Posted on 03/28/2006 7:50:08 AM PST by americaprd
Several members of President Bill Clinton’s national security team are hosting a Washington fund-raiser tonight for retired Vice Adm. Joseph Sestak Jr., the Democrat running against U.S. Rep. Curt Weldon in November.
Officials at Sestak’s campaign headquarters in Media will not comment on the event, though an invitation sent out to potential donors and obtained by the Daily Times lists Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger as a host.
"As a general rule, campaigns don’t comment on fund-raisers or people who hold them," said Sestak’s campaign chairman, Myles Duffy.
Berger, who served as Clinton’s second-term national security adviser, pleaded guilty last year to removing classified material from the National Archives. He originally claimed it was an "honest mistake," but later admitted that he took the terrorism documents by hiding them in his jacket, then cut some of them up with scissors.
"I don’t know why this fund-raiser is so secretive -- other than the fact that it is a fund-raiser hosted by a convicted felon, a man convicted of destroying information dealing with pre-9/11 intelligence," said Russ Caso, Weldon’s chief of staff.
Berger’s crime was a misdemeanor that carried a $50,000 fine, 100 hours of community service and two years of probation. He also was stripped of his security clearance for three years.
"What do they have to hide about this?" Caso asked. "I know what they have to hide: it’s an embarrassment."
Sestak’s campaign issued a press release earlier this month, stating that the Democrat had raised more than $150,000 since announcing his candidacy Feb. 2.
About $50,000 of that was raised with the help of Sen. John Kerry, Sestak said at the time.
Sestak’s communication director, Bryan Bennett, said all campaign contributions would be filed quarterly with the Federal Election Commission, as required by law, but he declined to discuss individual fund-raisers.
Tonight’s event begins at 6 p.m. and will be held at the Connecticut Ave. law office of Harold Ickes and Janice Enright, according to the invitation. Ickes, a labor attorney and former top aide to President Clinton, was a strategist for Hillary Rodham Clinton’s 2000 Senate campaign. Enright, a lobbyist who works with Ickes, is the treasurer of Sen. Clinton’s 2006 re-election committee.
The invitation asks for individual contributions ranging from $250 to $2,100. Sestak is not distancing himself from Berger or the other Clinton administration officials hosting the fund-raiser, including Anthony Lake, Richard Clarke, John Dalton and Rand Beers.
"This event is hosted by a group of people I used to work with, people that I was and am friends with, and I am proud to count them among my friends," Sestak said through Bennett.
Realizing that Weldon could be facing a tougher-than-normal race, his campaign is attempting to portray Sestak as a carpetbagger who is not in tune with the district. The 8th District Democratic primary in Bucks County is headed in a similar direction.
"Sandy Berger - Clinton guy. Harold Ickes - Clinton guy. Joe Sestak - Clinton guy. This is the national liberal Democrats with an agenda coming into the 7th District," said Michael Puppio Jr., a Delaware County councilman who is running Weldon’s local re-election campaign.
Sestak, 54, a former deputy chief of Naval operations who served as director for defense policy on Clinton’s National Security Council, has deep roots in Springfield, but has been living outside the district for more than three decades while serving in the Navy. He now lives in Nether Providence but also plans to keep his home in Alexandria, Va.
"He’s a local boy," Bennett said of Sestak, a Cardinal O’Hara High School graduate. "It’s not some international conspiracy to unseat Curt Weldon."
U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a Vietnam War veteran, will visit the district Saturday to host a Weldon fund-raiser, Caso said.
"Congressman Weldon believes in the full-disclosure process, complete transparency," Caso said of Weldon’s fund-raising activities.
Bergular should be serving time right now, not raising money to defeat Weldon. We have Bush's Justice Department to thank for that.
Someone sure wants Weldon out of office
kind of makes a person go hmmmmmmmmmm
Here's the list of Clintonites who hosted the fundraiser:
SANDY BERGER
TONY LAKE
DICK CLARKE
JOHN DALTON
RAND BEERS
SUSAN RICE
BOB BELL
BILL DANVERS
ANNE RICHARD
ANNE WITKOWSKY
STEVE ANDREASEN
Sandy "Pantload" Berger?
Time for Weldon to crank up the hearings on Able Danger to have a report out by October.
"If you shake hands with Sandy Berger, you had better count your fingers afterward".
I keep thinking it's Fields but I can't picture him saying it. Somebody help me out here.
Ping! I don't know about everyone on that list, but these 4 are a pant-load of Clintonista NSC weasels for sure:
SANDY BERGER
TONY LAKE
DICK CLARKE
RAND BEERS
4 guys who have been screwing up so huge on our national security for years, and now they are starting their counter-attack against Weldon to try to end the exposure of their sins.
Where are Joe Wilson and Valerie Pflame? If they're not open sponsors of this I'd bet they're sure to be lurking in the background. Wilson was recruited to the Kerry campaign before he became an embarrassment, so he probably knows at least Rand Beers quite well - and once he had become a celebrity for the hate-Bush crowd he probably became big buddies with Sandy Burglar, Richard Clarke, & co. (if he wasn't already). Remember that Wilson also served for a stint on the Clintonista NSC.....
Let's not forget the charlatan Richard Clarke, who will soon be back in the news now that they are making a movie based upon his novel, er memoir..... "Against All Enemies"....... and don't forget that Rand Beers, best friend of Clarke, was the scumbag who left the NSC staff in time of war to run the national security team for the Kerry campaign.... the team which lined up lyin' Joe Wilson for a personal "politics of truth" (sic) website hosted by the Kerry campaign, until they had to take it down in a rush when Wilson's lies began to emerge.
We need to search out all linkages among these clowns - this is real self-appointed "shadow government" trying to "take back" control of national security matters (and cover up their own malfeasance). Why are the Clintonistas so anxious to try to knock off Rep. Weldon?? Couldn't be that the full exposure of ABLE DANGER would also expose their mendacious incompetence???
Did I see Harold Ickes' name in there?
He is E V I L.
And he is D A N G E R O U S.
And he "belongs" to HER.
out of my head?
It would be foolish to think these people would just slide under the pavement and never be heard of again. One can conjure up images of the Disney animated film, The Wind in the Willows, where the house full of weasels lived. Need I say more.
On October 24, 1995, President Clinton had a meeting with Chinese President Jiang Zemin in New York City. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Winston Lord (former deputy national security advisor under Henry Kissinger), National Security Advisor Anthony Lake (former State Department official under Henry Kissinger), Secretary Christopher and Robert Suettinger, Director of Asian Affairs for the National Security Council (NSC), joined them at the meeting. No one brought up China's theft of America's weapons designs during the discussion because, at this point, all five claim they had not yet been told.
SNIP
November [1995]
CIA Director Deutch allegedly briefed NSC Director Anthony Lake about China's theft of America's nuclear weapon designs sometime in November 1995. The president, allegedly, still had not yet been informed. Lake later claimed he did not recall the briefing, but he and White House officials said there was a record of it.
Also in November, Attorney General Janet Reno, Defense Secretary Perry and FBI Director Louis Freeh allegedly learned of China's theft of all of America's nuclear weapons designs for the first time. Allegedly, no one informed the president.
SNIP
July [1996]
On July 3, President Clinton signed another waiver allowing an American satellite to be launched in China. He would sign another six days later.
On July 6, 1996, NSC Director Anthony Lake went to China.
SNIP
Also on December 5 [1996], NSC Director Anthony Lake was named as acting CIA director to replace outgoing Director Deutch. During a routine check of outgoing CIA personnel, agents discovered Deutch brought 14,000 top secret government documents home and left them on an unsecured computer hooked up to the Internet. An investigation was immediately begun. Deputy CIA Director George Tenet failed to inform the FBI or Justice Department of his investigation for over a year. President Clinton pardoned Deutch on his last day in office.
Also on December 5, CNN reported Commerce official Melinda Yee threw away documents concerning the department's trade missions after a judge ordered they be turned over to Larry Klayman's Judicial Watch group.
On December 8, 1996, Gen. Chi attended a dinner at the National Defense University in Maryland. The dinner was hosted by Defense Secretary Perry and attended by Alexander Haig, Brent Scowcroft, Deputy Defense Secretary White, Joseph Nye, Sen. John Glenn (Democrat-Ohio), among others.
On December 9, Gen. Chi and Secretary Perry met with President Clinton at the White House. Allegedly, China's theft of America's nuclear weapons designs was never discussed. The president, allegedly, had still not yet been informed.
Chi and Perry then returned to the Pentagon and had a meeting with Ambassador James Sasser. Before leaving the US in mid-December, Gen. Chi was given a tour of Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico by Defense Secretary Perry. Lab security officials were given little advanced notice of the visit and Chi was not given a normal background check.
SNIP
On March 13 [1997], Attorney General Janet Reno claimed she tried to inform Anthony Lake at the NSC about the FBI's information concerning China's attempt to influence America's elections back in June 1996, but did not because she "could not find him". She also said she did not tell President Clinton herself because she felt it was the job of the NSC. Sandy Berger replaced Lake as head of NSC the following day.
FBI Director Freeh told Congress his investigation into campaign finance irregularities was not focusing on individual criminal acts, but on a possible conspiracy involving a foreign government.
So we may well wonder if Berger's (and others') interest in opposing Weldon relates to Chinagate as well.
Wow, thanks, lots of good info from you as always! Yes, there is a strong Rice-Wilson-Berger nexus due to the Africa issues with the NSC. I'd still like to know how much Joe Wilson's scam consultancy business rakes in and how much of its funds derives from 'contacts' he made in the Clinton-in-Africa boondoggle.
All the Chinagate issues are huge, of course, but I'm just so discouraged that no one in the MSM will ever practice some real investigative journalism to turn over these rocks and reveal all the worms underneath.....
There were very strong indications that ABLE DANGER had unearthed all sorts of possible Chinagate connections. The grotesque tactic used to discredit the entire program (as least from what has been reported by the spineless MSM) is that the fact that Condi Rice and a couple of other names from Stanford came up in the data mining (naturally, since there were Chinagate connections there, and William Perry is a big Stanford dude to this day). The fact that any 'domestic' names came up was used to discredit and disband all of AD, supposedly under some ludicrous interpretation of the law loosely analogous to the people who are saying the NSA surveillance of overseas terrorists must be attacked if it involved any contacts to/from 'domestic' persons in the USA.
Fedora, thanks--I'm trying to get this out..
ping
I realized after posting that I should've noted Beers and Clarke's NSC association in that context as well (as you mention in Post 29). Wilson was also friends with Beers while Beers was still in the Bush administration during the run-up to the Iraq War.
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