By Tom Fitton

Allegations made against Hillary Clinton for campaign finance fraud are at least as serious as charges made against House Majority Leader Tom DeLay.  Evidence of her complicity in a scheme to flout campaign finance laws is strong and now in the hands of the Justice Department.  The scandal has already claimed her National Finance Director, David Rosen, who faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted of causing false reports to be filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC).

So why hasn’t the U.S. Senate initiated an ethics investigation of Senator Clinton in accordance with its own rules?

House Majority Leader DeLay has been caught in the eye of an ethics firestorm for more than a year, while Senator Clinton’s ethical and legal transgressions have been largely ignored.  To date, investigative authorities have no known plans to indict Senator Clinton.  Members of the Senate, for their part, have thus far failed to hold her to account, which is curious given the fact that false campaign finance reports filed by Senate candidates are generally considered to be a fraud upon the Senate.  (The Secretary of the Senate serves as custodian of Senate candidates’ campaign finance reports.)

In response to this congressional negligence, Judicial Watch recently filed a complaint with the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Ethics against Hillary Rodham Clinton for her role in the campaign finance scandal that led to the indictment of her top fundraiser.  (Rosen’s federal criminal trial began on May 10.)

Judicial Watch’s ethics complaint relates to a $2 million 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.”

What evidence has Judicial Watch compiled to support this claim?

According to sworn documents, during pre-event negotiations, Senator Clinton intervened personally to convince a Hollywood producer responsible for the concert portion of the gala to reduce his price by $50,000.  Mr. and Mrs. Clinton made at least three personal phone calls to Mr. Paul to thank him for underwriting the event, in addition to the personal thank you notes they sent to Mr. Paul, acknowledging the “boost’ his contributions gave to Senator Clinton’s campaign.

Aaron Tonken, who helped produce the event, has stated 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.”

Moreover, Hillary Clinton and her campaign were served with a 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.

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’s 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.