By Tom Fitton
At the outset of the trial of David Rosen, Senator Clinton’s National Finance Director, the government said that it would present no evidence Hillary Clinton was involved in the campaign finance scandal in “any way shape or form.” They were wrong.
Projected on a large screen in court, prosecutors showed jurors an ABC News “20/20” report, including video of former JW client Peter Paul side-by-side with Bill and Hillary Clinton. A picture in this case was certainly worth a thousand words, and there is no doubt viewing the ABC program who is truly at the center of this scandal and this trial – Hillary Rodham Clinton and her partner in crime, Bill Clinton.
Moreover, witnesses for the prosecution have implicated the Clintons in the scheme to defraud the U.S. Senate and the Federal Election Commission (FEC) by underreporting the cost of a gala fundraising event for Senator Clinton in August 2000. This is a story that is being largely ignored by the mainstream media.
On May 12, former Chicago-based strip club owner Jim Levin, who described himself as a “dear friend” of Bill Clinton, testified that he directly reported to the former president on issues pertaining to the fundraiser. While Levin also testified that he did not discuss the cost of the gala “before the event,” no lawyers asked the obvious follow-up question as to whether the costs were discussed after the event. This, of course, is the natural conclusion of Levin’s statement.
On May 17, Chris Fickes, Rosen’s assistant on the gala, testified that top level members of Hillary Clinton’s campaign staff, including Capricia Marshall, who once served as Hillary Clinton’s social secretary at the White House, were well aware of the logistics of the event.
On May 18, Ray Reggie, the Democrat fundraiser who has Rosen on tape admitting he underreported the gala costs, testified that Hillary Clinton personally chose the vendor to produce the concert portion of the event. When asked about his relationship with Bill Clinton, Reggie replied, “I did and do” have a relationship with President Clinton. (The government, to the shock of the Clinton-appointed judge in the case, refused to introduce Reggie’s tapes as evidence.)
Of course, even before witnesses took the stand in the Rosen trial, Judicial Watch had compiled persuasive evidence Hillary Clinton had full knowledge of the costs associated with the event. Aaron Tonken, who helped produce the event, testified that shortly before the November 2000 election, “I told [Hillary Clinton] about virtually every penny I’d ever spent on her behalf. I let her know what I was doing and had done for each event of hers.”
Judicial Watch also served Hillary Clinton and her campaign with a legal complaint in early July 2001, in which Mr. Paul challenged Senator Clinton’s failure to report his expenditures for the August 2000 event. Approximately two weeks later, the Clinton campaign responded to a request from the FEC for more information about the event, but failed to address the glaring omission of Mr. Paul’s contributions.
Apparently, Hillary Clinton’s participation in this campaign finance scandal is a political hot potato no one seems to want to touch. The Justice Department has no plans, to date, to indict Senator Clinton. Furthermore, Hillary Clinton’s colleagues in the Senate have, thus far, refused to investigate Senator Clinton.
Judicial Watch recently filed a complaint with the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Ethics against Hillary Rodham Clinton for her role in defrauding the.
Judicial Watch's ethics complaint relates to a $2 mllion contribution made to Senator Clinton's 2000 Senate campaign by former Judicial Watch client Peter Paul in the form of a "Hollywood Tribute to William Jefferson Clinton" on August 12, 2000. Contrary to promises made by Mrs. Clinton's campaign, Mr. Paul's contribution was never properly reported to the FEC.
In fact, Hillary Clinton and her campaign team went to extraordinary lengths to hide the true costs of the event. For instance, at one point, Rosen instructed a member of the gala planning team to obtain a fictitious invoice for $200,000, when he knew the production costs were substantially higher, and then faxed the false information to the FEC.
Judicial Watch is calling upon the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Ethics to investigate and discipline Hillary Clinton for the personal role she played in the plan to skirt campaign finance laws. “At all relevant times,” Judicial Watch wrote in its complaint, “Senator Clinton and her campaign knew and understood that Mr. Paul was spending well over $1 million, not including substantial amounts of Mr. Paul’s own time and resources, on the Hollywood Tribute.”
Time and time again, Hillary Clinton has defied the rule of law, from the effort to steal the private FBI files of former Bush and Reagan staffers, to the scheme to sell influence to the Chinese in exchange for campaign contributions, to this most recent campaign finance scandal. This is a pattern that will certainly continue so long as she is allowed a free pass from her colleagues in the Senate.
It is time now for the U.S. Senate to finally enforce its ethics rules and to investigate and discipline Hillary Clinton. No one is more deserving of such scrutiny.
Tom Fitton is president of Judicial Watch, Inc., a 501(c)(3) non-profit educational foundation that fights government corruption and judicial abuse.