Investigating Hillary.
The Department of Justice is trying to secure the cooperation of indicted businessman Peter Paul in its ongoing investigation of Hillary's 2000 Senate campaign for possible fund-raising violations. Mr. Paul, it will be remembered, is a three-time convicted felon who hosted a Hollywood fund-raising event for the former First Lady in 2000 and is currently facing stock fraud charges in New York.
The FBI recently told a U.S. judge in Los Angeles it has evidence that Mrs. Clinton's campaign deliberately understated its fund-raising costs so it would have more money to spend on elections. Justice Department lawyers have met three times with Mr. Paul to discuss a plea deal, and want to see if he can substantiate his allegations that Hillary's campaign engaged in wrongdoing.
Documents obtained by the Associated Press show an FBI agent told the LA judge in 2002 that the Bush Administration believes Mrs. Clinton's campaign understated its costs for the Paul fund-raiser: "The event's costs exceeded $1 million, but the required forms filed by New York Senate 2000 . . . months after the event incorrectly disclosed that the cost of the event was only $523,000," said the two-year old FBI affidavit. "It appears that the true cost of the event was deliberately understated in order to increase the amount of funds available to New York Senate 2000 for federal campaign activities."
The affidavit also noted that a $366,000 donation to the gala was incorrectly listed as coming from the company Mr. Paul co-founded, Stan Lee Media, when it really came from Mr. Paul personally. Mr. Paul had himself told the FBI that hundreds of thousands of dollars contributed to Clinton's campaign went unreported.
Lawyers for Mrs. Clinton and the former chief fund-raiser for New York Senate 2000, David Rosen, say their clients have done nothing wrong. "New York Senate 2000 properly reported all donations in 2000," said David Kendall, Sen. Clinton's attorney.
She Works Hard for the Money.
Roll Call newspaper reports that Hillary is "barnstorming the country and signing a flurry of fundraising letters in an 11th-hour effort to boost the war chests of Democratic Congressional candidates and the party's presidential nominee, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry." In a span of just four recent days, she attended seven campaign events in four states and the District of Columbia to raise money for Kerry, as well as two House candidates and a senate hopeful. In the next few weeks, Sen. Clinton has "scheduled at least 10 more fundraising appearances for Democrats that will see her travel to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami, the District of Columbia and New York." According to her fundraising spokesman, Patti Solis Doyle, even more events are planned but have not yet been confirmed.
In addition to all her personal appearances, Hillary signed and sent out several fundraising letters urging donors of her Senate campaign committee as well as her political action committee-HILLPAC-to donate to Democratic candidates. All this doesn't even include her own contributions to Democratic candidates, which have added up to over $350,000 so far this election cycle (and that's just since the latest FEC filing requirement of June 30). The senator noted in a recent interview that "I have got wonderful supporters, and everybody is chipping in and trying to help our candidates. It is part of the overall team effort. I think the most important thing is that we just put the money together so that none of our candidates is at a financial disadvantage."
Hillary is saving her vitriol for her emailings to supporters and contributors, writing in a September 28 note that the Senate Republican leadership is pursuing a legislative agenda designed to curb people's personal freedom. "The Republicans don't even believe in the right to privacy," she charged. "Just look at Sen. Santorum who held up a copy of the Constitution on the floor of the Senate and declared that the phrase 'right to privacy' 'does not exist.' Every radical activist judge that they appoint brings our opponents one step closer to their goal: to change the law of the land and strip away our rights."
