Posted on 04/21/2005 11:14:33 AM PDT by Republican Red
WASHINGTON - Senate Democrats are quietly trying to kill a 10-year legal probe that implicates several senior Clinton administration appointees for obstruction of justice, the Daily News has learned.
The Democrats, saying that the $21 million investigation by Independent Counsel David Barrett should have ended long ago, succeeded in attaching an amendment to a spending bill Tuesday to cut off his funding by June 1.
But two sources close to the investigation said that if the legislation becomes law, it will thwart Barrett from making public a final report that names senior officials in the Clinton Justice Department and Internal Revenue Service who allegedly buried a tax fraud case involving former cabinet member Henry Cisneros.
"It's about obstruction of justice," said one of the sources. "People are willing to take drastic actions to kill this report."
Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), who introduced the amendment with Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), said last week that the disgraced HUD secretary paid a $10,000 fine in 1999 for lying to the FBI and that then-President Bill Clinton pardoned Cisneros, so the probe "should have ended years ago."
Barrett's probe began in 1995 by looking into allegations that Cisneros, who was Clinton's secretary of Housing and Urban Development, lied to the FBI about payments to his mistress. It expanded years ago into a broader obstruction case involving alleged tax fraud, according to the sources.
The report will allege that Justice Department officials snuffed out a tax case against Cisneros and that the IRS sometimes audited Clinton critics without good cause.
Barrett's investigation was wrapped up two years ago, and his 400-page final report was submitted to a three-judge panel last August, said two sources.
Because those named in the report have until the end of June to refute Barrett's findings, Kerry and Dorgan's amendment would prevent its release.
He thinks the Dems are trying to bury this investigation because it will implicate some big Clinton administration people and in the process embarrass Hillary.
Whatever is in the report is trying to be kept secret.
I love seeing the words "probe" and "Clinton" in the same sentence.
I was swimming and listening to Rush discuss this today...I missed parts of it but the very fact that Dorgan and Kerry are trying to insert the legislation in another bill speaks volumes.
>>I love seeing the words "probe" and "Clinton" in the same sentence.<<
Whoa. . .really. . .I get the "willies"
;-)
Fear not liberals. The other faction of your "Two-Party Cartel" will buckle under. You are safe as all socialist in congress are.
I heard Rush & was looking for this too... thanks
Makes me wonder why Hillary has been calling for more border control.. Me thinks she is hiding something..
This might be the reason for the pressure on DeLay; they're working on a swap.
Investigations of Willie's crimes will eventually get to where he received Iraqi oil voucher money and will tie Willie into the connection between OBL/9-11 and Iraq/Saddam. If there was corruption in the late '90s, Hillie and Willie were involved!!
Thursday, April 21, 2005 9:34 a.m. EDT
Hillary Moneyman Secretly Taped
A relative of an "extremely well-known" Democrat is set to testify in the upcoming trial of Hillary Clinton's former finance chairman David Rosen.
This "well-known" Democrat secretly tape-recorded Rosen in a bid to get incriminating evidence about an August 2000 Hollywood fund-raiser for Hillary Clinton and her Senate campaign.
Court documents obtained by the New York Sun say that while the informant's identity is being kept secret, "The CW [confidential witness] is related to an extremely prominent and well-known political figure. It can be expected that the fact that CW was working in an undercover capacity for the FBI will become the subject of intense media attention."
Mr. Rosen, who pleaded not guilty in February to a four-count indictment based on allegations that he filed false reports about the Clinton fund-raiser, is scheduled to go on trial in Los Angeles on May 3.
FBI agent David Smith - who's been handling the Clinton case since its inception - said the mystery informant began cooperating in July 2002.
Papers obtained by the Sun reveal that the bombshell witness is a Democrat insider.
"The CW states that s/he is active in fundraising for the Democratic Party. CW assisted in the U.S. Senate campaign of Hillary Clinton. S/he was involved in the planning of the Clinton Gala," agent Smith wrote in January 2003.
The court documents offer no clue as to whether the confidential witness also tried to wiretap Mrs. Clinton.
Witness: FBI Sought Hillary Tap
However another key witness in the case, Hollywood fund-raiser Aaron Tonken, says in his book "King of Cons" that he agreed to try to tape the former first lady's phone calls at agent Smith's request.
But by the time of Smith's request, said Tonken, team Clinton was aware he was part of the investigation into the August 2000 event and avoided taking his calls.
A source familiar with the case told the Sun that the confidential witness is not related to either Bill or Hillary Clinton.
I actually agree with the dems on this one. Ten years is long enough to figure out a corruption case. If you can't do it in that time you're not going to.
Lets see the WSJ tut-tut this one.
Oh Please! put Bill Clinton in jail. I'd quit smoking, lay off rye whiskey and quit being a peeping Tom.
Sounds to me like the investigation finished last AUgust but the commission is required to give all involved time to rebutt any findings. That's why they have the June 1 date for killing the commission. The report will be ready June 30.
Don't you think the report should be made public?
Sooner or later, one of these investigations is going to lead to the schlickmeister himself. Any idea who the "several senior [c]linton administration appointees" implicated for obstruction of justice are?
~snip~
Barrett's investigation was wrapped up two years ago, and his 400-page final report was submitted to a three-judge panel last August, said two sources.
Because those named in the report have until the end of June to refute Barrett's findings, Kerry and Dorgan's amendment would prevent its release.
~snip~
So the investigation has in fact wrapped up and now this timing scheme has been cooked up to bury it.
I don't understand how cutting off his funding buries the report. It's done. I suppose it means he'd be unable to respond to the targets' refutation?
Can someone explain better why this cut-off of funding buries a report that's complete and submitted?
3/02/05
Federal prosecutors are battling attempts to dismiss their criminal case against Hillary Rodham Clinton's former fund-raising director, claiming in a court motion that they kept the indictment of him secret for more than a year to protect the identity of a witness cooperating in a separate investigation.
The defendant, David Rosen, is charged with failing to report in-kind contributions and producing a false invoice in connection with an Aug. 12, 2000, fund-raiser for Mrs. Clinton, according to an indictment unsealed in January. He has pleaded not guilty.
The government's motion, filed in federal court in Los Angeles on Monday, was in response to papers filed in February by Mr. Rosen's lawyer arguing that the case should be dismissed because the government had no justifiable reason for sealing the indictment until January and because it had erroneously brought the charges in California rather than in Washington, where the campaign finance reports were filed with the Federal Election Commission.
The papers also said that Mr. Rosen's indictment cited a law that applies to false statements made to a government agency, and the F.E.C. is not one.
Paul Mark Sandler, Mr. Rosen's lawyer, said yesterday, "We've received the government's replies and we're reviewing them closely."
Bryan Sierra, a spokesman for the Department of Justice, would not comment on the case.
The government's motion gave little indication of the nature of the other investigation or the identity of the witness. One cause for the delay may have been efforts to reach an agreement with an organizer of the fund-raiser, Peter Paul, to be a witness in the case. Mr. Paul's role would be complicated by stock fraud charges pending against him in connection with Stan Lee Media, a failed Internet company that he co-founded.
~snip~
This makes it sounds like it's someone else? ...should be very, very interesting!
Let's just watch to see if our Girly-Men representatives and senators roll over on this one! ...sissy girls included Kay!
Me too. And I'd quit swearing too.....
The NY Sun
Apr 21, 2005
excerpt:
Two men who were involved in staging the costly and star-studded August 2000 fund-raiser for Mrs. Clinton, Peter Paul and Aaron Tonken, said yesterday they were baffled by the FBI's description of a person who was "involved in planning of the Clinton Gala" and related to a top political figure.
~snip~
I highly recommend reading the entire Sun article.
Jail, Jsil, Jail....chant with me.
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