Fascinating book on Hillary's time in Watergate

[JD Barleycorn]

Originally Posted by CJ7

until Hildabeast starts a war based on lies, driven by fear, that sent 4000 soldiers to the grave, and cost American taxpayers $15 billion dollars a month, sleaze doesn't apply.

Senator Hillary Clinton voted in the affirmative for military action in Iraq and Afghanistan. She also vote for the Patriot Act. So she has already voted to start a war and, as you say, sent 4,000 Americans to their deaths based on a lie. Remember, only the Congress can vote for war.

Not only did she vote for the war but in 1998 Hillary was very vocal about the need to attack Iraq with cruise missiles along with future Secretary of State John Kerry and Senator "I don't know that woman" John Edwards.

[therock18]

Lets not forget that Bush's Iraq invasion was approved by Congress and NONE of Obama's actions were approved by anyone but himself. He is such a narcissist!

Originally Posted by JD Barleycorn

Senator Hillary Clinton voted in the affirmative for military action in Iraq and Afghanistan. She also vote for the Patriot Act. So she has already voted to start a war and, as you say, sent 4,000 Americans to their deaths based on a lie. Remember, only the Congress can vote for war.

Not only did she vote for the war but in 1998 Hillary was very vocal about the need to attack Iraq with cruise missiles along with future Secretary of State John Kerry and Senator "I don't know that woman" John Edwards.

[IIFFOFRDB]

http://1984arkansasmotheroftheyear.b...llary-for.html

chapter 2

Ascent to Power

The morning in 1974 after the impeachment staff was disbanded Hillary took a train to Little Rock, Arkansas. She moved in with Bill Clinton and they eventually married.
When Bill ran for Attorney General in 1977 his campaign was financed partly by the Riady family of Indonesia, which owned banks and had other investments in Arkansas. When he won the election Hillary became associated with the Rose law and brought the Riady enterprises with her as clients. The Riadys were to remain friends and financial backers of the Clinton for many years to come
In 1979 Bill became the nation's youngest governor and Hillary became a Rose partner. Thirteen years later in 1992, still financed in part by the Riady family, Bill campaigned for the Presidency. With Hillary alongside him in the hustings they promised “two for one” in high office.
Once in the White House Hillary became the first wife of a president to occupy a prominent office in the West Wing, with shared authority over the President’s staff. A few days later Bernie Nussbaum, who had been her mentor on the Nixon impeachment staff, was appointed chief White House counsel and moved into the office next to hers.
In the early day of his presidency Bill Clinton had pledged “the most ethical administration in history.” When he also announced the nomination of Patricia Wald, a highly respected federal judge to be Attorney General, I considered her an ideal choice. I had worked closely with her in her earlier years in the Department of Justice and was very aware of her subsequent career. But sadly, Clinton’s announcement was news to Pat, who first learned about it from a news reporter – and soon declined the nomination.
The traditional way to nominate a cabinet member is to check first with the nominee before announcing the nomination and to give the nominee a say in the choice of top subordinates. With no advance notice to Wald, Hillary and Nussbaum had already selected her former law partner, Web Hubbell to be Associate Attorney General, and Philip Heymann to be Deputy Attorney General.
Wald had known little about Hubbell other than the facts that he had been Hillary’s law partner and Bill Clinton’s close friend. But Wald knew a lot about Heymann. She had been an Assistant Attorney General in the Carter Justice Department, when Heymann was a criminal prosecutor – and had launched a "sting" operation that became known as "Abscam."
Heymann had used FBI agents disguised as Arab sheiks to ensnare and indict six Congressmen and one Senator for accepting bribes. All but one of the defendants were pro-labor liberal Democrats who were pledged to support Senator Kennedy’s efforts to defeat Carter for re-election in the then upcoming Democratic primaries.
Pat Wald saw Abscam as an unethical political prosecution of Carter‘s critics. She had let it be known to President Carter that she would resign in protest if Heymann were to proceed to obtain indictments. To silence her Carter promptly “kicked her upstairs” – by nominating her for the Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Having had no having no say in the appointments of either Heymann or Hubbell, Wald declined the nomination.
After Pat Wald turned down the offer the Clintons second choice for Attorney General was Shirley Hufstedler, a former Secretary of Education under President Carter. Like Pat Wald, she had also first learned of the offer and the prior appointments of Hubbell and Heymann from the media. Hufstedler also refused the offer.
Hillary’s third and fourth choices respectively were her personal friends Zoe Baird and Kimba Wood. Both seemed to be figurehead but each of them were eventually disqualified for not paying social security taxes for their house maids -- scandals known in the media as "Nannygate."
Hillary’s fifth choice was Janet Reno, a Florida prosecutor who had been recommended by Hillary’s brother Hugh -- who lived in Florida and knew Reno well.
In Reno’s confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee it came out that while prosecutor in Dade County Florida, crime increased 50%. In addition, Republican Senators Hatch and Cohen said that the Judiciary Committee had received "rumors" of character flaws in the form of excessive drinking and a gender preference for young women. However, Reno was confirmed.
Later an op-ed article about Reno appeared in the Wall Street Journal by Jack Thompson, a Florida lawyer with the highest ratings in ethics by the bar association. Thompson had been opposed to the confirmation – and also appeared on such shows as Nightline, Crossfire and Good Morning America. He described Reno as a “closet” homosexual, who was “subject to bribes and unfit to be Attorney General.”
Within Reno’s first month the FBI had intentionally fire bombed the Branch Davidian compound at Waco, Texas and killed several innocent people. Although it later came out that the plans to fire-bomb Waco had been laid before she took office, Reno took the blame. Quoting the famous sign in President Truman’s office she stated: “The Buck Stops here.”

For the entire eight years of the Clinton presidency Janet Reno was to remain as Attorney General – and incur frequent criticism for her willingness to act as a protective shield for the White House. For example, on October 7, 1997 the New York Times (which had supported Clinton’s election and re-election) was to publish an editorial critical of Reno’s failure to investigate the Democratic fund raising scandals of 1996, stating:

It has been a full year since Ms. Reno was confronted with initial evidence of the biggest political money scandal in a generation, and her response shows little concern with her place in history as a custodian of the Justice Department…Senator Fred Thompson, chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, rightly describes Justice as being in “departmental meltdown.’… It would be nice if Senator Thompson's remark could be written off as partisan hyperbole, but the record supports him.

[nevergaveitathought]

Why is it that leftists never address the substance of an issue or the conduct of their Heros or heroines but only always call anyone addressing the issue an idiot (colored by a few low brow adjectives), dismisses the topic by calling it old news, or talks about another's behavior?

[IIFFOFRDB]

chapter 3

Hillary Clinton and Health Care Reform

While campaigning for the presidency Bill Clinton had repeatedly pledged to reform our health care system. Early in his first term Hillary became head of an official program called the President’s Task Force on Health Care Reform – comprised of 600 paid participants from the private sector
Eventually the preparation of her plan was determined by the General Accounting office to cost $13.4 million dollars. In addition it cost the government $434,000.00 for legal fees in defending challenges to the secrecy of its proceedings. Since the task force operated in violation of federal “Sunshine Laws” Hillary and others were fined $285, 864.00. The final plan was 1,324 pages long and was summarily rejected without debate by the Democratic controlled Congress.
Because of Hillary’s reputation as a “liberal” a majority of Congressional Democrats had assumed that her final work product would call for a “single payer” system similar to Medicare – and would likewise permit patients to go to doctors of their own choosing. Such a system had also been endorsed by the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine and a large number of professional health care organizations.
When the plan was finally unveiled the media had difficulty in explaining its complex details to the public. As Peggy Noonan of the Wall Street Journal later wrote: “Americans would have to choose among unfamiliar new ‘purchasing cooperatives’ and ‘health alliances,’ and accept new limits on their choices of doctors and hospitals; ‘gatekeepers’ would determine who gets to see a specialist, and who the specialist would be. Employers who employed at least a dozen people – would have to pay 80 percent of the premiums for workers and their families.”
When the plan was unveiled it was referred to Pat Moynihan the Democratic Senator from New York, who was the Chairman of the Senate Committee that had jurisdiction over health care legislation. The author of eighteen books and recipient of sixty two honorary degrees, Moynihan was highly respected for his intellectual honesty. After he advised Mrs. Clinton that he could not support her plan one of her White House aides told Time magazine that if Moynihan got in the way “We’ll role right over him if we have to.”
On the House side liberal Democratic Congressman Pete Stark of San Francisco was Chairman of the Subcommittee on Health of the Ways and Means Committee. He also tried to warn Hillary that her bill was unacceptable. The response to Stark was, “Take it or leave it.”
In the end neither the Senate Finance Committee nor the House Ways and Means Committee bothered to hold hearings on the bill.

Of all the criticism of Hillary Clinton’s White House role one of the most incisive was by New York Times editor Abe Rosenthal -- who over his entire career had been a bulwark of support for liberal Democratic causes. He wrote:

In concept, the First Ladyship is an affront to American democracy. In practice it skews the administration of government, evades anti-nepotism statutes and avoids the responsibility that should go with authority. It is the only political post that demands the essential qualification of being married to a particular man at a particular time in his life . . . Seen and used as a job the First Ladyship has become a government center. In lieu of salary it provides the jobholder with staff, luxury, and that most important of all perks -- power.

[Guest040616]

Originally Posted by IIFFOFRDB

chapter 3

And in Chapter 4 Hanoi COG will ask that we extend a special 'Thank You' to his personal ATF, the one he lovingly refers to as:

"Sweet Ass" IIFFY! -----> <-----Hanoi COG

[IIFFOFRDB]

loling you...


chapter 4

Scandals of Hillary’s Friends in Office

By the end of the Clinton presidency many of the friends of Hillary whom Bill Clinton had appointed as top officials in the government were forced to resign for ethical violations or to face criminal charges. The first two Clinton appointees forced out of office were their closest advisors on legal matters. One was chief White House counsel Bernard Nussbaum, who had been Hillary’s supervisor on the Nixon impeachment staff. The other was Associate Attorney General Webster Hubbell.
Hubbell, whom Clinton often described as his best and closest friend, had been Hillary Clinton's partner in the Rose law firm in Arkansas. He stepped down from his position as Associate Attorney General on April 8, 1994 to face criminal charges for defrauding the Rose firm and its clients of some $400,000 by submitting false bills. Eventually he pleaded guilty to two felony counts, and was sentenced to 1 1/2 years in prison.
In July 1993, early in Hubbell’s tenure in the Clinton administration he and Nussbaum had forced the FBI's then-Director William Sessions, a former federal judge, to resign. At what the press was to report as a "shoot out" they accused him of having taken his wife on his government airplane and for claiming a tax deduction for using the trunk of his private car for carrying firearms for law enforcement purposes. They insisted that he resign prior to the expiration of his ten year term – a term established by an act of Congress to insure the political independence of the FBI Director. They told him, “Resign or get fired today.”
On the way out of the meeting Sessions stumbled on the curb and broke his elbow. He resigned shortly thereafter. The directorship of the FBI was then entrusted to Judge Louis Freeh of New York, a close friend of Nussbaum.
Under Freeh, on the request of Nussbaum, the FBI was soon unlawfully to provide the White House with more than 900 raw FBI files mostly of Republican leaders and political opponents of President Clinton -- creating a scandal described by the media as "Filegate."
Nussbaum also recruited the FBI to participate in a politically inspired plan to purge employees of its travel office and replace them with employees of an Arkansas based travel agency that had helped finance President Clinton's election campaign. The result was a scandal that the media described as "Travelgate."
As questionable as was Nussbaum's role in these matters the scandal that lead to his removal related to the death of Deputy White House counsel Vincent Foster -- a former law partner of Hillary Clinton and Webster Hubbell. Following the discovery of Foster's body in a park Nussbaum aggressively impeded the investigation of Foster's death.
On March 4, 1994 an editorial appeared in the New York Times entitled “White House Ethics Meltdown,” stating:

It is, of course, long past time for Mr. Nussbaum to be dismissed. He seems to conceive of his being ‘the President's lawyer’ as a license to meddle with the integrity of any federal agency. First, he and his staff tried to involve the Federal Bureau of Investigation in a politically inspired White House purge of employees of its travel office. When Vincent Foster, the deputy counsel, committed suicide, Mr. Nussbaum interfered with the investigation by the National Park Service and transferred secret files to Mr. Clinton's private lawyer. All this paints a picture of a White House dedicated to short-cutting justice if that is what it takes to shield the financial affairs of Mr. Clinton and his wife from scrutiny. This president desperately needs first rate legal advice and a staff that is under someone's management control.

Following the publication of the editorial President Clinton requested Nussbaum's resignation.

Another close friend of both of the Clintons, and among the first to be appointed to a White House position, was Patsy Thomasson. A long time member of the Clinton’s innermost circle of Arkansas friends, Thomasson was appointed as a special assistant to the President and eventually became the White House Director of Administration and Personnel. Following the death of Vincent Foster, when the police requested that his office be sealed, Thomasson was the first person to ignore the request and begin searching the office.
Of all of President Clinton's appointees Thomasson came to Washington with perhaps the most questionable background. Prior to her White House assignment Thomasson had been the chief business assistant of Dan Lasater, an Arkansas bond dealer and multi – millionaire who had previously been one of Clinton's earliest financial backers – and was later convicted for dealing in drugs. He had been a member of Clinton's "kitchen circle" and enjoyed an access to the back door of the Governor's Mansion in Little Rock that was as unlimited as the access of members of Clinton's own family.
In 1986 Lasater had been indicted for "knowingly and intentionally conspiring to possess and to distribute cocaine." In connection with his prosecution it was established that Lasater had loaned Roger Clinton, the governor’s then-cocaine addicted half-brother, $8,000.00 to pay a drug related debt. Roger Clinton, who himself was likewise convicted of dealing in cocaine under Lasater's supervision, had been employed by Lasater to work both as a driver and to work on a horse farm connected with cocaine trafficking.
In his trial Lasater admitted to giving free cocaine to his friends, including providing ashtrays full of it on his corporate jet. He had also given Bill and Hillary Clinton free use of the same corporate jet.
After being sentenced to 2 ½ years in an Arkansas prison Lasater had given Patsy Thomasson -- who still enjoyed close ties to the Clintons -- a power of attorney with authority over all of his financial affairs. After serving only six months in prison Lasater was pardoned by Governor Clinton – who also restored Lasater’s revoked license to broker bonds for the state.
One of Patsy Thomasson’s principle duties in the Clinton White House was to make sure that the staff had appropriate security clearances and that they abstained from drug use. According to Gary Aldrich, an FBI agent who eventually resigned from the White House staff in protest, Thomasson breached her responsibilities.

The roles of Nussbaum, Hubbell, and Thomasson are but a few examples of the questionable conduct of the many "Friends of Bill and Hill.’ At the highest levels of the government four members of the Clinton cabinet were also implicated in major criminal and ethical violations.
President Clinton's first Secretary of Agriculture, Mike Espy – a black former Congressman from Mississipi -- was indicted in the District of Columbia on 39 felony charges that include mail and wire fraud, violations of the Meat Inspection Act of 1907, taking illegal gratuities of more than $35,000, making false statements and tampering with a witness. He was acquitted by an all black jury.
Another cabinet member, Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown, who was killed in a plane crash in Bosnia in April 1996, died within two weeks of being indicted for bribery. Prior to his death Brown had been under investigation by two grand juries, the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Commerce Department's Inspector General, the Justice Department, the FDIC, and the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee.
Another cabinet member to be involved in scandal was former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Henry Cisneros. His ethical troubles began in July 1994, when a former campaign aide and girlfriend, Linda Medlar, sued Cisneros claiming that he reneged on a promise to pay her $4,000‑a‑month after they ended a much‑publicized affair. In his background interview Cisneros originally told the FBI that he had paid Medlar no more than $10,000 to $15,000. However, Medlar's financial records later revealed that the total payments were $213,000.
Still another Clinton Cabinet member to resign under a criminal cloud was Secretary of Energy Hazel O'Leary, who was charged by Congressional investigators with excessive foreign travel. In June 1996 the Energy Department's Inspector General issued a 183-page report confirming that sixteen of her foreign trips cost taxpayers more than $4.5 million and in spending money that was not legally authorized.
In addition to cabinet members, other high level Clinton appointees were also the subject of criminal proceedings. More than 30 officials of the Clinton administration were investigated, indicted, convicted or forced to resign.
Three associates of Hillary and Bill Clinton pleaded the 5th amendment privilege against self incrimination -- and at least three others fled the country. In addition, more than 100 persons involved in raising money for the Clintons’ 1996 campaign also took the 5th amendment.

[Guest040616]

Originally Posted by IIFFOFRDB

chapter 3

Originally Posted by bigtex

And in Chapter 4 Hanoi COG will ask that we extend a special 'Thank You' to his personal ATF, the one he lovingly refers to as:

"Sweet Ass" IIFFY! -----> <-----Hanoi COG

Originally Posted by IIFFOFRDB

loling you...


chapter 4

Oh, so Hanoi COG's special "Thank You" to his personal ATF "Sweet Ass" IIFFY must be in Chapter 5?

[Whirlaway]

For the same (or similar ) reasons that liberalism appeals to the uneducated, illiterate and otherwise dumbed down.

Originally Posted by nevergaveitathought

Why is it that leftists never address the substance of an issue or the conduct of their Heros or heroines but only always call anyone addressing the issue an idiot (colored by a few low brow adjectives), dismisses the topic by calling it old news, or talks about another's behavior?

[nevergaveitathought]

Originally Posted by Whirlaway

For the same (or similar ) reasons that liberalism appeals to the uneducated, illiterate and otherwise dumbed down.

the consequence to nixon of watergate could never have happened to a liberal for two main reasons:

1. the media would never have considered it news worthy but merely conservative political carping

2. liberals never care about truth or right or wrong as it might regard another liberal or another liberals lack of character, it is merely about winning to them

[Whirlaway]

Right you are brother..............

Originally Posted by nevergaveitathought

the consequence to nixon of watergate could never have happened to a liberal for two main reasons:

1. the media would never have considered it news worthy but merely conservative political carping

2. liberals never care about truth or right or wrong as it might regard another liberal or another liberals lack of character, it is merely about winning to them

[IIFFOFRDB]

Originally Posted by CJ7

until Hildabeast starts a war based on lies, driven by fear, that sent 4000 soldiers to the grave, and cost American taxpayers $15 billion dollars a month, sleaze doesn't apply.

extreme SLEAZE. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/18/op...ney.html?_r=1&

[IIFFOFRDB]

chapter 5

Whitewater

The questionable real estate transactions that came to be known as “Whitewater” began one night in August of 1978 at a dinner meeting that Hillary and Bill Clinton had with James and Susan McDougal. At that time James McDougal, then thirty-eight, was a well known figure in Arkansas politics. In 1961, at age 19 he had run John Kennedy's successful campaign in the state. McDougal then went to Washington to work for Arkansas Senator John McClellan, and later for Senator William Fulbright.
McDougal and the Bill Clinton had first met in 1968, when McDougal had managed Senator Fulbright's re-election campaign. McDougal was later helpful in getting Clinton, then a college student, a part-time job in Senator Fulbright's office. From the beginning of Clinton's political career in Arkansas McDougal had been a personal mentor and financial supporter. By the time of their dinner meeting in 1978 Clinton was considered an odds-on favorite to be elected Governor of Arkansas. While dining at the Black-Eyed Pea Restaurant in Little Rock, James and Susan McDougal offered the Clintons a partnership interest in a land development project -- an offer that they apparently could not refuse.
For a price of more than $200,000 the corporation would purchase 230 riverfront acres where Arkansas' popular White River crossed Crooked Creek. In effect, the purchase was with no down payment. Some $183,000 was loaned by a bank run by one of the sellers. The balance of $20,000 was loaned without security by Union National, a Little Rock bank whose board included one of Clinton's main political fund raisers.
James and Susan McDougal guaranteed repayment to the banks of almost $200,000 of the total loans. The McDougals also managed the business and assumed the risks. The Clintons were given a 50% ownership at no cost – even though they provided no capital or collateral and thus had no financial risk. They also claimed immediate tax benefits. For interest paid on the loan by the partnership they deducted $10,000 in 1978 and $12,000 in 1979. ./
After Bill Clinton's election as governor Hillary McDougal’s bank became her client at a retainer of $2,000 per month. Clinton appointed McDougal to his official staff giving him oversight over the Department of Economic Development, the Securities and Bank Commission, and the Department of Highway and Transportation.

[IIFFOFRDB]

chapter 6

Hush Money to Webster Hubbell

In 1994, then-Whitewater Independent Counsel Robert Fiske discovered that Hubbell, had over-billed his clients at the Rose law firm $482,410 and that he owed $143,437 in unpaid income taxes. He was then indicted and resigned his high position in the Clinton Justice Department. He pleaded guilty and eventually went to prison.
Ironically Hubbell was to receive much more money by far from being prosecuted than he would have earned had he stayed in the Justice Department. As was first reported on NBC’s Nightly News the Clintons arranged for the payment to Hubbell of “hush money” to obtain his silence on their roles in the Whitewater scandal.
Initially it was reported that in the months between his resignation and his incarceration Hubbell received payments of $400,000. Later, House investigators found that Hubbell received $1 million or more, of which $300,000 came from the Riady family of Indonesia, who had been close friends and financial backers of the Clinton since early in their Arkansas days.
In response to questions by the media and congressional investigators the Clinton’s initially denied any knowledge of payments to Hubbell. They later changed their explanation, stating that at the time the payments were made to Hubbell the White House did not know that Hubbell was facing a jail sentence.
By May 5, 1997, the evidence of the Clintons’ guilt in arranging for the bribery of Hubbell was so compelling that New York Times editor A.M. Rosenthal wrote: “It is impossible for me to believe it happened the way President Clinton and his wife said it had. I [have] rejected, for myself, the story that neither they nor anybody else at the White House knew that when their good friend Webster L. Hubbell resigned as Associate Attorney General in 1994 he was facing the likelihood of criminal accusations that could land him in jail. They did…It would not take a particularly suspicious mind -- let alone a prosecutor's -- to see high-paying jobs as hush money to keep a defendant silent.
For those of us who had known and worked with Hillary on the Nixon impeachment her role in the obstruction of the investigations of Whitewater had a sad irony. She and Nussbaum obviously knew that the role of Nixon's White House counsel, John Dean, in the cover-up of Watergate was a basis for charging Nixon with an impeachable offense.
In 1972 following the arrest of Watergate burglar Howard Hunt and others. John Dean alone had personally examined the contents of Hunt's White House safe and ordered that they be burned. On behalf of Nixon he had also participated in the payment of hush money to Watergate burglar Howard Hunt For his acts Dean had been charged with obstructing justice and served a prison term. In the case of Nixon an article of impeachment by the House Judiciary Committee had charged him with:

“Approving, condoning, and acquiescing in the surreptitious payment of substantial sums of money for the purpose of obtaining the silence or influencing the testimony of witnesses.”

In the case of President Clinton the amounts paid to Hubbell were greatly in excess of the hush money paid during the Nixon administration to silence Howard Hunt. However, Clinton and his aides escaped prosecution.

[CJ7]

Originally Posted by IIFFOFRDB

extreme SLEAZE. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/18/op...ney.html?_r=1&

or extreme smear, Bill is under investigation not Hillary.