Posted on 05/15/2005 2:13:51 PM PDT by wagglebee
A mounting number of aides, advisors and fundraisers for New York Sen. Hillary Clinton have faced criminal prosecution in recent months, conjuring up memories of her ethically challenged past just as Democrats begin to focus on the former first lady as their probable 2008 presidential nominee.
Though press coverage of the trial of Sen. Clinton's finance director, David Rosen, was sparse last week, the case has brought attention to the prosecutions of at least three more Clinton fundraisers.
And that's on top of the plea bargain reached with the Justice Department in March by a senior foreign policy advisor to the former first lady.
Five members of Mrs. Clinton's inner circle now face indictment, trial or have pled guilty to an array or crimes, with the news of the prosecutorial deluge emerging in just the last few months.
* David Rosen, who served as Mrs. Clinton's finance director, is currently on trial in Los Angeles on charges that he cooked the books for her 2000 Senate campaign. If convicted on the three counts of fraud cited in his indictment, Rosen faces 15 years in jail and/or $250,000 in fines.
* James Levin, who was a top fundraiser for Mr. and Mrs. Clinton and served as the White House liaison for other fundraisers during Mrs. Clinton's 2000 Senate race, revealed on Thursday that he was cooperating with prosecutors in Rosen's case after being accused of defrauding the Chicago public school system.
* Raymond Reggie, who helped raise $100,000 for Mrs. Clinton 2000 Senate campaign, was indicted in April on bank fraud and conspiracy charges. In exchange for leniency, Reggie agreed to tape record Clinton campaign insiders about illicit fundraising activities. He faces up to five years in jail and fines.
* Aaron Tonken, who helped organize several fundraisers for Mrs. Clinton that collected over $1.5 million, agreed in 2002 to cooperate with the FBI investigation into Mrs. Clinton's campaign.
A close friend of Mrs. Clinton who lavished gifts on her aides and visited the White House seven times in 2000 alone; Mr. Tonken's is currently serving a 63 month jail sentence. The Justice Department has yet to release other details of his plea arrangement.
* Sandy Berger, who served as Mr. Clinton's national security advisor and who continues to advise Mrs. Clinton, pled guilty in April to the theft and destruction of top secret documents related to the 9/11 Commission investigation. Because of the political sensitivity of Berger's crime, he was let off with a $10,000 fine and a three-year suspension of his security clearance.
As recently as February, Berger was advising Mrs. Clinton, with the New York Times revealing that he helped her prepare an address to a national security conference in Germany.
Since taking office, Sen. Clinton's star had been on the rise, with Democrats encouraged over polls suggesting she had shed her reputation for ethical controversy. But the renewed swirl of scandal, punctuated by one indictment after another, "has some top party bosses feeling nervous," the U.K. Observer reported on Sunday.
"This sort of thing just serves to remind people of the Nineties scandals like Whitewater and the Monica Lewinsky affair," University of California political scientist Shaun Bowler told the paper.
Bowler added, "Some Democrats have short memories - but I don't think that a lot of American voters do."
Hillary’s campaign for a seat in the US Senate is fraught with innuendo of wrong doing, some of it provable yet the ex-first woman’s finger prints are no where to be found – she like Big Foot, alludes capture or even proof that she is anything more than an over hyperbolized myth. The real danger is that the woman she shows the world is not the woman she is nor is she capable of governing this nation beyond dictating to it. Worst yet, should she re-gain the White House, she would be bringing with her the most disreputable, low-life, dishonored and disgraced president in history. I would bet some 75% of Americans never want this rapist, perjuring, sociopath ever to sit in the Oval Office, back in the People’s House ever again. The only way Hillary R. Clinton could win the Presidency is by FRAUD, something she is well acquainted with.
They never will. Every allegation is just another "attack" which brings the "victim" sympathy from the left.
The higher taxes, the harmful social policies, the weak defense posture, and the constant whiff of scandal. Please tell me we won't ever have to relive that!!!
Laws, rules, morals, ethics, etc. are for OTHER people and NOT the royal clintoons...
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True it is -- the good ole liberal double standard.
If the public lets Hitlery get away with this crime, they deserve what they might get. Another criminal, Marxist, sociopathic, unprincipled, radical leftist, tax-crazy President....didn't THE LEFT learn on the first one? Most likely not.
The Clintons sound like Gangsters. Is this organized crime?
The Clintons sound like Gangsters. Is this organized crime?
bump...just to keep the story in front of as many people as possible.
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