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| Dr. David Marlett, Editor | 7 February 2001 | Vol. II #19 | ||
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| Dr. David Marlett, Editor | 7 February 2001 | Vol. II #19 | ||
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In another blow to Bill Clinton's post-presidential prestige, his first paid speaking engagement deteriorated into a shouting match with an audience member who was upset over his pardon of fugitive billionaire Marc Rich.
Reportedly the ex-president grew testy while being heckled on Pardongate by an investor at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter's Monday night conference in Florida.
According to an account published in the Washington Post's Reliable Sources column Wednesday, the heated exchange went like this:
CLINTON: I pardoned Rich because there was no controversy about the Rich pardon. I didn't pardon [junk bond purveyor] Michael Milken because the Justice Department, the SEC and so many other people were against it.
FEMALE HECKLER: That's ridiculous! Rich fled the country and never faced prosecution. There was no controversy about Rich because nobody even knew about Rich.
CLINTON: (now red faced) As far as I knew, Marc Rich and his wife were Republicans. The worst thing in the entire aftermath of the Marc Rich pardon was when people said I pardoned him simply because I had a relationship. If you have a problem, write (Attorney General) John Ashcroft and have him sue Marc Rich.
On another note, Clinton hinted that he and his wife may be planning a return to the White House.
"Eventually I will resume my career as a civil servant," he promised the crowd.
[ NewsMax ]
TCN Comment: Could it be that Bubba has plans to run for the presidency again in 2004? With his talent for twisting laws, despising the US Constitution and being allowed to get away with anything his heart desires, he might think he can bypass the two term limit by arguing that it only refers to two consecutive terms...
Guess who's in the middle of the latest Clinton pardon fiasco, a case which some say could make the ex-president's pardon of fugitive billionaire Marc Rich look innocent by comparison?
It's none other than Miami lawyer Kendall Coffey, a former U.S. Attorney with the Clinton Justice Department who last year represented the family of Elian Gonzalez against the administration.
Glenn Brasswell was one of two dozen people whose pardon applications were sent directly to President Clinton during his final days in office, bypassing the normal Justice Department review process.
But the controversy now erupting around Brasswell, who was convicted in 1983 of fraud, perjury and tax evasion, is uniquely problematic. At the time he won his pardon, Brasswell was also under criminal investigation by the Justice Department for what investigators say was a massive money laundering operation using offshore banks to hide profits from his vitamin company.
Late Tuesday Clinton spokesman Jake Siewert claimed the ex-president had no knowledge that the man he pardoned was under investigation for more recent crimes.
Meanwhile, federal probers now worry that Clinton's pardon may have blown their ongoing investigation.
What makes that concern particularly intriguing is that it was one of their own who pleaded Brasswell's pardon case directly to the White House. In Kendall Coffey, the California felon found himself a very well connected lawyer indeed. Not only had Coffey served in the Clinton Justice Department, but he was part of Vice President Al Gore's post-election legal SWAT team.
Didn't Mr. Coffey, who presumably took the time to learn something about his latest client's background, have an inkling of how politically problematic it would be for Clinton to pardon someone under active investigation for serious felonies?
And knowing that much, would Coffey have deliberately withheld that information from the president?
Or did Clinton decide Brasswell's case, as is suspected with the Marc Rich pardon, on something other than the merits?
Coffey isn't talking for the moment.
But there are some who say his mishandling of the Elian Gonzalez case handed the Clinton administration one of its biggest propaganda victories. Still others suspect that Coffey's Elian case mistakes were more than accidental.
If they're right, then Clinton owes his former Miami U.S. Attorney a significant debt of gratitude.
NewsMax.com's Jack Thompson first broke the story about the blatant conflict of interest between Coffey's ties to the Clinton Justice Department and his representation of the Gonzalez family.
And after Coffey's former bosses launched the shocking pre-dawn raid in which the 6-year-old Cuban refugee was abducted at gunpoint, others began to wonder why the Miami lawyer was ignoring his best chance to keep Elian in America.
While lawyers like Alan Dershowitz and Laurence Tribe, who normally backed the administration, attacked the Easter Saturday raid as blatantly unconstitutional, Coffey declined to make a similar argument in court. Even a few of his former colleagues wondered why he was taking a pass on what seemed like the most promising aspect of his case.
"There are a number of us here [assistant U.S. Attorneys] who don't understand why [Coffey] doesn't go to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals and hammer Reno hard, to make her the issue, to show the three judges that her raid was illegal and obtained by a false affidavit," one dissident in the Justice Department told Thompson.
"It's maybe the only way to get the boy a fair hearing," he added. "Kendall Coffey, who is the head of the team, who used to be our boss here as the U.S. Attorney, ought to know that is the only strategy that will work."
When Thompson tried to persuade Elian's Miami relatives that their lawyer might not have the boy's best interests at heart, family spokesman Armando Gutierrez told him, "Kendall Coffey has been so devastated by the actions of the Clinton-Gore administration that he's going to re-register as a Republican."
Needless to say, not only did Coffey not re-register, eight months later he was hired by the Democratic Party to help fight the post-election battle for Florida.
When Elian's Miami family found out Coffey had emerged as a Clinton-Gore team player, they immediately canceled a dinner honoring him for working so hard to save the boy.
"We have been betrayed," Gutierrez concluded.
Now Thompson hopes to persuade Elian's great-uncle Lazaro to file a bar grievance against the lawyer the family now believes sold the Cuban boat boy down the river.
Of Coffey's latest involvement with the Clinton administration, Thompson says, "It's no surprise that he's been caught in the middle of one of Clinton's sleazy pardons."
[ NewsMax ]
You'd think with the big bucks Bill and Hillary Clinton will be raking in during their post-White House careers, they could finally afford to pick up their own legal tab.
But the New York Post reports Thursday that Sen. Hillary Clinton has registered the couple's legal defense fund with the secretary of the Senate, signaling that she wants it to remain open for the time being.
Why?
Last month independent counsel Robert Ray shut down the only ongoing investigation into either Clinton with a deal that allows them to recoup the lion's share of their legal costs.
Though years of scandal probes have left the ex-first couple with approximately $5 million in outstanding lawyers' fees, Hillary's U.S. and British book advances reportedly total over $10 million.
Her husband is expected to garner another $5 million for his own memoir. And corporations are only too happy to shower ex-President Clinton with six-figure speaking fees. He collected $150,000 for addressing investors from Morgan Stanley Dean Witter Monday night alone.
So why do the Clintons want to keep begging for donations to offset their legal expenses?
Either their greed knows no bounds. Or Bill and Hillary expect more legal trouble in the future.
[ NewsMax ]
A convicted campaign fund-raiser whose activities on behalf of Al Gore became an issue in last year's presidential campaign has been sentenced to three months of home confinement.
Maria Hsia also was ordered by U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman to perform 250 hours of community service and pay a $5,000 fine for her five felony convictions in the 1996 fund-raising scandal.
A jury found her guilty a year ago of causing false statements to be filed with the Federal Election Commission.
Hsia was implicated in the illegal fund-raising five years ago at a Buddhist temple event attended by Gore, whose videotaped appearance was used by the Republican Party last year to highlight the vice president's role in the 1996 campaign fund-raising controversy.
More than $100,000 was illegally raised for President Clinton, Gore and other Democrats at the April 1996 event.
Gore said after the event that he hadn't known he was attending a fund-raiser. After documents turned up referring to the event in advance as a fund-raiser, Gore modified his characterization, saying he had thought it was a finance-related event.
Hsia, a Taiwan native who began raising money for Gore more than a decade ago, faced a maximum five-year prison term on each count.
At Hsia's trial, former Democratic Party fund-raiser John Huang, the central figure in the campaign fund-raising scandal, testified that Hsia handed him an envelope containing $100,000 the day after Gore attended the temple event. Most of the donations in the envelope were reimbursed by the temple. Prosecutors said Hsia helped arrange $65,000 in illegal reimbursements to donors, using temple funds.
She was sentenced on Tuesday.
[ AP ]
TCN Comment: Convicted on five felonies and only 3 months of house restriction? Friends, justice in America is found only in the history books.
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