Saturday, January 26, 2008A STUDY AND RELATIVE SLEAZE / OBAMA AND CLINTON
A STUDY IN RELATIVE SLEAZE
[CRIMINAL CLINTONS VS. OBAMA]Barack Obama numbers one friend who was indicted on Federal corruption charges while Hillary Clinton numbers seventeen friends including her husband Bill Clinton who was only the second president to be impeached. Clinton also was fined and had his Arkansas and US Supreme Court bar licenses suspended for failing repeated requests by a judge to testify truthfully in the Paula Jones case: Allen L RolandHere’s the detailed scorecard of sleeze courtesy of the Progressive Review and Hillary wins decisively 17 to one .http://prorev.com/2008/01/so-you-want-to-talk-about-obamas-pals.htmlAllen L Roland http://blogs.salon.com/0002255/2008/01/26.html BARACK OBAMAVICTOR REZKOSlumlord indicted on federal corruption chargesHILLARY CLINTONSANDY BERGERIn April 2005, Berger plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of unauthorized removal and retention of classified material from the National Archives in Washington. According to the lead prosecutor in the case Berger only took copies of classified information and that no original material was destroyed, however there is notable controversy and speculation that he might have removed or destroyed originals of other unknown documents as well. - WikipediaJOSE CARBRERAHillary Rodham Clinton’s Senate campaign returned $22,000 in “soft money” to a businesswoman linked to a Democratic campaign contribution from a drug smuggler in Havana. The donation by Vivian Mannerud Verble was the largest single contribution received by Clinton’s soft-money committee. Verble, whose company runs charter flights between Cuba and Miami, also served as the fund-raising intermediary between Jorge Cabrera and the Democratic National Committee in 1995, according to congressional investigators. The probers reportedly learned that Cabrera cut a $20,000 check to the DNC from a bank account in which he also kept profits from his lucrative cocaine trade. The DNC eventually returned the money, while Cabrera pleaded guilty to importing 6,000 pounds of cocaine into the United States. He is serving a 19-year federal prison sentence in Florida . . . Although Verble was never charged with any criminal wrongdoing, she was at the center of one of the most embarrassing fund-raising scandals in the Clinton administration. - NY PostBILL CLINTONOnly the second president to be impeached. Clinton also was fined and had his Arkansas and US Supreme Court bar licenses suspended for failing repeated requests by a judge to testify trutfully in the Paula Jones caseJOHNNY CHUNGDemocratic fund-raiser Johnny Chung has agreed to plead guilty to election law violations and cooperate in the ongoing Justice Department investigation into illegal campaign fund-raising in the 1996 elections. . . Chung became a major figure in the Democratic fund-raising scandal when it was learned he made almost 50 visits to the White House. During one visit, Chung gave first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton’s then-chief of staff, Maggie Williams, a $50,000 check for the Democratic National Committee. The check was delivered inside the White House. Two days later Chung was able to bring a group of Chinese businessmen to watch President Bill Clinton deliver a radio address in the Oval Office. They then had their picture taken with the president. The DNC returned more than $300,000 that Chung raised because of questions about the source of the money. - CNNVINA GUPTAThe frontrunner for the Democrats in the 2008 presidential election, Hillary Clinton, has been hit by a legal dispute in which one of her fundraisers is accused of trying to “ingratiate” himself with powerful friends at the expense of his company. The row has revived accusations of the influence peddling and favors for donors that marred Bill Clinton’s presidency in the 1990s. For years the Clintons flew on Vinod Gupta’s corporate plane, introduced him to world leaders - including Tony Blair - and received donations for their political campaigns and charitable foundations. They relaxed at his holiday home in Hawaii - next door to Pierce Brosnan, the former James Bond star - and jetted to Acapulco, the Mexican resort, while Gupta once spent the night as a favored guest in the Lincoln bedroom at the White House. . . The lawsuit, by company shareholders, accuses Gupta of squandering millions of dollars on his high-profile friends, including $900,000 worth of travel on the Clintons. - Times, UKJOHN HUANGIn 1994 John Huang quit the Lippo Group — with a golden parachute of around $800,000 — and went to work for the Commerce Department. Some believe the move is instigated by his friend, Hillary Clinton. The Indonesia-based Lippo Group was headed by Mochtar Riady, a central character in the Clinton scandals.
Commerce Secretary Ron Brown ordered a top secret clearance for Huang. While at Commerce, Huang visits the White House about 70 times, is briefed 37 times by the CIA, views about 500 intelligence reports, and makes 281 calls to Lippo banks. In 1999 Huang was sentenced for campaign finance violations.NORMAN HSUBy 2007, Hsu’s status within Hillary Rodham Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign had risen to the level where he was a “HillRaiser,” someone who had “bundled” more than $100,000 for her campaign, and to where he co-hosted a $1 million fundraiser at wealthy Democratic Party supporter Ron Burkle’s Beverly Hills estate, and in September, he was scheduled to co-host a major gala fundraising event featuring music legend Quincy Jones.. . . LA TIMES, 2007: Confronted with the possibility that disgraced fundraiser Norman Hsu might be running an illicit investment scheme, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign announced late Monday that it was returning $850,000 from 260 donors associated with Hsu. The amount is one of the largest ever returned by a single candidate, and the action marked a sharp turn for the Clinton campaign.WEBSTER HUBBELLIn 1994, 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 former partner 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.ABDUL REHMAN JINNAHA Pakistani immigrant is wanted by federal authorities on charges he channeled $30,000 in illegal contributions to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential war chest. The FBI is hunting Los Angeles businessman Abdul Rehman Jinnah, who vanished soon after his grand-jury indictment for violating federal election laws last May. Clinton’s camp has denied any knowledge of Jinnah’s scheme, which is also alleged to have funneled more than $50,000 in illegal donations to the political action committees of Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), the Los Angeles Times reported yesterday. - NY PostDAN LASATER Dan Lasater, Arkansas bond don who was close to the Clintons, pleads guilty to cocaine distribution charges. The case also involvesdClinton step brother Roger, who testified against Lasater in a plea agreement. Both Lasater and Roger Clinton will serve brief prison terms. While Lasater is in prison his affairs were run by Patsy Thomasson, who later becomes a White House aide..JIM MCDOUGALOn April 14, 1997, McDougal was convicted of eighteen felony counts of fraud and conspiracy charges. The counts had to do with bad loans made by Madison in the late 1980s. As his savings and loan was federally-insured, the $68 million was paid by taxpayers. He joined with his wife, from whom he was later divorced, and the Clintons to borrow $203,000 to buy land in the Ozark Mountains for vacation homes. When the development failed, he attempted to cover the losses with S&L funds. McDougal was prosecuted for fraud in 1984 and hired the Mrs. Clinton’s Rose Law Firm to defend him. Questions remain in regard to Mrs. Clinton’s Rose Law Firm billing records on Madison Guaranty and how much work she actually did. McDougal also held a fundraiser that paid off Clinton’s then campaign debt of $50,000. McDougal died of a heart attack in federal prison in Fort Worth, Texas. The circumstances of his death remain questionable: he was apparently denied access to his heart medication, and he was placed in solitary confinement without the medication.SUSAN MCDOUGAL[Susan McDougal] was convicted on May 28, 1996, and spent time in prison for four counts of fraud and conspiracy relating to the Whitewater scandal. She also spent 18 months in prison including 7 weeks in solitary confinement for civil contempt of court. U.S. District Court Judge Susan Webber Wright sentenced her after McDougal refused to answer three questions from Whitewater prosecutors before the grand jury empaneled by Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr to investigate the Whitewater deals. These questions included whether President Bill Clinton lied in his testimony during her Whitewater trial, particularly when he denied any knowledge of an illegal $300,000 loan. During that trial, the government’s star witness, Arkansas banker and former municipal judge David Hale, claimed that then-Governor Bill Clinton had discussed an illegal $300,000 loan with himself and McDougal. McDougal received a full Presidential pardon from outgoing President Bill Clinton in the final hours of his presidency in 2001.PETER PAULMrs. Clinton’s entanglement with a thrice-convicted felon named Peter Paul is proof of how long campaign-finance problems can haunt a public official. Mr. Paul became a problem for Mrs. Clinton when his criminal past became public shortly after he helped organize and finance a gala Hollywood fund-raiser for her in August 2000. Rather than drift away, Mr. Paul has been on the attack against Mrs. Clinton ever since. In a lawsuit in California state court that has been grinding along for years, Mr. Paul accuses Mrs. Clinton and former President Bill Clinton of deceiving him into spending well over $1 million on the fund-raiser for her Senate campaign. Mr. Paul contends the Clintons obtained the money by falsely promising that Mr. Clinton would become Mr. Paul’s business associate after leaving the White House in January 2001. Mr. Paul also maintains that Mrs. Clinton and her campaign violated federal election law in connection with the fund-raiser. The Clintons have denied any wrongdoing. Their attorney, David Kendall, says there was never any business arrangement discussed or contemplated between Mr. Paul and Mr. Clinton. - Wall Street JournalANTHONY PELLICANOA significant portion of the [Clinton's] Shadow Team’s operations were carried out by private investigators, among them: Terry Lenzner, founder and chairman of the powerful Washington, D.C., detective firm Investigative Group International; high-ticket San Francisco private eye Jack Palladino and his wife Sandra Sutherland; and Hollywood sleuth Anthony J. Pellicano. . . In the January 1992 issue of GQ magazine, Pellicano boasted of the dirty work he had performed for his clients, including blackmail and physical assault. He claimed to have beaten one of his client’s enemies with a baseball bat. “I’m an expert with a knife,” said Pellicano. “I can shred your face with a knife.” FBI agents raided Pellicano’s West Hollywood office on Nov. 22, 2002, and arrested him on federal weapons charges. In his office, they found gold, jewelry, and about $200,000 in cash - most of it bundled in $10,000 wrappers - thousands of pages of transcripts of illegal wiretaps; two handguns; and various explosive devices stored in safes, including two live hand grenades and a pile of C4 plastic explosive, complete with blasting cap and detonation cord. Worldnet DailyKEITH RANIEREA purported pyramid-scheme operator . . . has reinvented himself as the head of an upstate group accused of being a “cult” - and his devotees have pumped thousands into Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential run. Executives and top associates of the Albany-based NXIVM group - along with their family members - donated $29,900 to Clinton’s presidential campaign, according to federal records. On March 14 and April 13, records show, more than a dozen contributions poured into Clinton’s coffers from NXIVM, an executive and group-awareness training organization led by Brooklyn-born Keith Raniere, 47. . .In his previous incarnation, the Svengali-like Raniere ran a $30 million multilevel marketing business that imploded after federal agencies and regulators in 23 states alleged it was an illegal pyramid scheme. - NY POSTSAMUEL RIVERA Among the 11 public officials arrested in an F.B.I. corruption sting in New Jersey today was a leading Democratic supporter of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign in that state, Mayor Samuel Rivera of Passaic. . . Mayor Rivera allegedly promised to deliver a majority of votes on the Passaic City Council to steer city insurance brokerage business to a dummy company set up by the F.B.I. - NT TIMESGARY WINNICKFounder and chair of later bankrupt Global Crossing helped Clinton campaign chair Terry McAuliffe make $18 million out of a $100,000 investment. Winnick also gave $1 million to the Clinton Library. The bankruptcy cost investors millions and costs thousands of employees their jobs. Two years before the crash, Winnick bought a $92 million house, by some estimates the most expensive in American history - including a payment of $66 million in cash.Allen L Roland http://blogs.salon.com/0002255/2008/01/26.html Freelance Online columnist Allen L Roland is available for comments , interviews and speaking engagements ( allen@allenroland.com ) Allen L Roland is a practicing psychotherapist, author and lecturer who also shares a daily political and social commentary on his weblog and website allenroland.com He also guest hosts a monthly national radio show TRUTHTALK on www.conscioustalk.net
Allen Roland’s weblog: http://blogs.salon.com/0002255/
Website: www.allenroland.com
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