Opening Remarks
Tom Fitton
President, Judicial Watch
December 8, 2006
The National Press Club
Good afternoon, I'm Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch. Judicial Watch is a non-partisan, educational foundation which advocates high standards of ethics and morality in our nation’s public life.
Ever since Hillary Clinton was elected to the Senate in New York, the American people have been asking themselves two questions regarding her presidential aspirations: Will she run? And, can she win?
Hillary, of course, is still playing coy with the press, but behind the scenes, she has been holding secret campaign meetings and burning up the phone lines in order to line up political support for her White House run. She has even started to assemble her presidential campaign staff, though she won’t acknowledge it publicly. (Hillary can’t even launch a campaign without doing so under a shroud of secrecy. Then again, openness and sincerity have never been her strong suits.)
With respect to her viability as a candidate, Hillary has a significant head-start on her potential Democratic rivals in two key areas: name recognition and money. Love her or hate her, everyone knows the name “Hillary.” And by some estimations she could have as much as $100 million banked by the time the Democratic primaries come around in 2008. Add to these advantages powerful allies in the media who have made Hillary’s ascension to the White House their highest priority and you’ve got an extremely viable candidate.
Now, there is a third question the American people must ask themselves, an even more important question than the first two: What kind of president will Hillary Clinton make?
Just like any other native-born American over the age of 35, Hillary Clinton is free to run for president. But, as she well knows, with her candidacy comes close scrutiny of her public record. And any discussion of Hillary Clinton’s public record begins and ends with her past crimes and corrupt behavior. For example:
- Sworn testimony elicited by Judicial Watch in federal court alleged Hillary Clinton devised a scheme to sell public, taxpayer-financed trade missions in exchange for campaign contributions to the 1996 Clinton-Gore re-election campaign – part of the scandal known as “Chinagate.”
- And there’s no doubt Hillary Clinton lied to a grand jury about her role in ordering the firing of several long-time employees of the White House Travel Office, in order to reward two longtime Hollywood pals with lucrative White House travel business. And let’s not forget the former bar bouncer she is said to have hired who took all those Republican FBI files.
- We also found that Hillary Clinton personally orchestrated media campaigns to slander the women who had allegedly been sexually and otherwise abused by her husband. How’s that for a gender gap?
- More recently, Hillary Clinton’s fundraising operation failed to properly disclose more than $2 million in contributions to her New York Senate 2000 campaign, leading to the federal criminal indictment of her top fundraiser (which resulted in acquittal after a weak prosecution of her patsy) and a $35,000 fine from the Federal Election Commission in response to a Judicial Watch complaint.
And who knows what Bill Clinton might do once he’s back in the White House. More cash from Chinese generals? More sexual assaults in the Oval Office kitchen? I could go on, but you get the point.
As Hillary steamrolls towards the White House, the American people have a right to know: Will she actively undermine the integrity of the office of the presidency, just as she disgraced the office of the first lady? Will she play loose with the law as president, just as she did as a Senate candidate and a First Lady? Will she again surround herself with the same corrupt members of the Clinton gang that took the White House to new ethical lows in the 1990s?
Hillary’s candidacy certainly won’t be the only vehicle for calling attention to the issue of public corruption. Indeed, Judicial Watch does not endorse nor oppose candidates for public office. We call ethical transgressions as we see them, no matter the party. In this regard, some of her potential opponents, such as Senators Barack Obama and John McCain have an ethical skeleton or two in their closets as well. It looks as if Obama may have had some Whitewater-type real estate dealings in Chicago. And the Keating Five scandal will never go away for Senator McCain. But it seems that Hillary Clinton will remain the most compelling example of a Washington politician who thinks she is above the law. Corruption was the issue in the 2006 elections. And it isn’t going away.
So there is much to discuss here today and we have an excellent panel to take on this topic:
Howard Phillips is a founding father of the modern American conservative movement. Since 1974, Howard has been Chairman of The Conservative Caucus (TCC), a non-partisan, nationwide grass-roots public policy advocacy group. Howard serves as President of the U.S. Taxpayers Institute, and Chairman of the U.S. Taxpayers Alliance. He is also the founder of the U.S. Taxpayers Party, now known as the Constitution Party.
Christopher Farrell serves as Judicial Watch’s Director of Investigations and Research. He is a former U.S. Army intelligence officer (specializing in counterintelligence and human intelligence), defense contractor and educator with extensive experience in government corruption, intelligence and terrorism matters. Chris is a member of Columbia University’s National Center for Disaster Preparedness and a constituent member of the U.S. State Department’s Overseas Security Advisory Council.
