Dick Morris:
After the 1994 election, Democrats had just lost both houses of Congress, and President Clinton was floundering in the polls. At the urging of his wife, he turned to Dick Morris, a friend from their time in Arkansas. Morris brought in two pollsters from New York, Doug Schoen and his partner, Mark Penn, a portly, combative workaholic. Morris decided what to poll and Penn polled it. They immediately pushed Clinton to the right, enacting the now-infamous strategy of "triangulation," which co-opted Republican policies like welfare reform and tax cuts and emphasized small-bore issues that supposedly cut across the ideological divide. "They were the ones who said, 'Make the '96 election about nothing except V-chips and school uniforms,'" says a former adviser to Bill. When Morris got caught with a call girl, Penn became the most important adviser in Clinton's second term. "In a White House where polling is virtually a religion," the Washington Post reported in 1996, "Penn is the high pri est."
linkClinton Strategist Resigns
<...>
President Clinton issued a written statement that also made no mention of the allegations against his advisor. "Dick Morris is my friend and a superb political strategist," the statement said. "I am and always will be grateful for the great contributions to my campaign and the invaluable work that he has done for me for the past two years." (Mike McCurry reads Clinton's statement: 192K
WAV sound)
linkDickie Scruggs:
Soon after Scruggs was charged, Democratic presidential contender Hillary Rodham Clinton canceled a fundraiser at his Oxford home. Scruggs' law firm withdrew from the remaining Katrina cases.
linkNorman Hsu:
By Paul Kiel - January 4, 2008, 4:28PM
Things are going to get a lot worse before they get better for Norman Hsu, the
bizarre Hillraiser and fraudster.
Peter Paul:
The Shocking Video Hillary Does NOT Want You To See! (1of2) Vin Gupta:
SEC Opens Investigation of Company Headed by Key Supporter of Clintons InfoUSA said last month its annual report would be delayed because of an ongoing Securities and Exchange Commission investigation and a shareholder lawsuit that questions the company's spending.
<...>
InfoUSA formed a special board committee of five directors in December to respond to the SEC investigation and shareholder lawsuit, which alleges that the company misspent millions, some of it on former President Bill Clinton and U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y.
<...>
The shareholder lawsuit questions why InfoUSA founder Vin Gupta used private corporate jets to fly the Clintons on business, personal and campaign trips, why Gupta gave Bill Clinton a $3.3 million consulting contract and why the company paid for extravagant luxuries Gupta enjoyed.
According to the lawsuit, InfoUSA has spent nearly $900,000 since 2001 flying the Clintons to domestic and international locations and political events.
linkRon Burkle:
Finally, according to USA Today, former Clinton aides helped secure a multi-million dollar federal contract for a Georgia-based company in which Yucaipa had 20% ownership. AmeriCold, one of the nation's largest cold-storage companies, was paid up to $85 million, to help with Katrina recovery efforts after James Lee Witt, who headed Federal Emergency Management Agency in the Clinton administration, lobbied on the company's behalf.
AmeriCold's job performance became the subject of controversy and bad publicity. As
USA Today wrote: "truckers who were paid $800 a day (to help Katrina victims) hauled ice from state to state without unloading, then delivered their cargoes to AmeriCold and other storage facilities as far away from the Gulf Coast as Maine."
linkTax lawyers said the Yucaipa partnership income for Bill Clinton looks to be a form of salary because it was in round numbers for most years.
``Most people who make that much money work for it,'' said Yale University tax law professor Michael Graetz, a former Treasury Department official in President George H.W. Bush's administration. ``What are they being paid for, and if it's the Sheikh of Dubai paying the husband of somebody who might be the next president of the United States, what do they think they're paying for?''
Jay Carson, a spokesman for New York Senator Clinton, said in an e-mailed statement that former President Clinton is a partner in a Yucaipa fund and ``provides his best advice on potential investments, advocates generally on behalf of the funds, and seeks to create opportunities for investors to consider investing in the fund.''
Carson didn't respond to a question about whether Bill Clinton did any work for Dubai. In 2006 Senator Clinton opposed efforts by a Dubai-based company to acquire control over six U.S. ports.
Tax Returns
The payments from Yucaipa to Bill Clinton were detailed in seven years of tax returns released by Hillary Clinton, 60, following pressure to disclose them from rival Barack Obama, the Illinois senator who made public his own returns in March.
The returns covered tax years 2000 through 2006. Hillary Clinton's campaign also released information about the couple's 2007 income, although they haven't yet filed a return for that year. Obama has yet to release information on his 2007 income.
The former president, 61, received $1 million from Yucaipa in 2003, $4 million in 2004 and $5 million in 2005. In 2006, he received a guaranteed payment of $2.5 million plus a $156,611 share of the profits. The campaign said he earned $2.75 million from partnership income in 2007.
``The flat amounts received from Yucaipa are odd,'' said Tom Ochsenschlager, vice president of taxation at the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, who agreed that it signaled Bill Clinton was performing a service. ``That's quite unusual.''
linkDoug Coe:
In the process of introducing powerful men to Jesus, the Family has managed to effect a number of behind-the-scenes acts of diplomacy. In 1978 it secretly helped the Carter Administration organize a worldwide call to prayer with Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat, and more recently, in 2001, it brought together the warring leaders of Congo and Rwanda for a clandestine meeting, leading to the two sides' eventual peace accord last July. Such benign acts appear to be the exception to the rule. During the 1960s the Family forged relationships between the U.S. government and some of the most anti-Communist (and dictatorial) elements within Africa's postcolonial leadership. The Brazilian dictator General Costa e Silva, with Family support, was overseeing regular fellowship groups for Latin American leaders, while, in Indonesia, General Suharto (whose tally of several hundred thousand “Communists” killed marks him as one of the century's most murderous dictators) was presiding over a group of fifty Indonesian legislators. During the Reagan Administration the Family helped build friendships between the U.S. government and men such as Salvadoran general Carlos Eugenios Vides Casanova, convicted by a Florida jury of the torture of thousands, and Honduran general Gustavo Alvarez Martinez, himself an evangelical minister, who was linked to both the CIA and death squads before his own demise. “We work with power where we can,” the Family's leader, Doug Coe, says, “build new power where we can't.”
linkIn her autobiography, “Living History,” Senator Clinton describes Coe as "a genuinely loving spiritual mentor and guide to anyone, regardless of party or faith, who wants to deepen his or her relationship with God.” She writes that “Doug became a source of strength and friendship" during her often-troubled White House years.
Their relationship began in February 1993 with a prayer lunch at The Cedars, the Fellowship’s Virginia estate on the Potomac River. NBC News reviewed the First Lady’s official daily calendar, recently made public by the National Archives, and found other gatherings including a “Private Meeting” with Coe in her West Wing office on December 19, 1997, and a “Meet & Greet with Business Leaders” on Feb. 4, 1998. “Doug Coe introduces business leaders to the First Lady,” the calendar states.
linkKase Lawal:
HOUSTON — A Texas oilman who's accused of defrauding the Nigerian government by illegally pumping and exporting 10 million barrels of oil is a major fundraiser for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.
Kase Lawal of Houston is at least the fourth person accused or convicted of criminal wrongdoing to help finance Clinton's political ambitions since 2000 and the second in her quest for the White House. The list also includes Chinese and Pakistani fugitives and a former Miami lawyer who was convicted of defrauding Cuba.
There's no indication that Clinton's campaign was aware of Lawal's legal problems when it accepted his help in raising more than $100,000, but a McClatchy investigation in the U.S. and Nigeria suggests that her campaign did little to scrutinize the background of one of its top fundraisers.
<...>
However, a simple Google search by McClatchy produced reports of serious allegations about some of Lawal's business dealings in Nigeria and South Africa.
Clinton's campaign lists Lawal among about 250 "Hillraisers" who pledged to collect at least $100,000 in donations. Clinton attended a fundraising luncheon at Lawal's home in Houston last Aug. 11 that generated more than $100,000, and she spoke to about 250 guests gathered around Lawal's indoor swimming pool, including two former Houston mayors and Shell Oil President John Hofmeister.
linkMark Penn (and Bill):
Death Squads, Trade and Democracy in Columbia vs. Venezuela
By Nathan Newman - April 8, 2008, 5:00PM
The discussion of Mark Penn's representation of Columbia while being a top aide to Hillary Clinton inevitably gets reduced to discussions of the politics of trade, or just plain electoral politics.
But let's be clear, the government of Columbia is uniquely hated by the global labor movement. In no other country are labor leaders ROUTINELY murdered in the streets. Not fired from their jobs, not jailed, but killed by rightwing paramilitary forces that linked to rightwing forces backing the exact government paying Mark Penn's exorbinant commission. See this
chart of union murders by EPI, outlining recent years of killings, in a country where more than 2,534 unionists have been assassinated over the last 21 years.
Now compare this to Venezeuela's Chavez, not my favorite representative of leftist leadership, but still a head of government who faced rightwing labor leaders who led a general strike against him and even collaborated with a coup against him. Yet Chavez did not have those labor leaders murdered or even engage in mass jailings. Instead, he fought elections both at the polls and within the labor movement itself. It's a messy story and some not always stellar democratic actions, but compared to a place like Columbia where labor relations have involved death squads, a shining beacon of democracy.
There is little doubt that if Clinton had a top strategist being paid tens of thousands of dollars by Hugo Chavez to represent that country's interests, mainstream media would be in complete witchhunt mode and Clinton would probably be in a death spiral. Yet protests against Mark Penn's association with a country, where death squads are a routine part of its country's politics suppressing labor rights, are treated by many in the media as some kind of special interest protest.
That we are even discussing rewarding the Uribe regime with enhanced trade relations, instead of debating sanctions, or at least withdrawal of U.S. aid to his regime, is a travesty. But Mark Penn and the corrupt bipartisan culture of lobbyists supporting regimes like Uribe's to promote trade deals at the expense of workers in both countries is exactly the problem. The sad part of the story is that the guy stepping into Penn's position as chief strategist, Howard Wolfson, remains an equity partner at the Glover Park Group (even though he is officially separated from the firm), which also is lobbying on behalf of the Columbia free trade deal.
more Marc Rich:
Clinton has also been challenged by members of Congress for accepting a reported $450,000 donation to his library from the former wife of fugitive financier Marc Rich before he granted Rich a pardon for tax evasion in 2001. Neither Clinton nor the Rich family confirmed the donation.
linkPardoned convicted felons:
Monday, Feb. 26, 2001
In eight years as President, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton each issued roughly 400 pardons. But in their final days, just 10 trickled out of Reagan's White House, while 177 flooded out of Clinton's. And Marc Rich's pardon isn't the only one that appalled federal prosecutors. While most of the 177 were for minor drug and fraud offenses, roughly a third raise serious questions. A TIME analysis of the pardon fever--the symptoms included well-connected lawyers and pols pulling strings, bypassing the Justice Department and sending petitions directly to the White House, often at the last minute--turned up these eye-popping remissions of sin.
The Big Apple Gang
U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White is furious at Clinton for several New York cases. In 1993 and '94, Harvey Weinig, 53, helped launder at least $19 million for the Cali drug cartel. Justice strongly opposed his petition, but Clinton commuted Weinig's 11-year sentence--cutting it in half--and now he is scheduled to be set free. Last week White released documents showing Weinig was also involved in a kidnapping plot. Former White House aide David Dreyer, a relative of Weinig's, told TIME he asked Clinton chief of staff John Podesta and former White House counsel Beth Nolan for the commutation "as an act of mercy."
Edward Downe Jr., a publishing and financial executive, pleaded guilty to insider trading in 1993. He was sentenced to three years' probation, and paid $11 million in fines. Downe has contributed $21,500 to Democrats since 1991, including $1,000 to Hillary Clinton's Senate campaign. His application went straight to Clinton, and White's office learned about it only the night before his pardon.
<...>
The Radicals
White is also upset about the commutation Clinton gave to Susan Rosenberg, who was convicted in 1984 of carrying explosives and weapons for the Weather Underground. One of Rosenberg's guns was bought with fake ID by Linda Sue Evans, who also took part in the 1983 bombing of an empty room at the U.S. Capitol to protest the invasion of Grenada. Clinton's order freed both from prison.
moreSen.
Chuck Schumer was among the critics of Susan Rosenberg's pardon.
Richard Mellon Scaifeedited to fix link
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