Posted on 01/08/2005 12:13:31 PM PST by kattracks
Though Hillary Clinton's former finance chairman David Rosen was actually indicted in 2003, the Bush administration kept it secret till the indictment was unsealed late Friday, a move that spared the former first couple and the Democratic Party significant embarrassment during the height of the 2004 presidential campaign.
"The indictment was handed down more than a year ago," the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday.Citing "sources familiar with the probe," the Times said the Bush Justice Department decided that any criminal charges would not be made public until after last fall's presidential election for fear they would be seen as a politically tainted vendetta by the Bush Administration."
While under secret federal indictment, Rosen was able to continue working for top Democrats throughout the long presidential campaign, eventually joining the campaign staff of Clinton protege, Gen. Wesley Clark, who launched his own presidential bid on the advice of the former first couple.
The decision to keep the politically awkward indictment under wraps allowed Mr. and Mrs. Clinton to assume high profile roles attacking President Bush on the Iraq war, as well as a whole range of domestic issues, without having to answer questions about their role in Rosen's case.
In Sept. 2003, Mrs. Clinton went so far as to accuse the White House of corruption, saying Bush officials had deliberately covered up unhealthy air quality at Ground Zero in the days after the 9/11 attacks.
In a measure of the extraordinary sensitivity with which Bush officials handled the Clinton-related case, the Times said the Rosen probe was "being directed by federal prosecutors with the Public Integrity Section at the Justice Department's headquarters in Washington, who specialize in this type of case."
Although the 10-page indictment does not indicate whether others, including the Clintons, were suspected of wrongdoing, Justice Department spokesman Bryan Sierra told the Times, "All we can say is that there are no additional subjects at this time."
But a key witness in the case has alleged that Hillary Clinton had guilty knowledge of concealed campaign contributions for an Aug. 12, 2000 fundraiser on behalf of her Senate campaign, which formed the basis for Rosen's indictment.
Hollywood producer Peter Paul, who funded the star-studded Los Angeles gala, has claimed that Mrs. Clinton personally negotiated "the largest payment for the event that I underwrote."
Paul and the his lawfirm Judicial Watch have maintained since 2001 that Mrs. Clinton's Senate campaign deliberately undereported nearly $2 million in in-kind contributions he made to cover expenses for the Aug. 2000 event.
Celebrity fundraiser Aaron Tonken, another key figure in the probe, has also suggested that Mrs. Clinton may face legal trouble because of his testimony about work he did for the former first couple.
In a soon-to-be released book that covers his relationship with the Clintons, Tonken says he handed out checks to "certain pols" that were "illegal." And he personally witnessed a "brown bag" stuffed with cash going "someplace it shouldn't."
In 2002 deposition in an unrelated case, Tonken testified: "I'm a star witness against President and Mrs. Clinton. . . . regarding the fundraising activities that I've done on behalf of the Clintons."
=== those who fault Bush for not arresting all Clintonistas last Inauguration Day
Who called for that?
There would have been no reason for such a move (wishful or otherwise) had the Evil and clearly treasonous Clinton rightfully been impeached or Hillary indicted.
Of course, didn't help that folks like former President Bush and Bob Dole stepped up during impeachment to send a message that actual removal of the Mad Bomber of Sudan would sully the decorum of the semen-stained Oval Office.
(And ruin chances for them to work together in the future, natch ... where Bush is able to make even more points with the far left by sending the Evil Clinton on official junkets with his Dad.)
Look ... I bear no ill will toward you or any of the others who defend Bush out of some purely personal and faithbased fiction that he is a "conservative" (who's yet to veto a single line of an appropriations bill) or a Christian (who uses Scripture to rationalize the use of excess manufacture Potential People for research and respects his mother's and his wife's pro-choice views).
In fact, it's because I have do have some respect for you and Kattracks, et al., that I cringe at the way you rationalize being bitchslapped by this so-called "strict Constitutionalist" who couldn't punch his way out of a paper bag with his political strategies.
Do we save our dirtiest tactics only for fellow Republicans? If we can rationalize abandoning the rule of law or just war in order to combat terrorists "on their own terms," what stops us from playing hardball with "Clintonistas" during a hotly contested election year?
How long will you go on helping to tack down the red carpet on which the Dems will stroll to the White House in four years?
Why didn't the cops arrest Scott Peterson the moment they found Laci in the bay?
There is a large amount of activity on these situations going on behind the scenes, and away from the ears and big mouths of the MSM.
Be patient, my friend.
In america the long arm of the law seems to have "stoopid", tattooed on the right arm... The left arm has "We're the majority even when we ain't", tattooed on it..
=== Hey Askel5, any particular reason for this antisocial behavior?
The combination of kid gloves (not to mention public Rehabilitation as Statesmen and paid-Speakers...thanks Bob Dole!) for the Clintonistas, the raft of new powers (especially the new veils of privacy) for the Executive Branch and a loss of civil liberties such that Filegate looks like child's play does not bode well for when the evil Clintonistas are back in power.
I don't think it's anti-social to yell "FIRE!!!!" in a building that's burning to the ground before one's eyes.
Not to worry ... you'll never hear me say "I told you so." I'll just be delighted when everyone gets over their "personal" feelings for all things Bush or Republican and face a few ugly facts.
Had George Bush I made a public spectacle of Bubba's peccadillo's, it would have had negative consequences.
We KNOW FOR A FACT BC was getting BJ's in the WH, while on the phone to a foreign dignitary, we KNOW FOR A FACT he lied to the public and in COURT about it.
In my estimate, 99% of the people who believed Clinton was a wonderful president, still do.
Bush was defeated because his opponent was a better speaker, had the magic of charisma, and half a dozen other reasons.
But, pursuing Bubba's drug use would not have garnered him a win, IMHO.
Please explain to me why the Bush Family continues to lavish praise on the Clinton and Kennedy Klans when each and every time they get kicked in the teeth?
.
Maybe something in the those FBI files Hillary stole?
I was merely alluding to the fact that the "liberal" press is a hackneyed excuse. Who cares what the liberal press has to say if one presumes they're going to have nothing good to say about Bush and defend to the hilt all things Clintonista? Why should that consideration impede in the least the "fair" and "impartial" progress of our so-called Justice Department?(It's not like the indictment's going to stick when the GOP's interested in loosening it's own standards a bit to accomodate certain excesses of Delay and possibly others.)
As example of how retarded is this clever thinking, I alluded to the 2000 GOP Senate passage of the Schumer Amendment to deny the defenses of bankruptcy to pro-life individuals strung up on RICO charges.
Because Senate leaders anticipated a close vote, Democrats pulled Vice President Gore off the campaign trail in order to have him available to break a tie vote. With the threat of Gore casting a vote to break the tie, many Republicans folded, switching their vote in an attempt to prevent Gore from obtaining publicity. The Republican plan failed because while Gore did not break a tie he received press attention and pro-life Republicans were asked to abandon their principles and vote for an unfair and discriminatory law. In the end, the vote was 80 yeas and 17 nays, causing a major loss to pro-lifers.
Utterly insane. We pretend to be a people who put substance before symbol yet we cave to the Symbol that is "press coverage" over the substance that is support for those already unfairly indicted under RICO for opposing the lawful slaughter of over a million unborn annually in this "Christian" nation.
What's interesting about this story is the way the GOP managed to use the abortion amendment to forestall 2002 passage of the bankruptcy bill.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In a move Democrats derided as political theater, the House of Representatives early on Friday passed a bankruptcy reform bill stripped of a controversial abortion provision, effectively dooming the measure in the Senate.
A measure the House had agreed on with the Senate after months of work failed hours earlier when a group of Republicans, upset with how the law would apply to abortion protesters, led a bipartisan revolt against the legislation. Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle later told reporters the change had doomed the bill for the year.
"The House Republicans killed bankruptcy (reform). It's as simple as that," the South Dakota Democrat said. "Even if I wanted to take it up, it would never pass." The abortion language was the linchpin of a compromise between Senate Democrats and House Republicans reconciling competing versions of the bankruptcy overhaul. House Democrats said the notion the Democratic-led Senate would consider a bill without that language was ludicrous.
"This is a legislative stunt for no purpose except saying to the lobbyists, we passed it -- even though we passed it in a form we know the Senate won't even glance at," said Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat.
The bill would have made it harder for debtors to use bankruptcy to wipe out their debts, and was eagerly sought by U.S. banks, retailers, credit-card companies and auto lenders.
Republicans reintroduced the bankruptcy overhaul -- minus a provision that would have prevented anti-abortion protesters from avoiding court-ordered fines by declaring bankruptcy -- just after 1 a.m. They said they were doing so to give members a chance to vote on the legislation's substance without the amendment.
"This is necessary to get the main body of the bankruptcy reform to a vote for the members," said Rep. George Gekas, a Pennsylvania Republican who led the overhaul effort.
The House approved the stripped-down bill 244-116.
Democrats ridiculed the unusual second vote.
"The bill died because some of the members there were torn between the people opposed to abortion and the people with money. And you would have thought they could have waited until maybe February or March to get back in the graces of the people with money," said Rep. Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat.
"the cockamamiest scheme I have ever seen on the floor of a legitimate legislature.".
"This is a legislative stunt for no purpose except saying to the lobbyists, we passed it -- even though we passed it in a form we know the Senate won't even glance at,"
And how could they know for CERTAIN that the Dem Senate wouldn't even look at a bill sans the extra-Constitutional provision to single out pro-lifers for limited defenses under RICO?
Because Democrats are Litmus Test faithful to their personal values whereas the Republicans are only "personally opposed, BUT" can go either way depending on whether something really critical -- LIKE LIBERAL PRESS COVERAGE IN FAVOR OF GORE, duh -- is at stake!These stunts are predictably feasible only because there will always be a few men of principle in either party (there were 17 in the 2000 Senate) who can be counted on for their Pollyanna "litmus test" opposition to abortion such that abortion becomes a Lever Extraordinnaire to gut, stall or pass both legislation and confirm judicial nominees.
It's just one reason that -- even if abortion were not actually a vital prong of the GOP's population control and environmentalist policies -- it indeed shall remain legal, anchored by the in-your-face rape/incest exemption, for just such Circus-Circus purposes.
It's ALMOST as reliable as the "liberal press" where excuses for the "Personally Opposed, but" party's concerned ... be it the fight against abortion or the rightful and speedy conviction of "evil" Clintonistas.
But not nearly as predictable, I suppose, as the rationalizations one grows to expect from the Stoopid Party faithful who have an answer for just about every possible decision of their "Stoopid Party" leadership regardless what's at stake.
I'll betcha that if the GOP adhered to the self-evident truths it professes to believe -- such as the fact life begins at conception -- with the same fidelity the Democrats exhibit for their Litmust Test personal opinions, they might actually make that claim one day.
As it is, the Democrats regularly can count on those who are "personally opposed, but" to assure them of the majority.
As Keunnelt-Ledhinn has said, The Present Age is Largely Leftist Inspired. It's truly past-time to be conversing in terms of Left/Right when Left/Far-Left is more like it.
(Personally, I'd like to see folks get past that horizontal notion entirely and lift their heads long enough to see that the real action is in Human/SubHumans these days ... be it our elite Conditioners who are above the law they dish out for the rest of us or the models on which we base both ESCR and the newly revamped notions of limited human rights for official non-persons.)
An indictment *is* a formal charge. It's a grand jury saying that there is sufficient reason to believe a crime has been committed to go to trial.
Exactly... As the democrats have moved ever to the left the republicans have followed.. Pure genius I would say.. The republican party today is not conservative because the "center" has moved left.. Whos the genius and whos the morons here.. Its no longer about abortion unless we are talking aborting the Constitution.. Following the democrats left is NOT leading, unless your "leading" leftward on purpose.. Which seems to be the plan..
Bush's "I'm for Unity" gambit in the "I'm Unite'er not a divider", canard is a telling example of this.. The question of "Uniteing with WHAT".. has not even been asked yet.. Uniteing Socialism with the American Constitution seems to be the meaning of those words.. The apple don't fall to far from the tree.. His daddy was and is a wimp too.. Don't take any courage to send other peoples sons off to die.. in faux aggressive demeanor.. I'm for the war in Iraq.. but the war in Iraq without a vitual war in Washington D.C. is merely a diversion.. from cutting the roots.. of the REAL enemy.. Americas enemies has serious political strength in the democrat party.. and it seems in the republican party too..
The question, "What are you dividing FROM ?".. should be the conversation.. Not what are you uniteing with... because the first question will expose the second.. We've met the enemy and enemy is US.. not some third world relgious cult..
Amen.
Right, the court filing of charges was in 2002, and the indictment occured in 2003.
My thoughts also.
"Think" they did??"
They're sitting ducks should Dubya Bush instruct the DoJ to investigate HALF the skeletons in BOTH the respective Clinton closets.
"But, it is possible to bust up their gang."
Yes. By cutting out the heart (see above)
We didn't exactly apply that same "strategery" in Iraq, did we?
If we actually believe they are indeed the "enemy," then we need to bury them once and for all -- just like we needed to bury international terrorism where they live and breathe.
I respectfully couldn't disagree with you more.
The net result of Bill Clinton's given a pass on his "peccadillo's" is:
1) a permanent mistrust of the office of the Presidency
2) the stench of collusion between elected officials in high places to protect each other
3) the knowledge that a sitting President gets a FREE PASS for blatantly committing "high crimes and misdemeanors"
4) the acceptance of abhorrent behavior by a sitting Commander In Chief.
"In my estimate, 99% of the people who believed Clinton was a wonderful president, still do."
You may be correct in your assessment, but such opinion is irrelevant when the law of the land has NOT been carried out.
I'm sure it'd been a BIG help in shutting down key detractors.
I agree.
If it was anyone besides a rich, politically connected, high society, billionaire elbow rubbing, Washington elite, it would have been announced.IMO
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