Hillary's silence on education fraud

TownHall.com ^ | 6/27/02 | Michelle Malkin

[kattracks]

The New York Times reports that Senator Hillary Clinton is nearing completion of her memoirs. Well, not actually Mrs. Clinton. A small village of personal aides and professional hacks pitched in to research and write the $8 million book. No doubt Mrs. Clinton's team will chronicle her "passionate" commitment to education reform, her "leadership" on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, and her "selfless" crusade to help the underprivileged gain access to college.

Among the many missing chapters in this self-appointed education guru's memoirs will be one on her role in tacitly endorsing the outrageous plundering of federal Pell grants intended for the "needy." The $11 billion program provides outright, tax-subsidized gifts to college students or their academic institutions. This government-run student financial aid system is a magnet for fraudulent operators, with whom Mrs. Clinton is intimately familiar.

Last month, the General Accounting Office (GAO) reported that financial management problems have cost the federal Department of Education millions of dollars through fraud in disbursing Pell grants to ineligible students. More than $3 million in Pell grants and loans were awarded to students who were taking English as a second language and had no intention of earning a degree or certificate. Three institutions falsified student admissions records to show students were in degree programs; the schools fraudulently disbursed about $2 million. The auditors identified 31 other schools with dubious Pell grant disbursements, and uncovered another $12 million in "potentially fraudulent or otherwise improper" grant and loan payments.

In one fiscal year alone, the department overpaid 102,000 students Pell grants totaling $109 million, which has yet to be recovered. Financial control breakdowns, the GAO concluded, were "pervasive." Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project On Government Oversight, testified to Congress in 1998 about commonplace Pell grant schemes involving consultants, parents and school faculty members who colluded in falsifying tax forms and fooling the government verification process for aid applications.

But the most notorious Pell grant scam in recent memory was pulled off by members of a Hasidic community in Rockland County, N.Y. Leaders of the New Square village set up a bogus seminary in Brooklyn financed by Pell grants awarded to ineligible or nonexistent students. Thousands were enrolled between 1987 and 1992, including many individuals who never earned a degree, never attended a class and were not even aware they were enrolled. The school "administrators" falsified resumes, fabricated board-meeting minutes and cooked up student progress reviews to keep the federal aid flowing.

New Square leaders Kalmen Stern, David Goldstein, Benjamin Berger and Jacob Elbaum were convicted in 1999, by which time they had bilked taxpayers out of millions in a scheme the presiding judge called "sophisticated, long-term, and brazen in its execution."

How did Mrs. Clinton react upon meeting supporters of clemency for these tuition rip-off artists at the White House in December 2000? "There was a meeting," she acknowledged. "I did sit in on it. That issue (of pardoning the convicts) was raised. It was referred to the president. I never made any view known one way or another at any time."

The most outspoken and opinionated advocate For the Children had absolutely nothing to say about these criminal education looters. Her uncharacteristic silence helped secure 1,400 of 1,412 votes from the New Square community, which it delivered to her just months before her husband granted clemency to the four convicted leaders. Last week, a federal probe into the pardons-for-votes scheme ended with no charges filed. And no comment from Sen. Clinton.

The continued plundering of the Pell Grant program is an affront to taxpayers -- and to the bona fide college aid applicants whom class-warfare Democrats such as Sen. Clinton claim to represent. They're all for the needy, until their political viability depends on the crooked and greedy.

Contact Michelle Malkin | Read her biography

©2002 Creators Syndicate, Inc.

[ALOHA RONNIE]

NEVER FORGET

...HILLARY's Lifetime M.O. =

.."Lawmaking for Others,

...Lawbreaking for Herself"..

...per US News Reporter -&- Panelist Extraordinaire on NBC-TV's .."THE MacLAUGHLIN GROUP"..

NEVER FORGET

[stylin19a]

As much as I have no use for the Clintons, this article is a real stretch.
There is just no nexus.
The dates in question on the Pell grant scheme, 1987-1992, are under 41's watch. To connect the dots from silence on the Pell grant crappola, to Hillary's shennanigans in the votes for pardons scheme is just plain goofy.

[D-fendr]

Wasn't the pardon for the culprits of the Pell grant scheme? The article cites her "guilt" as not standing against those who pilfered education bucks.

[Pharmboy]

You say "no nexus" between Hillary and this scam? Mebbe you don't have all the facts...



I Beg Your Pardon
The Clintons exit in style.

By Robert A. George, an editorial page writer
for the New York Post

---

RAGGEDmail@aol.com


For the last eight years, Americans had to endure a split-personality executive branch: Arguable accomplishments and the occasional bipartisan bit of policy existed side-by-side with scandalous behavior that brought shame upon the institution of the presidency.

For at least the first week of the Bush administration, that bifurcation is only slightly alleviated. Bill Clinton is gone, but unfortunately not forgotten. In the words of the Bard, "the evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones." There may have been some good coming out of the Clinton administration, but the nation, New York State and the institution of the presidency itself is still suffering a major hangover.

Roderick Boyd wrote yesterday on NRO about the outrageousness of Clinton pardoning financier Marc Rich. A slightly less-reported story nationally involves how Hillary Clinton apparently stole about 1,500 votes from a small Hasidic Jewish community. Representatives from the village of New Square in Rockland County, New York approached the then-Senate candidate for a pardon of four residents serving jail time for ripping off millions of federal dollars. The conviction happened barely two years ago in 1999. Mrs. Clinton says that she met with the New Square rebbes after the election. Nearly everyone else says the meeting came beforehand.

Who to believe?

Now, as one might expect, New Square is something of a conservative community. In the past, the village has tended to vote 90 percent Republican. In fact, the similar communities around it voted overwhelmingly for Rick Lazio in November. Strangely enough though, as the New York Post reported Wednesday, New Square voted for Hillary 1,359 to 10.

Now, none of this should come as a surprise of course. Remember that just as Senator Clinton's campaign was gearing up in late 1999, the president chose give clemency to members of the notorious FALN Puerto Rican terrorist organization. This was a group whose were guilty of several bombings — fatal in some cases — around the country back in the 1970s. Several law-enforcement organizations (not least of which, Louis Freeh's FBI), advised against the clemency deal. Not surprisingly, the White House went ahead.

In that case, the surmise was that by getting the FALN out of jail, the Puerto Rican leadership would be assured of getting out the vote for Hillary in November 2000. It seems that a similar quid pro quo was in effect for the New Square Hasidim. At first glance, it seems that the Puerto Ricans held out for a better deal. They made sure their guys got out before the election. Then again, they had been behind bars for a lot longer time. On top of that, everyone expects the Puerto Rican community to vote overwhelmingly Democrat. While, Jews tend to vote overwhelmingly for Democrats — especially in New York, Republicans can be competitive. Hillary was regularly having difficulty with the Jewish vote during her campaign. Pardoning the New Square residents before the election would have raised a few eyebrows — to say the least.

But, now, the deed has been done.

The Clintons depart in grand style: Gifts from friends were solicited just before they left the White House (and before Senate ethics rules kick in for Mrs. Clinton); their underlings trash the place to make it as difficult as possible for their successors to do the people's work; and like every other rule, the president's power to pardon is abused in the extreme — apparently for the explicit quid pro quo purchasing of votes.

Once again, it can be said — they got away with it.

Hang on, folks, expect more and more revelations in the months and years to come. This hangover will last a while.