Vetting Hillary; a Crack in the Legend

Jerry Zeifman, a lifelong Democrat, and lawyer, has written a very troubling piece, here, about his professional experience with the young lawyer, Hillary Rodham, in the course of the Nixon Impeachment hearings. Candidate Hillary Clinton now speaks non-stop about her work at the Children's Defense Fund, after Yale law school. In doing so, she stretches the truth by claiming that she spent her time "fighting for abused women and children" (advocating for larger welfare benefits is more like it). But the job that brought her to the attention of the political universe, to which she no longer refers, was serving as a junior staffer on the House Judiciary Committee's Impeachment Inquiry staff, in 1974, which Mr. Zeifman ran.

After President Nixon's resignation a young lawyer, who shared an office with Hillary, confided in me that he was dismayed by her erroneous legal opinions and efforts to deny Nixon representation by counsel-as well as an unwillingness to investigate Nixon.

At that time Hillary Rodham was 27 years old. She had obtained a position on our committee staff through the political patronage of her former Yale law school professor Burke Marshall and Senator Ted Kennedy. Eventually, because of a number of her unethical practices I decided that I could not recommend her for any subsequent position of public or private trust.

He goes on to explain that Hillary's efforts to deny Nixon "representation by counsel," a basic right in our system of law, had to do with her patron, Senator Kennedy. It was known that, as part of his defense Nixon would argue that his after the fact knowledge of the Watergate break-in paled in comparison to J.F.K.'s activities, including "using the Mafia to attempt to kill Castro, successfully assassinating both Patrice Lamumba of the Congo, and Diem of South Vietnam." Teddy did not want a sitting president to make that case.

Clinton was also helpful in creating delays, in an attempt to keep Nixon in office and bleeding as long as possible. Apparently Kennedy and (his personal lawyer ) Marshall were convinced that a very liberal Democrat could win in 1976 if Nixon were still in office. They didn't want to see him resign too quickly. Hillary was helpful there, too, in subverting the instructions from her boss, Zeifman, and his boss, Tip O"Neill. O'Neill was especially concerned that no rules be changed and that the law be scrupulously observed. Hillary ignored him.

This story rings so true because we have all seen this behavior from her. Is it characteristic for Hillary to disregard legal niceties in pursuit of her higher personal code of justice/vengeance/personal advantage (and in pursuit of helping abused women and children...)? Did she do that in her First Lady years, with regard to Whitewater; the FBI files of Republicans that ended up in her offices; lucrative commodities deals: the travel office scandal; bimbo erruptions; and all the rest. Does a leopard change her spots?

Because if we believe that Hillary Clinton thinks she is above the law, that the ends justify the means, or that the law is a mere tool which can be ignored as one pursues personal power and wealth and power again — ostensibly in service of a higher agenda, then we should not be surprised when she resumes this behavior in the White House. We know everything we need to know about Hillary Rodham Clinton's character. If you have forgotten, read Zeifman's piece.

The following is a comment from an article from The Politico...”Obama Claims Delegate Lead”.
Says it perfectly. Pass it on!!

“Hillary Clinton has been telling America that she is the most qualified candidate for president based on her ‘record,’ which she says includes her eight years in the White House as First Lady - or ‘co-president’ - and her seven years in the Senate.
Here is a reminder of what that record includes:

- As First Lady, Hillary assumed authority over Health Care Reform, a process that cost the taxpayers over $13 million. She told both Bill Bradley and Patrick Moynihan, key votes needed to pass her legislation, that she would ‘demonize’ anyone who opposed it. But it was opposed; she couldn’t even get it to a vote in a Congress controlled by her own party. (And in the next election, her party lost control of both the House and Senate.)
- Hillary assumed authority over selecting a female Attorney General. Her first two recommendations, Zoe Baird and Kimba Wood, were forced to withdraw their names from consideration. She then chose Janet Reno. Janet Reno has since been described by Bill himself as ‘my worst mistake.’

- Hillary recommended Lani Guanier for head of the Civil Rights Commission. When Guanier’s radical views became known, her name had to be withdrawn.

- Hillary recommended her former law partners, Web Hubbell, Vince Foster, and William Kennedy for positions in the Justice Department, White House staff, and the Treasury, respectively. Hubbell was later imprisoned, Foster committed suicide, and Kennedy was forced to resign.

- Hillary also recommended a close friend of the Clintons, Craig Livingstone, for the position of director of White House security. When Livingstone was investigated for the improper access of up to 900 FBI files of Clinton enemies (“Filegate”) and the widespread use of drugs by White House staff, both Hillary and her husband denied knowing him. FBI agent Dennis Sculimbrene confirmed in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in 1996, both the drug use and Hillary’s involvement in hiring Livingstone. After that, the FBI closed its White House Liaison Office, after serving seven presidents for over thirty years.

- In order to open “slots” in the White House for her friends the Thomasons (to whom millions of dollars in travel contracts could be awarded), Hillary had the entire staff of the White House Travel Office fired; they were reported to the FBI for ‘gross mismanagement’ and their reputations ruined. After a thirty-month investigation, only one, Billy Dale, was charged with a crime - mixing personal money with White House funds when he cashed checks. The jury acquitted him in less than two hours.

- Another of Hil lary’s assumed duties was directing the ‘bimbo eruption squad’ and scandal defense:

—— She urged her husband not to settle the Paula Jones lawsuit.

—— She refused to release the Whitewater documents, which led to the appointment of Ken Starr as Special Prosecutor. After $80 million dollars of taxpayer money was spent, Starr’s investigation led to Monica Lewinsky, which led to Bill lying about and later admitting his affairs.

—— Then they had to settle with Paula Jones after all.

—— And Bill lost his law license for lying to the grand jury

—— And Bill was impeached by the House.

—— And Hillary almost got herself indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice (she avoided it mostly because she repeated, ‘I do not recall,’ ‘I have no recollection,’ and ‘I don’t know’ 56 times under oath).
- Hillary wrote ‘It Takes a Village,’ demonstrating her Socialist viewpoint.

- Hill ary decided to seek election to the Senate in a state she had never lived in. Her husband pardoned FALN terrorists in order to get Latino support and the New Square Hassidim to get Jewish support. Hillary also had Bill pardon her brother’s clients, for a small fee, to get financial support.

- Then Hillary left the White House, but later had to return $200,000 in White House furniture, china, and artwork she had stolen.

- In the campaign for the Senate, Hillary played the ‘woman card’ by portraying her opponent (Lazio) as a bully picking on her.

- Hillary’s husband further protected her by asking the National Archives to withhold from the public until 2012 many records of their time in the White House, including much of Hillary’s correspondence and her calendars. (There are ongoing lawsuits to force the release of those records.)
- As the junior Senator from New York, Hillary has passed no major legislation. She has deferred to the senior Senator (Schumer) to tend to the needs of New Yorkers, even on the hot issue of medical problems of workers involved in the cleanup of Ground Zero after 9/11.

- Hillary’s one notable vote; supporting the plan to invade Iraq, she has since disavowed.

Quite a resume’. Sounds more like an organized crime family’s rap sheet.

Just a drop in the bucket: "LA TIMES - To fuel her rise, Clinton has relied on the controversial funding device known as "earmarking." The earmarks enabled her to win favor with important constituents, many of whom provided financial support for her campaigns. . . Since taking office in 2001, Clinton has delivered $500 million worth of earmarks that have specifically benefited 59 corporations. About 64% of those corporations provided funds to her campaigns through donations made by employees, executives, board members or lobbyists, a review by the Los Angeles Times shows.

All told, Clinton has earmarked more than $2.3 billion in federal appropriations for projects in her state since her election to the Senate, much of it for public works projects funded in conjunction with fellow Democratic Sen. Charles E. Schumer and others in the New York congressional delegation."

(How Clintons took control of federal law enforcement) you don't want to miss that article!

How anyone could consider a person that claimed 256 times under oath ‘I can’t recall’ for the Presidency is stunning.

A lifelong Democrat, Jerry Zeifman has concluded that Hillary Clinton is ethically unfit to be either a senator or president – and if she were to become President, the last vestige of the traditional moral authority of the party of Roosevelt, Truman and Johnson will be destroyed.”

Lets Draft Fred Thompson!!!

From your link:

...At that time Hillary Rodham was 27 years old. She had obtained a position on our committee staff through the political patronage of her former Yale law school professor Burke Marshall and Senator Ted Kennedy. Eventually, because of a number of her unethical practices I decided that I could not recommend her for any subsequent position of public or private trust...

In addition to getting Hillary a job on the Nixon impeachment inquiry staff, Kennedy and Marshall had also persuaded Rodino to place two other close friends of Marshall in top positions on our staff. One was John Doar; who had been Marshall’s deputy in the Justice Department-whom Rodino appointed to head the impeachment inquiry staff. The other was Bernard Nussbaum, who had served as Assistant U.S. Attorney in New York-who was placed in charge of conducting the actual investigation of Nixon’s malfeasance.

Marshall, Doar, Nussbaum, and Rodham had two hidden objectives regarding the conduct of the impeachment proceedings. First, in order to enhance the prospect of Senator Kennedy or another liberal Democrat being elected president in 1976 they hoped to keep Nixon in office “twisting in the wind” for as long as possible. This would prevent then-Vice President Jerry Ford from becoming President and restoring moral authority to the Republican Party.

As was later quoted in the biography of Tip O’Neill (by John Farrell), a liberal Democrat would have become a “shoe in for the presidency in 1976” if Nixon had been kept in office until the end of his term. However, both Tip O’Neill and I—as well as most Democrats—regarded it to be in the national interest to replace Nixon with Ford as soon as possible. As a result, as described by O’Neill, we coordinated our efforts to “keep Rodino’s feet to the fire.”

A second objective of the strategy of delay was to avoid a Senate impeachment trial, in which as a defense Nixon might assert that Kennedy had authorized far worse abuses of power than Nixon’s effort to “cover up” the Watergate burglary (which Nixon had not authorized or known about in advance). In short, the crimes of Kennedy included the use of the Mafia to attempt to assassinate Castro, as well as the successful assassinations of Diem in Vietnam and Lumumba in the Congo.

After hiring Hillary, Doar assigned her to confer with me regarding rules of procedure for the impeachment inquiry. At my first meeting with her I told her that Judiciary Committee Chairman Peter Rodino, House Speaker Carl Albert, Majority Leader Tip O’Neill, Parliamentarian Lou Deschler and I had previously all agreed that we should rely only on the then existing House Rules, and not advocate any changes. I also quoted Tip O’Neill’s statement that: “To try to change the rules now would be politically divisive. It would be like trying to change the traditional rules of baseball before a World Series.”

Hillary assured me that she had not drafted, and would not advocate, any such rules changes. However, as documented in my personal diary, I soon learned that she had lied. She had already drafted changes, and continued to advocate them. In one written legal memorandum, she advocated denying President Nixon representation by counsel. In so doing she simply ignored the fact that in the committee’s then-most-recent prior impeachment proceeding, the committee had afforded the right to counsel to Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas.

I had also informed Hillary that the Douglas impeachment files were available for public inspection in the committee offices. She later removed the Douglas files without my permission and carried them to the offices of the impeachment inquiry staff-where they were no longer accessible to the public.

Hillary had also made other ethically flawed procedural recommendations, arguing that the Judiciary Committee should: not hold any hearings with-or take depositions of-any live witnesses; not conduct any original investigation of Watergate, bribery, tax evasion, or any other possible impeachable offense of President Nixon; and should rely solely on documentary evidence compiled by other committees and by the Justice Department’s special Watergate prosecutor.

Only a few far-left Democrats supported Hillary’s recommendations. A majority of the committee agreed to allow President Nixon to be represented by counsel and to hold hearings with live witnesses. Hillary then advocated that the official rules of the House be amended to deny members of the committee the right to question witnesses. This recommendation was voted down by the full House. The committee also rejected her proposal that we leave the drafting of the articles of impeachment to her and her fellow impeachment-inquiry staffers.

It was not until two months after Nixon’s resignation that I first learned of still another questionable role of Hillary. On Sept. 26, 1974, Rep. Charles Wiggins, a Republican member of the committee, wrote to ask Chairman Rodino to look into “a troubling set of events.” That spring, Wiggins and other committee members had asked “that research should be undertaken so as to furnish a standard against which to test the alleged abusive conduct of Richard Nixon.” And, while “no such staff study was made available to the members at any time for their use,” Wiggins had just learned that such a study had been conducted-at committee expense-by a team of professors who completed and filed their reports with the impeachment-inquiry staff well in advance of our public hearings.

The report was kept secret from members of Congress. But after the impeachment-inquiry staff was disbanded, it was published commercially and sold in book stores. Wiggins wrote: “I am especially troubled by the possibility that information deemed essential by some of the members in their discharge of their responsibilities may have been intentionally suppressed by the staff during the course our investigation.” He was also concerned that staff members may have unlawfully received royalties from the book’s publisher.

On Oct. 3, Rodino wrote back: “Hillary Rodham of the impeachment-inquiry staff coordinated the work. The staff did not think the manuscript was useful in its present form.” No effort was ever made to ascertain whether or not Hillary or any other person on the committee staff received royalties.

Two decades later Bill Clinton became President. As was later to be described in the Wall Street Journal by Henry Ruth-the lead Watergate courtroom prosecutor-”The Clintons corrupted the soul of the Democratic Party.”

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