with
Arief Wiriadinata, an Indonesian gardener who illegally donated
$455,000 to the Democratic Party in 1995, and records comments
by the vice president to Mr. Wiriadinata concerning Mr. Riady.
WASHINGTON TIMES http://www.washtimes.com/national/default-200111223115.htm
RIADY TIMELIINE
1976
Bill Clinton is elected
attorney general of Arkansas. Two Indonesian billionaires come
to Arkansas. Mochtar Riady and Liem Sioe Liong are close to Suharto.
Riady is looking for an American bank to buy. Riady's agent is
Jackson Stephens, who also brokers the arrival of BCCI to this
country and steers BCCI's founder, Hassan Abedi, to Bert Lance.
Apparently because of pressure from Indonesia, Riady withdraws
his bid to buy Lance's 30% share of the National Bank of Georgia.
Instead, a BCCI front man buys the shares and Abedi moves to
secretly take over First American Bankshares -- later the subject
of the only BCCI-connected scandal to be prosecuted in the US.
Riady's teen-age son, James, is taken on as an intern by Stephens
Inc. He later says he was "sponsored" by Bill Clinton.
1983
Mochtar Riady forms Lippo
Finance & Investment in Little Rock. A non-citizen, Riady
hires Carter's former SBA director, Vernon Weaver, to chair the
firm. The launch is accomplished with the aid of a $2 million
loan guaranteed by the SBA. Weaver uses Governor Clinton as a
character reference to help get the loan guarantee. First loan
goes to Little Rock Chinese restaurant owner Charlie Trie.
1984
Riady buys a stake in the
Worthen holding company whose assets include the Stephens-controlled
Worthen Bank. Price: $16 million. Other Worthen co-owners will
eventually include BCCI investor Abdullah Taha Bakhish.
1985
Arkansas state pension
funds --deposited in Worthen by Governor Bill Clinton -- suddenly
lose 15% of their value because of the failure of high risk,
short-term investments and the brokerage firm that bought them.
The $52 million loss is covered by a Worthen check written by
Jack Stephens in the middle of the night, an insurance policy,
and the subsequent purchase over the next few months of 40% of
the bank by Mochtar Riady. Clinton and Worthen escape a major
scandal. Mochtar's son James comes back to Arkansas to manage
Worthen as president. He bonds with Clinton and Charlie Trie.
Lippo executive and Chinese native John Huang becomes active
in Lippo's operations in Arkansas. China Resources pays for a
Lippo-organized trip to Asia by Gov. Clinton, according to a
later FBI inteview with John Huang. Mochtar and James Riady engineer
the takeover of the First National Bank of Mena in a town of
5,000 with few major assets beyond a Contra supply base, drug
running and money-laundering operations.
1990
James Riady takes over
operations of a new branch of the Lippo Bank, working with Hong
Kong Lippo executive, John Huang.
1991
The Arkansas Industrial
Development Commission furthers the Indonesian - Arkansas connection.
Deals are worked on for Wal-Mart, Tyson's Food, and JB Hunt.
Later documents uncovered by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette will
"make reference to Clinton's ideal position as president
. . . in helping to secure Arkansas-Indonesian deals." The
US ambassador in Jakarta at the time will later remark, "There
were lots of people from Arkansas who came through Indonesia."
. . . Jackson Stephens and BCCI figure Moctar Riady buy BCCI's
former Hong Kong subsidiary.
1992
An FBI report says Democrat
fund-raiser John Huang, a James Riady employee, reported that
in 1992 Riady told Clinton during a limousine ride that he wanted
to raise $1 million for his campaign..
1993
John Huang and James Riady
give $100,000 to Clinton's inaugural fund.
1995
Webster Hubbell is convicted
of tax evasion and mail fraud involving the theft of nearly a
half million dollars from his partners at the Rose firm and failing
to pay nearly $150,000 in taxes. After quitting the Justice Department
and before going to jail, Hubbell is a busy man. He meets with
Hillary Clinton, and follows up by getting together with major
scandal figures John Huang, James Riady, and Ng Lapseng. Riady
and Huang go to the White House every day from June 21 to June
25, 1994 according to White House records. Hubbell had breakfast
and lunch with Riady on June 23. Four days later -- and one week
after Hubbell's meeting with Hillary -- the Hong Kong Chinese
Bank, jointly owed by Lippo and the Chinese intelligence services,
sends $100,000 to Hubbell. Huang, incidentally, formerly worked
for the Hong Kong Chinese Bank. Hubbell also receives $400,000
from other sources.
USA TODAY: FBI Director
Louis Freeh, whose public clashes with the White House led to
an often tense relationship with President Clinton, has been
asked to remain on the job in the new Bush administration, officials
close to the situation say . . . In a statement in 1996, Freeh
said the "FBI and I were victimized" by the White House,
when the bureau mistakenly turned over confidential personnel
files that were requested by administration officials. The episode
led the FBI to place new restrictions on access to its confidential
files. In recent years, Freeh has split with Attorney General
Janet Reno by pressing for an independent investigation of campaign
finance irregularities involving Clinton and Vice President Gore.
DAVID SHUSTER, FOX NEWS:
Senior staff working for Attorney General Janet Reno have threatened
to fire an independent counsel investigating a possible cover-up
at the Justice Department, Fox News has learned. Independent
Counsel Dave Barrett led the investigation of former Clinton
housing secretary Henry Cisneros, who admitted lying to the FBI.
According to sources, for the last 10 months Barrett has been
presenting his grand jury with new evidence alleging that officials
at the Justice Department improperly tried to influence actions
by the Internal Revenue Service. Barrett was warned by senior
Justice Department officials to halt his investigation . . .
During his investigation, Barrett uncovered evidence of possible
tax fraud by Cisneros. But Justice Department officials, along
with the IRS, said that aspect of the Cisneros record was beyond
the independent counsel's jurisdiction. After looking at the
evidence themselves, the Justice Department and IRS both refused
to pursue the matter.
According to well-placed sources, last year a top lawyer within
the IRS alleged that senior Justice Department officials were
attempting to protect Cisneros. The IRS employee, who is now
a whistleblower for the independent counsel, has reportedly testified
that justice officials pressured the IRS in other cases as well.
FOX
NEWS
STATISTICAL BREAKDOWN
OF PRESIDENTIAL PARDONS
Arkansas population as
percent of US: 1%
Arkansas pardons and commutations as percent of all presidential
pardons and commutations" 12%
REUTERS: A somber President
Clinton mourned the lawyer and friend who defended him during
his impeachment trial, saying yesterday that Charles F.C. Ruff
brought "grace and honor" to the White House during
the "craziest of times." . . . "Chuck never lost
his cool, never lost his temper, and never let me entirely lose
my sense of humor about what often was a patently absurd situation,"
the president said.
NEIL TRAVIS, NY POST: The
gossip among political insiders at last night's Kennedy Center
Honors gala and at the White House reception beforehand was that
Bill and Hillary Clinton are putting their "home" in
Chappaqua on the market less than a year after their much-ballyhooed
arrival in the leafy Westchester environs. I hear that the Clintons
never even got around to having "hard-wired" security
installed because they wouldn't be there long . . . The windfall
if the Clintons do sell Chappaqua would help ease their debts,
and his first book of memoirs, with a floor price of $7 million,
would have them out of the financial woods.
CARL LIMBACHER, NEWSMAX:
Not since Bill and Hillary Clinton teamed up with Whitewater's
Jim and Susan McDougal have two public officials contemplated
pulling off such a daring land flip heist in broad daylight .
. . Here's the plan, which should sound more than a little familiar
to those who recall how Hillary turned a modest six figure investment
in Castle Grande into a $4 million bonanza for Webb Hubbell's
father-in-law: "You get yourself elected, find a place in
DC and shake the dust of Chappaqua off your sensible flat shoes,"
says Travis. "As a bonus, one of your well-heeled pals buys
the mansion at a huge premium, giving you a fat profit . . .
A source in Chappaqua tells NewsMax that Travis is right on the
money -- and that the Clintons actually put their New York "home"
up for sale just three days after Hillary won her Senate seat.
[Whitewater Irregular
High Sprunt suggests that this may be "one of many 'indirect'
ways to legally pass $$$ to a politician -- buy something (anything)
that they own from them for a higher than market value price,
especially if the item trades in a market with a very wide (or
arguably very wide) bid-ask spread . . . This sort of thing will
make substantive "campaign finance" reforms a joke
-- the most you can hope to do is to have a chance at getting
disclosure of such gifts. It would be completely naive to think
that any reforms will put an end to such gifts since there are
so many ways, direct and indirect, that they can be accomplished.]
OXFORD SEEKS
CON ARTIST
FOR CHANCELLOR
PETER OBORNE AND TOBY MOORE,
LONDON DAILY EXPRESS: Outgoing President Bill Clinton is favorite
to become the next Chancellor of Oxford University. There is
huge support within the university for his appointment which
would be a major international coup. The move would receive enthusiastic
endorsement from Tony Blair while Mr. Clinton himself, who leaves
the White House next month, has fond memories of his Oxford student
days in the sixties and would welcome the global prestige. Supporters
of Mr. Clinton's case say he has impeccable academic credentials
and stature to do the job. They add he would "do wonders"
for university fund-raising.
NEWSMAX: On Saturday's
New York Times op-ed page, New York University Law Professor
Stephen Gillers argued that Clinton should remain president past
January 20 while Bush and Gore fight it out. "It's right
there in the 20th Amendment to the Constitution, passed in 1933,"
explained Gillers. "On Jan. 6, Congress is supposed to count
the electoral votes and pick a president. But if, in the language
of the amendment, it decides that no one has yet 'qualified'
for the job, it can pass a law 'declaring who shall then act
as President....until a President or Vice President shall have
qualified.' "Surely," said Gillers, "Bill Clinton
would be willing to stay on for a few weeks."
GREAT
MOMENTS IN QUOTE RETRACTION
ASSOCIATED PRESS: Rolling
Stone now says President Clinton didn't use offensive language
to describe the military's "don't ask, don't tell"
policy for homosexuals . . . The Rolling Stone article based
on interviews with Clinton by the magazine's founder, Jann Wenner,
quoted Clinton as saying: "And it was only then that I worked
out with Colin Powell this dumbass 'don't ask, don't tell' thing
..." Robert Love, managing editor of Rolling Stone, said
it was a typo. "Due to a transcription error, the words
"don't ask" were printed as "dumb ass" in
our interview with President Clinton. We regret the error,"
Love said in a statement.
[In which case, the
President actually said, "I worked out with Colin Powell
this don't ask don't ask don't tell thing," which is an
odd thing for an Yale Law School graduate to say]
NOVEMBER 2000
NADER ON CLINTON
NEWSMAX: Green Party presidential
candidate Ralph Nader, whose rising poll numbers have Gore campaign
officials begging him to drop out of the race, called President
Clinton a liar on Sunday, saying he disgraced his office over
his affair with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Nader
voiced his strong criticism of Clinton during an interview on
ABC's "This Week with Sam Donaldson and Cokie Roberts":
DONALDSON: You say that
if you'd been in the Senate, you would have voted to convict
Bill Clinton in his impeachment trial. Correct?
NADER: Correct. And I would
have voted against (Robert) Bork and I fought vigorously against
(Antonin) Scalia and (Clarence) Thomas, which is more than I
can say for Vice President Gore.
DONALDSON: You think Clinton
is what -- a liar? A perjurer? I mean what....
NADER: I think he disgraced
the office. He then lied about it. A judge confirmed that. He
dragged it out and he took a year of journalism from both of
you.
DONALDSON: Well, a lot
of your supporters, according to our poll, were Clinton supporters.
NADER: Well, they're going
to have to choose, aren't they?
NEWSMAX
MORE THINGS
YOU WEREN'T
MEANT TO KNOW
UNTIL AFTER THE ELECTION
BILL SAMMON, WASHINGTON
TIMES: President Clinton yesterday complained that his demand
for an apology from Republicans who impeached him was not meant
to be published until after the election, when he calculated
that it could do no harm to Al Gore's presidential campaign.
But the president's discussion of impeachment in an interview
with Esquire magazine was distributed over the weekend, infuriating
both the Clinton and Gore camps because it reminded voters of
Clinton scandals in the final days of the vice president's struggling
campaign . . . The magazine's editor-in-chief, David Granger,
strongly disputed the president's assertion. "Esquire violated
no agreement with the White House," Mr. Granger said last
night. "As for the timing of its release, there was no embargo
requested by the White House."
WASHINGTON TIMES
John Huang, who previously worked
for the Lippo Group, an alleged front for Chinese intelligence,
and was a high official at the Commerce Department during the
Clinton-Gore Administration, has returned to answer questions
about the illegal sale of seats on trade missions in exchange
for political campaign contributions. The deposition is being
taken by Judicial Watch. Since Huang now has immunity, he was
forced to answer questions without claiming the 5th Amendment
- having previously done so over 2,000 times over the last four
years.
In his testimony, Huang
implicated Vice President Al Gore in the illegal fund raising,
but refused to answer questions on at least 131 occasions. Magistrate
Judge John M. Facciola found Huang in contempt of Court for these
refusals, and if this is sustained by Judge Royce C. Lamberth,
Huang could be in serious trouble.
Huang did reveal that Congress
never questioned him about the Commerce Department trade mission
scandal, but he refused to answer questions about a number of
high-level Republican politicians who reportedly got illegal
campaign contributions.
OCTOBER 2000
"THE CONTENDER"
VS. THE FACTS
The longest campaign commercial
and largest soft money contribution this season comes in the
guise of a movie, "The Contender." The film covers
a number of talking points favored by the Gore-Lieberman campaign.
For example, it reminds us that while both parties believe in
trickle-down economics, the SUV liberal set also believes in
trickle-down equality. Make an Orthodox Jew (real life) or a
woman (movie) the vice president and all will be well with the
world. The absence of black and latino faces in this better world
seems to pass the producers by unnoticed.
The major theme, however,
is a more familiar one: namely that public officials -- read
Bill Clinton -- should not be asked about their sex lives. Since
this theme is based on a rampantly false reading of both impeachment
trial and what happens to women who got too close to Clinton,
we thought it would be helpful to review the bidding:
-- Salley Perdue, who was
involved with Clinton, reported that she received a visit from
a man who told her, "There were people in high places who
were anxious about me and they wanted me to know that keeping
my mouth shut would be worthwhile . . . If I was a good little
girl, and didn't kill the messenger; I'd be set for life: a federal
job, nothing fancy but a regular paycheck. . . I'd never have
to worry again. But if I didn't take the offer, then they knew
that I went jogging by myself and he couldn't guarantee what
would happen to my 'pretty little legs.'" Perdue also found
a spent gun cartridge on the seat of her car and a broken windshield.
-- Both impeachment counsel David Schippers and a top Chicago
sex crimes detective who investigated Juanita Broaddrick's claim
that she was raped by Bill Clinton believe Broaddrick is telling
the truth. Here, on the other hand, is what Al Gore had to say
about the Juanita Broaddrick rape allegations: "I think
that whatever mistakes he made in his personal life are, in the
minds of most Americans, balanced against what he has done in
his public life as president."
-- Juanita Broaddrick,
Paul Jones, Gennifer Flowers, and Elizabeth Ward Gracen were
all audited by the IRS.
-- Gennifer Flowers, interviewed
by Penny Crone and Curtis Sliwa on New York's WABC, claimed that
she received threats -- including death threats -- around the
time of her tape recorded conversations with Bill Clinton and
that this was why she had made the recordings. Asked whether
she thought Clinton was behind the threats, Flowers replied,
"What I thought, after my home was ransacked, was that he
was behind that -- simply because I had called to tell him about
it and it was his reaction it. I mean, he acted, he was aloof.
Her didn't act that concerned."
-- Monica Lewinsky told Linda Tripp over the phone, "I would
not cross these -- these people -- for fear of my life."
-- Linda Tripp found on
her office chair a list of persons connected to Clinton who had
died mysteriously. An attached unsigned note said the deliverer
thought Tripp would be interested.
-- A former Miss America,
Elizabeth Ward Gracen had a short encounter with Clinton in 1983.
She initially told friends that then-Governor Clinton had forced
himself upon her but later said the incident was consensual.
She refused to talk about it for a number of years but eventually
admitted the encounter to a Toronto newspaper and also told of
alleged intimidation of her family and friends. Following the
story's publication, according to Gracen lawyer Vincent Vento,
a caller contacted her and said, "You should really keep
your mouth shut about Bill Clinton and go on with your life.
You could be discredited. You could have an IRS investigation."
Gracen told the New York Post's Steve Dunleavy, "I spent
a small fortune hiring investigators to investigate the investigators
of the White House who I honestly believe were chasing me to
head off my story." She said she was physically scared:
"We are talking about the presidency. There were always
veiled threats." In one case, she says her hotel room was
ransacked while she was hiding out in the Caribbean: "The
gentleman looking after my room said he saw two men in suits
enter the place and one man in a suit waiting outside."
Further, despite her attempt at concealment, she received threatening
phone calls: "It was pretty much the same kind of call.
Get out of town before I get hit with a subpoena... Between the
calls telling me to get out of town for my own good and the calls
talking about smear tactics, I got scared."
-- Sharlene Wilson, a onetime
Little Rock drug dealer told a federal grand jury in 1990 that
she witnessed then-Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton use cocaine on
multiple occasions. Not long after was convicted of a minor drug
offense. The prosecutor who sent her to jail was her ex-boyfriend
Dan Harmon, who later ended up in prison himself on drug, racketeering,
and extortion charges. According to British journalist Ambrose
Evans-Pritchard, "At the time [of her grand jury testimony]
she was an informant for the Seventh Judicial District drug task
force in Arkansas. Jean Duffey, the prosecutor in charge of the
task force, talked to Wilson days after her grand jury appearance.
"She was terrified. She said her house was being watched
and she'd made a big mistake," said Duffey. "That was
when she told me she'd testified about seeing Bill Clinton get
so high on cocaine he fell into a garbage can . . . I have no
doubt that she was telling the truth." Shortly after Wilson's
testimony the drug task force was closed down. In 1992 she was
sentenced to 31 years for selling half an ounce of marijuana
and $100 worth of methamphetamine to an informant .... Her case
went all the way to the US Supreme Court. Finding a violation
of her constitutional rights, the court ordered the state of
Arkansas to give Wilson a fresh trial or set her free. Arkansas
Governor Mike Huckabee commuted her sentence after she had served
most of the Clinton administration in jail.
-- Gary Johnson, a neighbor
of Gennifer Flowers whose security camera filmed Clinton going
in and out of Flowers apartment, was beaten, left for dead, and
had his tapes stolen.
-- Jerry Parks, the chief
of security for Clinton's Little Rock headquarters who had gathered
a large personal dossier on Clinton, was shot dead in a mob-type
slaying.
-- Private detectives were
used to investigate, pay-off and/or intimidate Clinton's former
paramours. According to Dick Morris, the 1992 campaign spent
$100,000 for these purposes.
-- Women in Clinton's life
were repeatedly trashed by the White House, the media, and even
leading feminists. For example, Newsweek's Even Thomas called
Paula Jones a "sleazy woman with big hair who came out of
a trailer park." Jones later won a $850,000 settlement with
Clinton.
-- Kathleen Willey had
the tires on her car mysteriously punctured with dozens of nails
and her cat suddenly disappeared. Subsequently, Willey reported
that she was out jogging near her home when a stranger approached
and asked if the tires had been fixed and if the cat had been
found. The man then asked Willey, "Don't you get the message?"
and jogged off. Willey also found an animal skull on her porch
the day after she testified in the Paula Jones case.
-- Linda Tripp was considered
in enough danger that FBI agents put her in a safe house after
she revealed her conversations with Monica Lewinsky.
-- A study done during
the first four months of the Lewinsky affair found that
coverage of Kenneth Starr by ABC, CBS and NBC evening news was
overwhelmingly negative (74% to 26%). Also receiving negative
network coverage: Kathleen Willey (68% negative), Monica Lewinsky
(75% negative) and Paula Jones (78% negative).
-- Jean Duffey was head
of a joint federal-county drug task force in Arkansas. Her first
instructions from her boss: "Jean, you are not to use the
drug task force to investigate any public official." Duffey's
work, however, led deep into the heart of the Dixie Mafia, including
members of the Clinton machine. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard reported
that when she produced Sharlene Wilson, who would testify to
Clinton's involvement with cocaine, the local prosecuting attorney,
Dan Harmon, issued a subpoena for all the task force records,
including "the incriminating files on his own activities.
If Duffey had complied it would have exposed 30 witnesses and
her confidential informants to violent retributions. She refused."
Harmon issued a warrant for her arrest and friendly cops told
her that there was a $50,000 price on her head. She eventually
fled to Texas.
-- Kathy Ferguson -- ex-wife
of Danny Ferguson, Clinton's bodyguard and co-defendant in the
Paula Jones case -- was expected to testify for Jones. Within
a week of Jones' filing a lawsuit, however, she was found dead
of a gunshot wound in her apartment. She left a suicide note
but the body was found in her living room next to her packed
bags as though she was planning to take a trip. Local police
ruled it a suicide. Bill Sheldon, a Little Rock police officer
and boyfriend of Kathy Ferguson, decided to conduct his own investigation
of her case. A couple of weeks later he was found shot in the
head in what was also ruled a suicide.
-- From an affidavit from
Dolly Kyle Browning: "I have known William Jefferson Clinton
since I was eleven years old. I call him 'Billy.' We attended
high school together. During the period from the mid-1970's until
January 1992, we had a relationship that included sexual relations.
The frequency of our contact with each other, and the frequency
of our sexual encounters, varied over that time period, but we
did have sexual relations many times during that time period.
Our relationship ended abruptly in January of 1992 when Billy
would not return my telephone call. I told his secretary, Linda,
that a tabloid had the story about me and Billy. I asked her
to have him call me and he refused. Instead he had my brother,
who was, at that time, working in the 1992 Clinton presidential
campaign, call me from Billy's New Hampshire apartment or office.
My brother said that Billy was afraid to talk to me because everyone
thought that I might record the conversation as Gennifer Flowers
had done. He said 'we' think you should deny the story. He finally
said: "if you cooperate with the media we will destroy you."
CLINTON STILL AT LARGE
THE NY TIMES says that
Hillary Clinton listens to her husband's advice "and not
coincidentally, in the view of several Clinton aides, seems to
be doing better in her race than the vice president is in his."
But, as Smarter Times points out, "The Clinton aides may
claim that Mrs. Clinton is 'doing better' than the vice president,
but they -- and the Times -- seem to have neglected the fact
that in the only state where Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Gore are both
on the ballot, New York, Mr. Gore is 'significantly more popular'
than Mrs. Clinton.
ABC NEWS:
In an interview with a weekly gay publication, President Clinton
says homosexuals stood by his side during impeachment because
they understood what it was like to be "publicly humiliated
and abused." Asked by The Advocate magazine how he felt
about the support he received during the scandal from gays, Clinton
said it "came from the same wellspring of experience that
prompted so many African-Americans to stick with me - they've
been there."
WALL STREET JOURNAL: The Department of Housing and
Urban Development's internal watchdog filed a sexual-discrimination
and harassment complaint against the agency's top officials.
Inspector General Susan Gaffney filed the complaint with the
department's equal employment opportunity office, alleging that
senior political appointees, including Housing Secretary Andrew
Cuomo, had harassed, intimidated and discriminated against her
because of her efforts to monitor the agency. In a nine-page
memo widely distributed to members of Congress, Ms. Gaffney outlined
more than 30 instances that she says point to a broad and deliberate
effort to thwart her office's work -- an environment, she says,
that her male predecessors never faced.