Posted on 05/09/2005 3:27:12 PM PDT by LurkedLongEnough
(1010 WINS) (WASHINGTON) A conservative watchdog group with a history of dogging the Clintons urged a Senate panel on Monday to investigate Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton over a Hollywood fundraiser for which a former staffer faces charges.
The fundraiser is the focus of a federal trial set to begin Tuesday in Los Angeles. Prosecutors charge that former finance director David Rosen understated the cost of the star-studded August 2000 gala, which raised money for Clinton's senatorial campaign. Rosen denies the charges.
Under the campaign finance laws then in effect, underreporting the cost of the event would have given the Clinton campaign more money to spend on the race. The senator has not been charged in the case.
Judicial Watch, which has pushed officials to look into the fundraiser, filed paperwork with the Senate Ethics Committee on Monday saying she had to have known of the alleged misreporting.
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton argued that Clinton closely monitored the Hollywood fundraiser and knew its actual cost was much greater than the $400,000 tab reported in campaign financial filings.
``They're false and she knows them to be false,'' Fitton said. He equated her situation with the ethics controversy surrounding House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who has been criticized for privately funded travel.
Clinton adviser Howard Wolfson called Judicial Watch's complaint ``a meritless publicity stunt by a thoroughly discredited right-wing attack group.''
Robert Walker, a senior staffer on the ethics panel, declined to comment.
Questions about the fundraiser surfaced after Peter F. Paul, a three-time convicted felon who pleaded guilty in March to securities fraud charges, told the FBI he gave hundreds of thousands of dollars that Clinton's campaign didn't report. He told prosecutors he spent $1.1 million, but Rosen reported the amount as $400,000.
Judicial Watch took the unusual step of providing legal defense work in his criminal case, but Paul later broke with the group, complaining they were using him to raise money from conservatives opposed to the Clintons.
Fitton said the group had a ``good working relationship'' with Paul and provided him valuable legal work, but denied the group had used him in any way.
hardly meritless, Hillary lied in a filing to the FEC, tsk tsk.......not just a little white lie, but a WHOPPER!!!!
just think if it had been an RNC polly on the chopping block, the LLL media would be having a field day
they'd be calling it Hollywoodgate already......
now if Hillary were a Canadian Liberal they'd just yawn but....
True they dogged Clinton and they have also dogged republican administrations.
yeah come on Hillary is the ultimate micro manager, but being a lawyer, she's good at covering her tracks, plausible deniability, thy name is Hillary, Tony Soprano should be so careful......
There appears to be a Federal trial going on just this second with subject Senator's campaign finances as the sole reason. I would think other Senators would be doing their job and requesting the investigation first.
BOXER/Hilary in '08!
"Judicial Watch"
So I take it she will go scot free?
Probably , I have yet to read of a case Judicial watch has won.
Great, first we have Judicial Watch; can NewSchmuck, WingNutDaily and Debka be far behind?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.