Richard Clarke's Pentagon Papers/VVAW Connection
One thing that was pointed out was Ben-Veniste's connection to mob-connected figure Nathan Landow:
DOWNSIDE LEGACY AT TWO DEGREES OF PRESIDENT CLINTON SECTION: SECRET POLICE SUBSECTION: ALL
The Washington Weekly (http://www.federal.com) 5/4/98 "……. So successful was this formula, that in 1992 Bill Clinton used it to reach the highest office, the office of the U.S. Presidency. In return for large campaign donations, the crime families would be represented in the Clinton administration. The New York Mob paid $56 million [1] and won the slot of Deputy Chief of Staff for its lawyer Harold Ickes. The Dixie Mafia paid an undisclosed amount and obtained slots for Patsy Thomasson and Buddy Young. The Chicago political machine sent Rahm Emanuel and David Wilhelm. Harold Ickes proved his value to the Mob when he held his hand over Mob puppets Arthur Coia and Ron Carey who were under separate RICO investigations by the Justice Department. Patsy Thomasson, in charge of White House drug testing policy, saw to it that criminal figures on the White House staff would not be bothered about past and current drug use. ……… Peripheral Mob figures Nathan Landow, Richard Ben-Veniste, and their associates Terry Lenzner and Paul Begala became part of the secret police that would keep Clinton in office despite multiple revelations of criminal offenses. Ironically, the only member of the Clinton enforcement team who has threatened the use of Mafia methods in public is James Carville. He said on television that Kenneth Starr was just one mistake away from not having any kneecaps. "Kneecapping" is a Mafia specialty. Yet the only link between Carville and the Mafia that we have been able to find so far is his partnership with Paul Begala, who admitted in a recent deposition for the Filegate trial that he was in close and frequent contact with his friend Richard Ben-Veniste, a Mob lawyer and friend of Mobster Alvin Malnik [2]. Richard Ben- Veniste has defended several drug traffickers and money launderers for the Mafia and for the DNC. Ben-Veniste also defended Bill Clinton on the Senate Whitewater panel in 1995. ........."
Getting Down to Business With Landow
After Carter's victory, Landow's daughter, Harolyn, got a job at the White House, and top presidential aide Hamilton Jordan started hanging out at the Landows' Eastern Shore vacation house. For a while, it looked as if Carter might appoint Landow as ambassador to the Netherlands. But in 1978, The Washington Post printed a front-page story revealing that Landow had hired Joe Nesline, a Washington illegal-gambling kingpin, as a consultant in an unsuccessful effort to build a casino in Atlantic City. At the time, Landow admitted that Nesline was a friend but denied knowing about his friend's criminal past. Now Landow says, "There were a lot of inaccuracies in that article."
Involved in a proposed hotel/casino project with Joe Nesline, Edward Cellini and a Miami representative of the Gambino organized crime family Anthony Plat
Photograph of The Tidewater Inn
See Wash. Post, January 26, 1978: DC Gambling Kingpin is
Linked to Prominent Investors' Casino Deal, January 26, 1978: Two prominent Washington investors [Nathan Landow and Smith Bagley] with connections to the Carter administration were involved in a proposal to build a hotel and gambling casino in Atlantic City, with Washington gambling kingpin Joe Nesline as a consultant. Nesline's involvement with the casino venture became known Jan 14 when federal and local police raided Nesline's Bethesda apartment... FBI agents seized a file containing and memoranda spelling out a proposed $85 million deal involving Bagley and Landow... [It] was not the only gambling venture in which Nesline had been involved with Landow... Involved in the St. Marten venture were Landow and Edward Cellini, a brother of Dino Cellini, a former associate of organized crime figure Meyer Lansky... In November... [t]he party at [the] Landow home was observed by Montgomery County plainclothesmen, who took down license plate numbers of guests' cars. Officers of the county's organized crime section have had Landow under surveillance for nearly a year. They learned from Florida police that Landow had an interest in a now defunct corporation whose concealed owners allegedly included an identified member of the Carlo Gambino Mafia "family." Secret Service agents who were at the party to protect the president's son, questioned the Montgomery County plainclothesmen who explained their interest in Landow. *** Landow said the meeting actually took place in the hallway outside the Senate Appropriations Committee chamber... [T]he committee's chairman [was] the late Sen. John L. McClellan... *** [The] business involvement of Landow that originally attracted the attention of Montgomery County's organized crime unit was an investment in Quaker Masonry... Florida law enforcement authorities reported to other police agencies in October of 1973 that Anthony Plate known to them to be an associate of the Gambinos, was believed to have a 25 percent interest in Quaker.