Free Republic

Former President Bill Clinton dined with financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in 1995, records show—years before the interactions detailed in a statement from his office earlier this week. That statement condemned the wealthy hedge fund manager after his indictment for alleged sex trafficking crimes was unsealed Monday. The statement said Clinton "knows nothing" about Epstein's alleged crimes and included a timeline of Clinton's interactions with him starting in 2002. But according to a story published back in March 1995 by the Palm Beach Post, then-President Clinton attended a “three-hour dinner” at the time with a “very select group of...

<p>Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) has officially called on the Department of Health and Human Services’ inspector general to investigate a suspicious $433 million no-bid contract for a dubious smallpox vaccine.</p> <p>Frankly, just about everything connected with this one smells.</p> <p>The contract was awarded to Siga Technologies, a New York-based company whose principal investor is megabillionaire — and key Democratic moneyman — Ron Perelman.</p>

Over the last year, the Obama administration has aggressively pushed a $433-million plan to buy an experimental smallpox drug, despite uncertainty over whether it is needed or will work. Senior officials have taken unusual steps to secure the contract for New York-based Siga Technologies Inc., whose controlling shareholder is billionaire Ronald O. Perelman, one of the world's richest men and a longtime Democratic Party donor.

There's Something Fishy About The White House's $433 Million Investment In A Smallpox Vaccine Becket Adams, The Blaze Nov. 15, 2011, 12:21[Editor's note: smallpox is indeed a horrifying and terrible disease; this cannot be overstated. It is not the intent of this article to mitigate the very real and terrible nature of the disease. The point of this article is to question the White Houses’ intentions in this deal.] Several critics believe that the Obama administration’s $433 million investment in the new ST-246 smallpox vaccine reeks of scandal. How could a multimillion dollar investment in an antiviral pill that could...

By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON, ALLISON HOPE WEINER and WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM The New York Post is cooperating with a federal investigation into whether a longtime contributor for the Page Six gossip column — the avidly read daily log of wrongdoing, double-dealing and sexual indiscretions by celebrities both minor and major — tried to extort money from a California billionaire, according to a spokesman for the newspaper. Several people involved in the investigation said the reporter, Jared Paul Stern, had been captured on a video recording demanding a $100,000 payment and a monthly stipend of $10,000 from Ronald W. Burkle in return...

Revlon CEO Ron Perelman ditches wife #4, actress Ellen Barkin, to the tune of $20 million. Previous wives #1-#3 have cost Perelman a pay-out of $8 million, $80 million and $30 million, respectively. FOR Ronald O. Perelman, Forbes magazine's 34th-richest man in America, marriage would seem to be getting expensive... ...So why do the ultrarich marry, and re-marry, and re-marry? For men who have cycled through what Harriet Newman Cohen, a New York divorce lawyer, called "very high powered, high ZIP code divorces," marriage, more than dating, fills old traditions of respectability, status and comfort. It might even be love,...

Billionaire businessman Ron Perelman's five-year marriage to actress Ellen Barkin is over — and the legendary corporate raider is getting out of the match just in time to save himself a huge bundle of money, sources said yesterday. The Revlon boss — who gained infamy in the late 1990s during a bitter custody battle with third wife Patricia Duff — served his latest spouse with divorce papers at their post Upper East Side mansion yesterday, a source familiar with the couple said. Under the pair's prenup, the bald buyout baron is set to pay the sultry "Sea of Love" actress...