Posted on 09/25/2006 4:52:53 AM PDT by Mia T
Herd instincts: Hillary's investment profits - ethics of Hillary Clinton's cattle futures investments
Caroline Baum
On October 11, 1978, the future First Lady, a neophyte investor with an annual income of $25,000, opened a commodity-futures account with a deposit of $1,000. Her first trade was the short sale of ten live-cattle contracts at a price of 57.55 cents a pound: a commitment to deliver in December of that year 400,000 pounds of cattle with a market value of $230,200. One day later, she bought the contracts back at a price of 56.10 cents, just 0.15 cent above the low of the day, pocketing $5,300 for a return of 530 per cent.
Mrs. Clinton continued to be a net winner at the game. By the time she closed her trading account ten months later, she had racked up $99,541 in profits, a spectacular 10,000 per cent return on her initial investment of $1,000. Either Mrs. Clinton was a better trader than the legendary George Soros, whose best-ever annual return in thirty years of trading was 122 per cent, or she was led by an invisible hand.
During a press conference last April, the First Lady attributed her success to her advisor James Blair's "theory that because of the economy in the early part of the 1970s, a lot of cattle herds had been liquidated, so that there was going to be a big opportunity to make money in the late Seventies." After examining Mrs. Clinton's trading records, Leo Melamed, the father of financial futures and former chairman of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, and Jack Sandner, the Merc's current chairman, found nothing irregular except, on occasion, insufficient margin in her account. Anyone could have done as well, these gentlemen said, given the doubling of cattle prices during her year of trading. Mr. Melamed called the brouhaha over the First Lady's financial affairs "a tempest in a teapot." Mr. Sandner attributed her success to her "trading the biggest bull market in the history of cattle. If someone caught that trend and traded it well, they could make an extraordinary amount of money, a lot more than $100,000, on a small investment."
Yet Mrs. Clinton bucked the trend and traded it well. Most of her trades, including her first two, her last two, and her single most profitable trade (in dollar terms) were initiated from the short side, anticipating a decline in cattle prices. Short selling by the public is extremely rare, especially on a first trade. When one considers that both the investor and her trading advisor were using a herd-reduction theory to capitalize on the biggest bull market in cattle in history, the success of her short sales raises a bright red flag.
In other situations where the legitimacy of a transaction is suspect, the courts are guided by the common-law doctrine, enunciated by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia in the 1994 case BFP v. Resolution Trust Corporation, that "a transfer of title for a grossly inadequate (or in some cases grossly excessive) consideration would raise a rebuttable presumption of actual fraudulent intent." Except for a press conference or two attended by sympathetic journalists not familiar with commodities trading, the First Lady has done nothing to rebut that presumption.
CASES of fraud are notoriously hard to prove. In the investigation of a suspected fraud, the prosecutor does not expect to uncover a document outlining the terms of an illicit financial transfer between two parties. Similarly, an insurance investigator does not expect to find an arsonist standing on the fire-ravaged premises with match and empty gasoline can in hand.
But the clues are there. Despite their best efforts, perpetrators of fraud usually leave a slimy trail-what fraud investigators refer to as badges or indicia. As the Tennessee Supreme Court put it in the 1835 case Floyd v. Goodwin, "Fraud has to be ferreted out by carefully following its marks and signs, for fraud will in most instances, though ever so artfully and secretly contrived, like the snail in its passage, leave its slime by which it may be traced."
Insurance investigators have an objective list of marks and signs that they look for when a presumption of fraud exists. In cases where arson is suspected, one of the first questions a fire investigator tries to answer is: Was the pet removed from the premises? Medical fraud might be indicated when the medical bills in question are photocopies, or if they fail to itemize office visits and treatments. In cases of automobile-accident fraud, one marker would be a claimant's attempt to discourage an insurance investigator from looking at the damaged vehicle.
As far as we know, there are no indicia for commodities-trading fraud. So we took it upon ourselves to develop a checklist of fraud indicators that would apply to a broad range of financial trickery. We are confident that any investment activity that scores high on our test merits a red flag. We have rated the likely legitimacy of Mrs. Clinton's activities on a scale ranging from 1 (highly likely) to 10 (highly unlikely) for each of ten criteria.
1. Were the returns excessive as measured against a normal yardstick of performance? Yes. As discussed above, Mrs. Clinton's annual return was more than eighty times George Soros's in his best year. As far as we know, no non-professional has ever achieved a return of that magnitude. Stanley Kroll, a well-known commodities broker who worked at three major firms at that time, has written that none of his retail customers turned a profit. Neither did those of any of his colleagues at other firms. Even Mrs. Clinton's trading advisor, Jim Blair, who says he was "damn good" at making money in commodities, declared bankruptcy with a $15-million trading loss shortly after his pupil stopped trading. Score: 10 points.
2. Has there been any effort to suppress investigation of the transaction? Yes. Mrs. Clinton was adamantly opposed to the appointment of a special prosecutor to look into her and her husband's financial dealings, including her own trading activities, during the late 1970s and 1980s. She attempted to deflect attention from the matter by explaining away her newfound wealth as a gift from her parents, until the Clintons' 1978 and 1979 tax returns were made public and the actual source of her windfall profit was revealed. Furthermore, despite our repeated and friendly requests to both the First Lady's and the White House's press representatives, none of our questions concerning the elementary details of Mrs. Clinton's trades and the availability of original documentation has been answered. Score: 10 points.
3. Are crucial records of the transaction missing or available only in duplicate form? Yes. The purchase and sale confirmations for Mrs. Clinton's two most profitable trades are lost or missing. Her first, extraordinary transaction is also among the missing. The details were furnished by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Mrs. Clinton has no independent recollection of her first trade, which produced a 530 per cent return overnight. You can be sure that Fernando Valenzuela hasn't forgotten the five shutouts in his first seven games as a rookie pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers in 198 1. Score: 10 points.
5. Were a good portion of the purchases and sales executed near the most favorable prices of the day? Yes. As noted, Mrs. Clinton's first trade of ten live-cattle contracts (sold short) was followed by a purchase at a price just 0. 15 cent above the day's low. The odds of a retail trader buying at a price 15 points off the intraday low on a ten-contract trade are about the same as those of finding the Dead Sea Scrolls on the steps of the State House in Little Rock.
Many of Mrs. Clinton's subsequent transactions were executed near the day's extremes, including her last big trade in July 1979. At a time when her account was $18,000 under water, she managed to sell fifty live-cattle contracts 0.12 cent from the high on a day when prices dropped by the 1.5-cent limit. Her very last trade was a purchase of fifty cattle contracts just 0.05 cent above the low of the day. Such precision trading would be enviable for a trader who spends every second of the trading day glued to the screen. It is a dazzling coup for a non-professional like Mrs. Clinton, who had many other claims on her time, such as litigating for the Rose Law Firm, serving on corporate boards, crusading for children's rights, chairing the Legal Services Corporation, and performing various duties as the governor's wife. Until Hillary's diaries and Rose's time sheets become public and reveal her whereabouts between the opening and closing of the cattle pit each day she traded, we cannot award her a perfect score. Score: 8 points.
6. Was there anything unusual about the suspect's behavior or anything irregular about the activity in question? Yes. As mentioned earlier, Mrs. Clinton, a neophyte investor with nearly no savings., traded the biggest bull market in the history of cattle primarily from the short side. Her first three transactions were short sales. The irregularities connected with her first trade alone should have tripped the security system. The commission of $500 and bid-asked spread of around $600 on such a trade came to more than her entire initial equity of $1,000. So from the moment she entered her first transaction she bad already lost more than she could afford to lose. Unlike that of most traders, Hillary's trading activity reveals no discernible pattern. She bought and sold everything from one and two lots to sixty contracts at a time. In her waning days as a speculator, she day-traded fifty contracts at a time when she already had an open position of 65 contracts. Score: 10+ points.
7. Was the risk in the trading program inconsistent with the customer's net income and net worth? Yes. Mrs. Clinton's 1978 earned income of $24,250 from the Rose Law Firm partnership and husband Bill's $26,500 as Arkansas attorney general are considerably lower than the minimums set by most brokerage houses for opening a commodities-trading account. If for some reason Mrs. Clinton had lost rather than won $100,000, where would she have come up with the money?
On three separate occasions (in November 1978, December 1978, and July 1979), the value of Mrs. Clinton's open positions was well in excess of $1 million for days at a time, and in two cases for up to three weeks. A 2 to 5 per cent move - the sort of move that occurs about once every two weeks - in the wrong direction would have wiped out not only the Clintons' net income for the year but also their entire net worth. Their joint political aspirations would have gone up in smoke if the governor-elect had been forced to declare personal bankruptcy as a result of his wife's speculations in commodities futures. Score: 10 points.
8. Was the suspect in a position to do a favor for any of the other parties involved? Yes. Hillary's advisor, James Blair, was not only a family friend, but also counsel of Tyson Foods, the largest chicken processor in the world and Arkansas's biggest employer. According to a 1994 article in The New York Times Magazine, the company's chairman, Don Tyson, viewed "politics as a series of unsentimental transactions between those who need votes and those who have money . . . a world where every quid has its quo." Clearly Tyson had money, and he put it on Bill Clinton in 1978. In return, as reported in The New York Times Magazine, he expected the new governor to raise the legal truck-weight limit in Arkansas so that Tyson Foods could compete with out-of-state poultry truckers.
Blair may also have been balancing an item in his own account. In the early months of the Carter Administration, Bill Clinton coordinated federal patronage in Arkansas, and one of his first moves in this area was to recommend Blair for the chairmanship of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board.
In Keys to Crookdom, written in 1924, George C. Henderson comments: "The great grafter does not buy government officials after they are elected, as a rule. He owns them beforehand." And, in a prescient conclusion: "Occasionally good and faithful servants are rewarded by attorneys' fat fees, gifts and market tips in addition to emoluments of the office." Score: 10 points.
9. Was there any history of illegal, irregular, or unethical behavior on the part of the broker? Yes. Red Bone, the broker of record for both Mr. Blair and Mrs. Clinton, was suspended from trading for a year, even before he left Tyson Foods to run the Refco brokerage office in Springdale, Arkansas, for trying to corner the egg-futures market. In 1979, Red was disciplined by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange for "serious and repeated violations of record-keeping functions, order-entry procedures, margin requirements, and hedge procedures." Refco was fined $250,000, at the time the largest fine ever levied for commodity-trading violations.
One of Refco's Springdale brokers at the time has admitted under oath that the firm was buying and selling blocks of contracts and allocating them to customers after the market closed. In one instance, after being chastised by their superiors in Refco's Chicago headquarters, the brokers had to set back the time-stamp clock before stamping the day's trades to give the appearance that account allocations had been properly made. Score: 10 points.
10. Were rules, regulations, and normal operating procedures violated? Yes. Mrs. Clinton insists that despite the advice she received from James Blair, she maintained a non-discretionary account. Any non-broker who places an order for a customer is, by definition, acting in a discretionary capacity and must file the appropriate documents. And in view of Mrs. Clinton's busy schedule and the precision timing of many of her trades, it is likely that Mr. Blair placed the orders without consulting with her. Yet no discretionary forms were ever filed. Finally, it is inconceivable that a prudent broker would assume all of the risk exposure for a client who did not have the funds to support her positions without a third-party guarantee. Score: 10 points.
Hillary's total score on our financial hanky-panky scale is 98 out of 100, catapulting her to the top of the class for potential commodities fraud. A detailed examination of her trades seemed in order. We started with records of each purchase and sale confirmation and all of the monthly statements that were provided by the White House. Next we looked at the high, low, open, and close on each of these days to see how her fills compared to what was available. Finally, we calculated the unrealized gains, required margin, available equity, and commitments outstanding for each day during Mrs. Clinton's ten months of trading.
Favorable Treatment?
BACKED up by legions of data, we were prepared to rebut the First Lady's contention that "there isn't any evidence that anybody gave me any favorable treatment." Our analysis of the data and other documents yielded these observations:
1. Mrs. Clinton's account was undermargined by $50,000 to $80,000 during a one-month period beginning November 10, 1978. Again in July 1979, her margin requirements were approximately $100,000 for several days, when there was negative equity (minus $30,000) in the account. A normal rule of thumb for commodity traders is to maintain equity of at least five times the margin requirement. Mrs. Clinton routinely reversed this ratio, maintaining equity around one-fifth of her required margin.
2. Her total equity would have been wiped out on three occasions, taking into account the commissions due and the cost of exiting the trades. On July 17, the commissions and bid-asked spreads on newly opened positions, added to her existing deficit going into the day, could have totally wiped out the family's net worth, even without any market move against her.
3. Her name was misspelled "Hilary" on all the official brokerage statements she produced, raising the question of whether the statements were ever mailed to the detail-oriented attorney.
4. Her first two monthly statements reveal identical misalignments and faulty keystrokes on certain letters, raising doubts as to their authenticity. It wouldn't take a great stretch of the imagination to conclude that they were generated simultaneously in an effort to cover the slimy trail.
5. Withdrawals from her account consistently kept her equity below $15,000. After each big win, she withdrew the spoils. Finally, after making about $100,000 in four days in July 1979, she closed her account down. Such behavior is inconsistent with human nature, as observed any day in Las Vegas or Atlantic City, as well as with Mrs. Clinton's insistence that she reinvested her profits.
6. Two-thirds of her trades showed a profit by the close of the day she entered them, and 80 per cent of her trades, on both the long and the short sides, were ultimately profitable, percentages that are rarely achieved by the most successful professionals.
7. Commissions and slippage of her trades totaled more than 37 times her initial equity.
8. Most of her 33 trades were for five or ten lots. But on three occasions Mrs. Clinton traded fifty or sixty contracts, positions that would normally require about $1 million in equity to support. Each of these trades was entered at extraordinarily favorable levels relative to the price range of the day and was highly profitable by day's end. On two of the large trades the overnight profits pushed a negative equity into the black. Had Mrs. Clinton lost on any of the large trades, the implications for her "investment program" would have been dire.
9. For a two-week period in July 1979, the equity in her account swung from negative $31,000 to positive $62,000. Finally, after the purchase of fifty contracts just a gnat's eyelash above the low of the day, the account was closed with a withdrawal of $60,000, bringing total withdrawals to more than $99,000. Mrs. Clinton was allowed to trade like a millionaire, in the process violating numerous rules and procedures that industry professionals have developed to prevent financial catastrophe to customer and brokerage house alike.
10. More egregious than any of these other red flags of commodity-trading fraud was the size of Mrs. Clinton's commitments. From day one, the size of her positions was wildly out of line with the equity available to absorb loss. On November 13, 1978, with $13,000 in her account, she controlled a position of 62 contracts with an underlying market value of $1.9 million. On December 11, 1978, she had $6,000 in her account, and a ninety-contract position valued at $2.3 million. And on her third to last day of trading, July 17, 1979, she had 115 contracts outstanding with a market value of $3.2 million. The equity in her account was a negative $18,000.
The fluctuations in the price of Hillary's cattle commitments taken in 1978 and 1979 averaged 1 per cent a day from close to close and 2 per cent from high to low. On unusual days, once or twice a month, cattle prices fluctuate by 4 or 5 per cent. All commodity traders know that they must be sufficiently liquid to withstand such extreme swings and avoid financial ruin. One 4 or 5 per cent adverse fluctuation in Mrs. Clinton's position would have constituted five times her annual income and five times her net worth. And this is just a one-day move. Commodities have a nasty habit of moving against you for several days in a row, right to the point where you are forced to liquidate. But whenever Mrs. Clinton was on the brink of ruin, she managed to pull a rabbit out of a hat.
The outlook was not bright for her in the middle of July 1979. The total equity in her account was a negative $31,245. She owed $65,000 in margin requirement. On July 17, she doubled up, selling fifty more contracts just 0.12 cent off the day's high of 68.72, and covering it that same day for a profit of $10,400. At the time, her required margin was $115,000 and her total cash due to the broker was $135,000. Most speculators know that doubling up when one's position is seriously under water is a one-way ticket to ruin. Only if she had held a confirmed, round-trip ticket would someone in Mrs. Clinton's position have been willing to risk the farm in such a high-stakes game. Providentially, three days later, on her last day of trading, the whole situation was resolved. Cattle closed down the limit again, and Mrs. Clinton covered her short position down by just 0.05 cent above the limit. She ended her career as a speculator with a final flourish to rival her first trade.
After extensive research, we have satisfied ourselves that Mrs. Clinton was neither nave nor lucky nor particularly talented as a trader. Even individuals who have never visited a futures exchange or traded one futures contract will, upon examination of the evidence, be convinced that Mrs. Clinton's representation of the events 15 years later is highly implausible.
After a concerted attempt to follow the path and uncover the truth, we are still left with one gnawing question. Hillary Clinton earned profits of $99,541. What happened to the other $459?
COPYRIGHT 1995 National Review, Inc.
THE DRAMATIC INCREASE IN HILLARY CLINTON'S DISCLOSED ASSETS: An Alternative Theory
The authors ask and answer what they believe to be the central question, "What caused the jump? It might have been Dubai." 2
What this is about, I believe, isn't the corrupt peddling of access and influence by the clintons. The clintons have been corruptly peddling access and influence as long as they've been in public life. 3
No. What this is about is bait-and-switch money-laundering. What this is about is the clintons being able to spend their stash.... at last.
PIGS AT THE TROUGH
FLASHY FEINT
Pundits--most notably Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity--have attributed this compulsion to flash the cash to the intersection of nouveau riche and clinton déclassé. But perhaps it is something more....
Perhaps it is bait-and-switch money-laundering.
Perhaps it is cover for the clintons' countless nuncupative deals and unnumbered Swiss accounts.
Perhaps it is a way, at long last, for the clintons, inveterate schnorrers that they are, to live in a manner to which they've made themselves accustomed... and to do so this time on their own, albeit misbegotten, dime.
WHEN CATTLE FUTURES ARE THE FUTURE:
HILLARY CLINTON'S COW TRADES AS PROGNOSTIC
(Why we must defeat the clintons NOW: part3)
QUID PRO COAL2:
CLINTON CORRUPTION + THE SEQUESTRATION OF GASEOUS FOSSILS
(HILLARY DOES COAL AT THE NATIONAL PRESS CLUB)
by Mia T, 4.27.06
National Review
Feb 20, 1995When Newt Gingrich told a Republican audience recently that his lucrative book deal paled in comparison with Hillary Clinton's cattle-trading profits, the Speaker's comments were greeted with wild applause and raucous laughter. Opened to public scrutiny less than a year ago, Mrs. Clinton's one-hundred-fold return from trading futures has already become part of popular lore. Whenever anyone is suspected of making a fast buck nowadays, the First Lady's adventure in commodities trading is bound to come to mind.
In Search of Slime4. Did the suspect alter his story regarding the activity in question? Yes. The White House furnished everchanging versions of Mrs. Clinton's trading activities. First, we were told she did her own research, relying primarily on the Wall Street Journal, and placed all of her own trades. Then mentor James Blair played an advisory role, but she made the decisions, determined the size, and placed all the trades. As it now stands, she relied on Blair's advice, and he placed most of her trades. When queried, the First Lady said the confusion was the result of the way the story was communicated to the press. Score: 10 points.
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group
(Why we must defeat the clintons NOW: part 2)
by Mia T, 9.22.06
ormer clinton political guru, Dick Morris, and his wife and partner, Eileen McGann, are positing a theory of clinton enrichment that attempts to explain the dramatic increase--from as little as $352,000 in 2003 to as much as $50,000,000 in 2005--in hillary clinton's disclosed assets. 1TURN OF PHRASE
The Morris-McGann theory of clinton enrichment turns on the phrase, "dramatic increase." My alternative theory of the crime turns instead on "disclosed assets."
Prison cells are filled with crooks who got caught because they lived high on a-hog-that-had-no-visible-legal-source. The clintons have, for decades, been amassing that hog. First in Arkansas, and then DC, the clintons have been methodically, corruptly and with impunity amassing a fortune, auctioning off America's security, sovereignty and economy to the highest--invariably foreign--bidder.4
You may have noticed that these days the clintons never miss an opportunity, however oblique, to segue to their purportedly newly acquired wealth. 5
COPYRIGHT MIA T 2006
By purging DC of the professional politician and returning to the idea of the citizen-politician, we would break the power-and-corruption cycle. Post-9/11, we no longer have the luxury of time or circumstance to abide that nonsense.
Speaking of which, Dick Morris reports today in the New York Post that missus clinton's disclosed assets grew from as little as $352K in 2003 to as much as $50M in 2005.
Morris writes, "What caused the jump? It might have been Dubai."
DICK MORRIS: CLINTON IS A PAID AGENT OF THE CROWN PRINCE OF DUBAI
by Mia T, 03.03.06
(bill + hillary) CLINTON 'CULTURE OF CORRUPTION'
by Mia T, 01.28.06
COPYRIGHT MIA T 2006
A trader works on or through an exchange.
A trader buys or sells futures.
A future is something that happens at a point in time, that is anywhere from a day to many days, which make up a month or many months that have yet to have come to pass yet.This is called the future. A day or many days or months, that we have already lived through, is called the past.
People buy and sell futures. Some people go short, betting that a commodity will be worth less, in a certain time period. Some people go long, betting that prices will rise. But regular people, such as Hillary Clinton can't exercise a deal. They must go through a broker, who in turn goes through his or her firm, who in turn has someone on the floor of an exchange OR used a floor trader/broker or the person who keeps "the book" on the floor. This is true of any and every stock/bond/commodity/and option exchange.
Yes, once it came to light that she had made a ridiculous amount of money on cattle futures, she came up with all kinds of explanations and excuses. It's the Clintonian "thing"; Bill suffers from it too. But, in actual fact, Hillary NEVER did anything at all, but to hand over $1,000 and reap the benefits of a fraud, which is sometimes called "fronting". That was the whole point of having Red Bone do the trading...he knew what he was doing and how to pull off this scam. But IF she had told the truth, she wouldn't "look" like "THE SMARTEST WOMAN IN THE WORLD" and she would have had to admit that she was a part of a fraud.
Was she a part of a criminal enterprise, from which she benefited? YES!
Is any part of ANY of your posts factually correct, re what she did, vis-a-vis the actual trading? HELL NO !
Please go look up ALL of the cases that have been brought to trial, of the people who were given profits that they were NOT legally due, who were in the group that Red Bone was trading for. He has been prosecuted several times; the final time, when Hillary was in the group, was NOT his first conviction. When you have found each case, pleased post them to this thread. Until then, I suggest that you stop posting your delusions.
FYI.........It is NOT true that nobody else, novice or not, has never, until Hillary, be a part of this kind of fraud. As blatant a scam as this was, good old Red had pulled this same fraud off, for others, before.
You are one great asset on our side, Mia T.
Your analysis concerns SEC fraud. But you are neglecting the overarching crime. The cattle futures fraud was simply the means of payoff. But there was an overarching crime outside the purview of the SEC that was prosecutable irrespective of whether or not the cattle futures fraud was prosecutable.
This ridiculous argument, about prosecuting Hillary, holds even less water than the posters who are still screaming about and angry at President Bush for not going after Slick Willie, for all of the crimes he perpetrated whilst he was president. It just isn't done.
I thought that you, at least, were interested in the facts.
The supposed "payoff" is suppositional. Nobody knows what the direct "payoff" was. And as a matter of fact, this was just one very teensy "favor", that was done, by Arkansas "elites", for the Clintons. In the entire scheme of things, this was trivial. It got Hillary off Bill's back, for a bit, but didn't do much else. But it DID make Bill even more beholden to others.
thanx doug :)
You repeat yourself, you employ large size print but you fail to address the issue. She was susceptible of prosecution for numerous serious felonies for her involvment in the cattle futures scheme. Many have been convicted and served time for similiar deliberate unwitting participation in criminal activity. Sorry you are stuck on your self importance derived from your detailed knowledge of the brokers history and prosecution. These facts do not defeat HRC susceptibility to prosecution. But feel free to repeat yourself again.
Talk of repeating one's self....go look into the nearest mirror. You repeat the same erroneous claptrap, over and over and over again, without given a single example. P;ease name every other governor's wife who engaged in this sort of thing, who was caught, tried, convicted, and sent to jail. Of course, since there are none, you can't give any. Okay, no governor's wives, so how about wives of mayors, Senators, V.P.'s, alderman's?
I post facts, you post from your imagination.
the first refuge of the intellectually dishonest is to try and change the subject.
you have not shown a single reason Mrs. Clinton could not have been prosecuted.
You have expressed your opinion that since no one else other than the broker was prosecuted, and your opinion that since you dont have a written order from Hillary directing the fraud, that she could not be. This is simply not true.
As I pointed out for you three times, it is quite common to prosecute fraud and bribery crimes by indirect evidence, which is in ABUNDANCE in the cattle futures case.
Go ahead, ignore the obvious and repeat yourself again.
Come on, step up to the plate, post each and every case, since there are many of them,*snicker* that will prove what you have been claiming. Is that asking too much of you, to post some facts for a change?
Even when I wrote as simply as I could, it was still over your head.
What I posted is not true? It is not accurate, factual, nor true? Then prove it, prove it with citations.
You just keep repeating the same thing, word for word, while claiming that it's true and yet, that is what you accuse me of doing, even though I posted specifics, which at the beginning of this, you didn't know. LOL
Hillary Clinton committed several felonies through her participation in the cattle futures payoff. These include accessory to bribery and accessorie to mail fraud.
Do you contend she did not commit those crimes?
Do you contend she could not be prosecuted for those crimes if not why not?
The answers are obvious, of course she committed the crimes, and of course they were prosecutable.
Your position that because no one else who received payoffs through the broker was prosecuted, therefore Hillary could not be prosecuted is a non-sequitor.
Your position, no matter how often repeated nor how much feigned amusement you attach to it, is, frankly, suggestive of some kind of intellectual or characterological impairment.
Go ahead repeat yourself again without addressing the real point i.e. what factual or legal barrier existed to prevent prosecution of Hillary for the cattle futures payoff?
Hillary Clinton committed several felonies through her participation in the cattle futures payoff. These include accessory to bribery and accessorie to mail fraud.
Do you contend she did not commit those crimes?
Do you contend she could not be prosecuted for those crimes if not why not?
The answers are obvious, of course she committed the crimes, and of course they were prosecutable.
Your position that because no one else who received payoffs through the broker was prosecuted, therefore Hillary could not be prosecuted is a non-sequitor.
Your position, no matter how often repeated nor how much feigned amusement you attach to it, is, frankly, suggestive of some kind of intellectual or characterological impairment.
Go ahead repeat yourself again without addressing the real point i.e. what factual or legal barrier existed to prevent prosecution of Hillary for the cattle futures payoff?
It isn't mail fraud.
Straw man arguments is all that you have.
Look up what non sequitur means, how it is spelled, and memorize it.
Personal insults aren't going to make your rambling any more factual. Neither is repeating yourself, endlessly, with NOTHING to back you up.
You've long ago lost this debate; stop digging and go back to sleep.
What specifically makes you think one cant have proven bribery nor wire against both the Clintons in regard to the cattle futures scandal? That is what element of proof of each crime do you contend was missing?
Thanks for the explanation.
Here I ll help you out...
go ahead, explain why Hillary could not have been convicted for one or more of the following CRIMES in relation to her cattle futures dealings, including underaccessory or conspirator liability theories :
5-52-101. Abuse of public trust.
(a) A person commits the offense of abuse of public trust if the person:
(1) Solicits, accepts, or agrees to accept on behalf of any person, political party, or other organization any benefit from another person upon an agreement or understanding that the other person will or may be appointed a public servant or designated or nominated as a candidate for public office; (2) Offers, confers, or agrees to confer any benefit and the receipt of the benefit is prohibited by this section; (3) Solicits, accepts, or agrees to accept any benefit as compensation or consideration for having as a public servant given a decision, opinion, recommendation, or vote favorable to another or for having otherwise exercised his or her discretion in favor of another; or (4) Offers, confers, or agrees to confer any benefit upon a public servant and the receipt of the benefit is prohibited by this section. (b) It is not a defense to a prosecution under this section that the decision, opinion, recommendation, vote, or use of discretion, except for the benefit, was otherwise proper. (c) Abuse of public trust is a Class D felony.
History. Acts 1975, No. 280, § 2701; A.S.A. 1947, § 41-2701; Acts 2005, No. 1994, § 328.
5-52-104. Soliciting unlawful compensation.
(a) A person commits the offense of soliciting unlawful compensation if he or she requests a benefit for the performance of an official action as a public servant knowing that he or she is required to perform that action:
(1) Without compensation, other than authorized salary or allowances; or
(2) At a level of compensation lower than that requested.
(b) Soliciting unlawful compensation is a Class A misdemeanor.
History. Acts 1975, No. 280, § 2704; A.S.A. 1947, § 41-2704.
5-42-204. Criminal use of property or laundering criminal proceeds.
(a) A person commits the offense of criminal use of property or laundering criminal proceeds if the person knowingly:
(1) Conducts or attempts to conduct a transaction involving criminal proceeds that were derived from any predicate criminal offense, or that were represented to be criminal proceeds from any predicate criminal offense, with the intent to: (A) Conceal the location, source, ownership, or control of the criminal proceeds; (B) Avoid a reporting requirement under state or federal law; or (C) Acquire any interest in the criminal proceeds; or (2) Uses or makes available for use any property in which he or she has any ownership or lawful possessory interest to facilitate a predicate criminal offense. (b) Any person who is guilty of criminal use of property or laundering criminal proceeds commits a Class C felony. (c)(1) Upon conviction, the prosecuting attorney may institute a civil action against any person who violates this section to obtain a judgment against any person who violates this section, jointly and severally, for damages in an amount equal to property, funds, or a monetary instrument involved in the violation as well as the proceeds acquired by any person involved in the enterprise or by reason of conduct in furtherance of the violation, together with costs incurred for resources and personnel used in the investigation and prosecution of both criminal and civil proceedings. (2) The standard of proof in an action brought under this subsection is preponderance of the evidence. (3) The procedures for forfeiture and distribution in the asset forfeiture law, § 5-64-505, apply. (4) A defendant in a civil action brought under this subsection is entitled to trial by jury.
5-36-106. Theft by receiving.
(a) A person commits the offense of theft by receiving if he or she receives, retains, or disposes of stolen property of another person:
(1) Knowing that the property was stolen; or (2) Having good reason to believe the property was stolen. (b) As used in this section, "receiving" means acquiring possession, control, or title or lending on the security of the property. (c) The following give rise to a presumption that a person knows or believes that property was stolen: (1) The unexplained possession or control by the person of recently stolen property; or (2) The acquisition by the person of property for a consideration known to be far below the property's reasonable value. (d) It is a defense to a prosecution for the offense of theft by receiving that the property is received, retained, or disposed of with the purpose of restoring the property to the owner or another person entitled to the property. (e) Theft by receiving is a: (1) Class B felony if the value of the property is two thousand five hundred dollars ($2,500) or more;
5-2-403. Accomplices.
(a) A person is an accomplice of another person in the commission of an offense if, with the purpose of promoting or facilitating the commission of an offense, the person:
(1) Solicits, advises, encourages, or coerces the other person to commit the offense; (2) Aids, agrees to aid, or attempts to aid the other person in planning or committing the offense; or (3) Having a legal duty to prevent the commission of the offense, fails to make a proper effort to prevent the commission of the offense. (b) When causing a particular result is an element of an offense, a person is an accomplice of another person in the commission of that offense if, acting with respect to that particular result with the kind of culpable mental state sufficient for the commission of the offense, the person: (1) Solicits, advises, encourages, or coerces the other person to engage in the conduct causing the particular result; (2) Aids, agrees to aid, or attempts to aid the other person in planning or engaging in the conduct causing the particular result; or (3) Having a legal duty to prevent the conduct causing the particular result, fails to make a proper effort to prevent the conduct causing the particular result.
History. Acts 1975, No. 280, § 303; A.S.A. 1947, § 41-303.
TITLE 18 > PART I > CHAPTER 63 > § 1343. Fraud by wire, radio, or television 2004-08-06
Whoever, having devised or intending to devise any scheme or artifice to defraud, or for obtaining money or property by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises, transmits or causes to be transmitted by means of wire, radio, or television communication in interstate or foreign commerce, any writings, signs, signals, pictures, or sounds for the purpose of executing such scheme or artifice, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both. If the violation affects a financial institution, such person shall be fined not more than $1,000,000 or imprisoned not more than 30 years, or both.
You can't prove that they colluded in the fraud. There is no "paper trail", nor anything else.
If Hillary had been the ONLY one who had profited, then there would be a stronger case against her. Since she was one of many and there never was anything written ( though the absence of payment for the margin call/s look really BAD ), no prosecutor would have taken this case, nor would they now.
Go play with yourself some more and this time, go find me actual cases. :-)
your arguments are conclusory and circular. They therefore make no sense. To say there is no proof of collusion without a factual argument is pointless, as is your ongoing unfounded obstinancy.
collusion is not even a required element of all the crimes.
she is for example, an accessory to wire fraud. The predicat crime is the conviction of the broker which you have certified. All that is required is that a) there was a fraudulent scheme, and b) that she participated in it.
She gave the $1000 and she took the $100,000 back.
In addition, she has conflciting and no credible explanation for how the profits occurred. A reasonable person who honestly believed they had made money this way, honestly, would not have stopped at $100,000. To an average Arkansas jury, not to mention a yale educated business lawyer, her transaction does not pass the smell test. No additional evidence is needed for conviction.
No prosecuter would take the case? YOu have no basis for this conclusionary statement either. What about the prosecutor, for example, that is after Tom Delay? How much evidence does he have. Delay raised money for pacs. Pacs gave money to Delay. Its leagal as long as there is no quid pro quo. They have no evidence of any, but there is still a prosecution.
The case against is provable, by available evidence. You have falsely tried to mislead readers of this article that she could not have been prosecuted. Your arguments are entirely conclusory and baseless. You have expressed opinions in areas where you lack knowledge. I gave you the list of numerous specific criminal violations, all you can say is there is no proof of collusion. The proof is that she gave $1000 to the broker after Tyson met with Bill and that she accepted the $100,000 as if it was a reasonable outcome, not to mention the big profits were on trades against the market. This is equivalent to the drug mule who says I took $10,000 to carry a paper bag accross the border, I had no idea what was in it. You know where they are? They are spending 20 to life in federal jail. And in many cases it was true, they didnt know. All that was required for prosecution was that their ignorance of the crime in which they were assisting was UNREASONABLE, and they are doing life for it.
Go ahead keep repeating your vacuuous conclusory nonsensical unspported illiterate ignorant opinions that she could not have been prosecuted. Enjoy your perverse thrill as a would be know it all. Just dont think it wont be refuted logically and factually in increasing detail each time you do it.
Don't you know that "you" can do ANYTHING/say ANYTHING about a GOPer, but not a damned Dem? LOL
You aren't a lawyer, I bet, and neither have you ever worked in any financial market. Yet you feel compelled to post about topics you neither know nor understand.
Are you having fun? I certainly hope so. :-)
I have posted the facts of the matter.
I have also told you the history of such cases.
I have asked you for specifics, OF ALL OF THE MANY CASES YOU HAVE REPEATEDLY CLIMED HAVE BEEN PROSECUTED and you have failed to list even one.
You can NOT convict a person without hard evidence; supposition and probability don't count in this kind of a case. You have to PROVE, beyond a shadow of a doubt that the person is guilty. You can't prove that Hillary told Red Bone what to do. You can't even prove that she knew what he was doing. He was referred to her; she didn't search for him.
And hearsay doesn't count either.
But hey..............knock yourself out, have fun making up all garbage and posting it, all the while pretending that you know what you're talking about. I'll just sit here and laugh AT you. ;^)
laugh away clown lawyer but for example
you have consused your self invented "shadow of a doubt" standard of proof with "beyond a reasonable doubt" which is the true standard of proof. and as I said earlier many drug mules are doing time (life) when the only proof against them was that there defense of ignorant participation was UnREASONABLE.
trying to change the subject again (trying to get out of the hole you have dug for yourself) realy wont do. Your contention is she could not have been prosecuted. I have demonstrated repeatedly that she could and should have been. No hearsay (if you have a clue what that means) is needed. Her own words are enough (conflicting explanations support inference of guilt; incredible explanations support inference of guilt) Shall I start posting the damn jury instructions for you?
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