Replies

Hillary Kept Long-Sought Records, Senate Committee Believes

WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, June 13) -- The Senate Whitewater Committee will identify first lady Hillary Clinton as the only suspect in the mysterious disappearance of her long-sought Whitewater legal billing records, the New York Daily News reported today.

The records, which detailed Mrs. Clinton's work for failed S&L Madison Guaranty, had been sought by Whitewater investigators for more than two years before they were unexpectedly discovered by longtime Clinton aide Carolyn Huber in the Clinton's White House residence.

The Daily News cited anonymous Senate investigators who said that when the committee releases its final report Tuesday, it "will indicate that Hillary Rodham Clinton left the records in the (White House) book room... It's not reasonable to think anybody else left them there."

The committee questioned more than 200 people about the records, whose mysterious appearance provided the highest drama of the committee's 14 months of hearings. Led by Chairman Alfonse D'Amato (R-N.Y.), the panel never questioned the first lady directly or in writing on the matter, though independent Whitewater prosecutor Kenneth Starr subpoenaed Mrs. Clinton to testify before a federal grand jury. His inquiry is ongoing.

Republicans have long suspected the Clintons wish to obscure Hillary's involvement with Madison, and that her billing records may have been removed from White House counsel Vincent Foster's office in 1993 on the night he committed suicide. The Clintons have steadfastly maintained nothing devious occurred, and that the records demonstrate Mrs. Clinton's minimal involvement with Madison.

"As the First Lady testified and has said publicly, she does not know how they (the records) came to be discovered int the book room of the White House," White House Whitewater spokesman Mark Fabiani was quoted in the Daily News. "Even though the first lady offered to answer its questions in writing last February, the committee never chose to ask her a single question."

That's likely because Senate Republicans don't want to risk being seen as bullying the first lady. But, perhaps emboldened by the recent guilty convictions in Little Rock of the Clinton's Whitewater partner and Madison owners Jim and Susan McDougal, GOP senators have apparently decided to confront Hillary Clinton more directly.

There are Freepers who actually hope that the Democratic Party nominates her for POTUS, thinking that because she is obviously a crook she cannot win election. That conceit is partisan, unprincipled, and foolish.

It is partisan, in that it presumes that because you loathe someone like Bill loathes the military, they cannot win election - and it presumes that it is good if the people have no legitimate choice but to elect the Republican nominee.

It is unprincipled, because it asks that a disaster like the x42 administration be brought close to power again.

And it is foolish because it's only too likely that Ohio women will vote for her, "just because."
The principled and intelligent approach to a Rodham candidacy is to point out, even while she is preparing for her reelection as junior senator from New York, the evidence of corruption which trails after her. We should protest the New York Democratic Party's failure to put up primary opposition to her renomination, and compare it to the corruption in the NJ Democratic Party which manifested itself in the renomination of Robert Torricelli. And, assuming that she gets reelected, we should keep up that drumbeat in the runup to the primary campaign of '08.
And how should we frame the message in '08? Quite simply that not only Hillary everyone else who was in the WH in the x42 years is tainted by the things that went on then. Particulary the hiring of a barroom bouncer to rummage through the "FBI files." Those dossiers, although in federal custody and not seperated from those of Democrats, were essentially Republican files - sensitive private, confidential files only for the eyes of a Republican administration to vet potential future administration staff. Not only is Hillary the prime suspect in that case, it is fair to say that even if you think she did not hire Craig Livingstone, she doesn't know anyone who is not a suspect in that case.
It is all very well for George W. Bush to be magnanimous in his victory and not be snottily partisan, but in '08 (and in 12 and 16 and . . .) the rest of the country is still at risk of once again electing a president who does not have the integrity to "see that the laws be faithfully executed." If in fact Hillary is the Democratic nominee, the general election campaign must turn on integrity, and that means exactly the sort of mudslinging that President Bush holds himself above. It took a certain kind of person to face the partisanship of the New Jersy Democrats and prevent the reelection of Robert Torricelli; it's not clear that George W. is that kind of person. And if Hillary is the Democratic nominee the Republican Party must nominate someone more like Doug Forrester than like George Bush.
Exactly what does it mean that, even with a Republican Attorney General, no prosecution ensues from the public knowledge that 900 counts of a felony were perpetrated in the very basement of the White House in 1993?! Craig Livingstone should be indicted for unauthorized access to the White House, since x42 would not admit that any identifiable person hired him! As US Senator, has Hillary done anything to press for indictments and prosecution in that case?!