Posted on 06/15/2002 4:26:34 PM PDT by Carl/NewsMax
Bill and Hillary Clinton have finally made good on a 1996 pledge to pay off witnesses who stuck by them throughout the scandal investigations of the 1990's, according to financial disclosure forms released by Sen. Clinton's office on Friday.
Beyond showing that the former first couple now has a multimillion dollar annual income with up to $30 million in the bank, the disclosure forms reveal that the Clintons paid in excess of $1.3 million in legal bills from an account separate from their legal defense fund, with a portion of that money going to former staffers.
Ostensibly, the staffer payments went to help defray legal costs. But the exact amounts of the payments remain unclear.
A Clinton spokeswoman declined to tell the New York Times which staff members were paid. NewsMax.com's calls to Mr. and Mrs. Clinton's New York offices seeking the recipients' identities were not returned.
Earlier this year, Clinton scandal lawyer David Kendall revealed to congressional investigators that during the height of last year's Pardongate probe, the Clintons paid former first brother Roger Clinton $15,000 to cover legal fees from the couple's joint Citibank account.
The account appears to be the same one listed on disclosure forms as having assets of up to $25 million.
The Clintons' reimbursement of witnesses seems to be a fulfillment of a pledge Mr. Clinton made six years ago, at a time when Whitewater probers were drafting an indictment of the former first lady and seeking corroboration of perjury charges against Mr. Clinton from his one-time business partner, James B. McDougal.
"When I'm not president anymore, if those people have legal bills, and when I can, I'm going to do everything I can to help raise the money or to earn it myself and pay it," the president told CNN.
Underlining the point, Clinton repeated, "I'm going to help them pay their legal bills if it's the last thing I ever do and I stay healthy."
Before he died in March 1998, Mr. McDougal claimed that Clinton promised he would pardon his ex-wife Susan - a promise he kept on Jan. 20, 2001.
"If you all hang with me, I'll do it," McDougal quoted Mr. Clinton as telling him in April 1996, just before he and his wife were about to testify at their own Whitewater trial about the Clintons' involvement in the scandal.
Though Susan McDougal claimed to be destitute at the time, she was represented by a series of high-powered lawyers, one of whom was celebrated Los Angeles attorney Mark Geragos.
Geragos, who has said he was representing McDougal pro-bono, also represented Roger Clinton. It's not clear whether he or Roger Clinton's New York attorney Bart Williams received the $15,000 payment from the former first couple.
Susan McDougal was spotted earlier this year driving a $51,000 Mercedes Benz, which she claimed Geragos had "loaned" to her. (See: Destitute Susan McDougal Living in Style)
Over the years, other potential witnesses of modest means have been "lawyered up" with high-priced, White House friendly attorneys who often cooperated through mutual defense agreements that allowed witnesses to keep their stories straight.
Unemployed Filegate fall-guy Craig Livingstone, for instance, who never fingered the Clintons in any wrongdoing, was somehow able to cover the costs of his $350 per hour lawyer Randall Turk.
Key Monicagate witness Betty Currie, whose salary as Oval Office receptionist was reportedly $60,000, somehow managed to afford pricey D.C. attorney Lawrence Wechsler.
On a far more meager salary, even the chauffeur to Clinton consigliere Vernon Jordan managed to foot the bill for D.C. legal powerhouse Plato Cacheris. That was before Cacheris signed up Monica Lewinsky herself as a client.
Other apparently destitute witnesses, like Clinton Sexgate defender Julie Hyatt Steele and Buddhist Temple fund-raiser organizer Maria Hsia, were represented by well-known Washington attorney Nancy Luque.
Prior to yesterday's revelation of the Clinton witness payments, Ms. Luque had denied to NewsMax.com that she had received any money from the Clintons or their legal defense fund.
Fostergate witness Maggie Williams, who served as Mrs. Clinton's chief of staff and was named in a perjury referral by the Senate Whitewater Committee, incurred $350,000 in legal fees that were apparently covered by outside sources.
Williams now serves as chief of staff in Mr. Clinton's Harlem office.
The Clintons' financial disclosure form shows that the couple earned over $9 million from 59 speaking engagements for Mr. Clinton, in addition to a $10 million advance payment for his memoirs.
Mrs. Clinton collected $2.8 million of her $8 million book advance.
In addition to the $20 million-plus earned by the former first couple in 2001, Bill Clinton collected unspecified monies from undisclosed sources that sunshine laws covering his wife do not require him to reveal.
I am so amazed they still have a following.......'A SUCKER BORN EVERY MINUTE' rings true here. How frustrating this is!!
Eternity is a very, very, very long time.
Imal
Lots of connections there.
Lots of implications there. Lots of "implied" perjury there .... all done to protect the Clintons.
Do you think the "national press corpse" is going to be interested in looking up there?
Some ex-pols become partners for law firms at, say, several million a year for which they do no work. The law firm which is helping them launder in their own money, will claim that they are worth it as "rainmakers".
Another way is to set up a foundation, which you head, which brings in large donations which are essentially your own money.
Or, exagerated advances on a book you will never write, or if you get some flack to write it for you, no one will ever buy it. No matter, it already served its purpose.
Or travel through third world countries, giving speeches at $200 thousand a pop. Hey, thats a good one.
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