Posted on 06/18/2003 4:22:16 AM PDT by Liz
Aaron Tonken, who is facing a charge of mail fraud in connection with his charity work, organized a campaign event for her in 2000.
A federal inquiry into the activities of celebrity fund-raiser Aaron Tonken is examining his involvement with a $1-million Hollywood political event for Hillary Rodham Clinton's 2000 Senate campaign, according to people familiar with the investigation.
The inquiry raises the stakes in a longstanding controversy that has pitted Bill and Hillary Clinton against some of their most dogged critics who have publicly questioned the source of underwriting for the gala. For Tonken, it also opens the prospect of cooperation with authorities in return for a possible plea deal.
It couldn't be determined whether Clinton or her campaign is a target, and a spokesman for the New York senator said her office had no information on any probe.
Tonken has not testified before a grand jury, said sources close to the case, who requested anonymity.
In addition, allegations by California's attorney general that Tonken has engaged in fraudulent fund-raising activities could later be used to challenge his credibility. Still, sources say, investigators are interested in the event he organized in August 2000, on the eve of the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles.
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(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
"The documents were seized in a May 30 raid of a California storage facility containing documents of Peter Paul, the entrepreneur who funded Hillary Clinton's Senate campaign with over $2 million dollars in direct, in-kind contributions which were never reported by Hillary Clinton or her Senate campaign, as required by law," revealed the public interest law firm Judicial Watch in a press release late last week.
FBI Raids Hillary's Warehouse in Whitewater Deja Vu
The Bush administration has quietly done an about-face on allegations that New York Sen. Hillary Clinton broke campaign finance laws in 2000 - with the Justice Department preparing to extradite one-time Clinton fund-raiser Peter Paul to the U.S. as part of a plea deal for his testimony. The sudden action on Paul's case comes just weeks after reports surfaced that former Hollywood fund-raiser Aaron Tonken has supplied damaging testimony about Hillary Clinton's fund-raising practices.
"I'm a star witness against President and Mrs. Clinton," Tonken claimed in a recent report on his case in Vanity Fair magazine, explaining that prosecutors wanted his testimony about" "fundraising activities that I've done on behalf of the Clintons." The exact nature of Tonken's allegations against Sen. Clinton remains secret, the magazine said. But the celebrity moneyman is known to have been involved in the August 2000 fund raiser that is at the heart of Peter Paul's allegations.
Peter F. Paul, the flamboyant Hollywood entrepreneur who says Hillary Rodham Clinton has hidden almost $2 million of in-kind contributions he made to her campaign in 2000, is back from Brazil and promising to raise a ruckus about the New York senator as he fights bizarre securities and bank-fraud charges on which he's been indicted. Aaron Tonken, a political operative in Hollywood and a former protégé of Paul under indictment for a variety of alleged sharp deals with the rich and famous, also is promising to tell everything he knows about behind-the-scenes shenanigans of Clinton and many others.
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