Hillary Ethics Probe?
 

Of course now that the Republicans are scared to death that their faithful Tom Delay might actually get punished for his ethics violations--the right wings have decided to turn the focus on Sen Hillary Clinton..

Here's the story, I didnt see it posted anywhere yet sorry if it has been :

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LOS ANGELES (May 10) - The federal trial of David Rosen promises to be one that political insiders will watch with interest. Jury selection was scheduled to begin Tuesday in the case against Rosen, a former finance director for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The case could provide ammunition to Republicans seeking to derail her re-election next year and potential 2008 bid for the White House.

Rosen is accused of filing false campaign finance statements in connection with a gala fundraiser for Clinton's successful 2000 senatorial campaign. Rosen has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison and up to $250,000 in fines. Clinton, a New York Democrat, has not been accused of doing anything illegal.

An FBI agent's 2002 affidavit said the costs of the gala were deliberately understated "to increase the amount of funds available to New York Senate 2000 for federal campaign activities." However, Justice Department officials recently said they need not prove a possible motive by Rosen.

The organization Judicial Watch, which has pushed officials to look into the fundraiser, filed paperwork with the Senate Ethics Committee on Monday saying Clinton had to have known of the alleged misreporting.

Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton argued that Clinton closely monitored the Hollywood fundraiser and knew its actual cost was much greater than the $400,000 tab reported in campaign financial filings.

"They're false and she knows them to be false," Fitton said. He equated her situation with the ethics controversy surrounding House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, who has been criticized for privately funded travel.

Clinton adviser Howard Wolfson on Monday called Judicial Watch's complaint "a meritless publicity stunt by a thoroughly discredited right-wing attack group."

Questions about the fundraiser surfaced after Peter F. Paul, a three-time convicted felon who pleaded guilty in March to securities fraud charges, told the FBI he gave hundreds of thousands of dollars that Clinton's campaign didn't report. He told prosecutors he spent $1.1 million, but Rosen reported the amount as $400,000.

Judicial Watch took the unusual step of providing legal defense work in Paul's criminal case, but Paul later broke with the group, complaining they were using him to raise money from conservatives opposed to the Clintons.


05/10/05 08:46 EDT

If they can prove she knew, she is trouble. But, so far they cannot prove anything and, importantly, she is a VERY smart woman and I find it hard to believe she would jeapordize somnething for money when she and her husband so easily raise it. AND - the wire the FBI planted on Ted Kennedy's brother in law Ray Reggie, 43, (his sister Victoria, who married Kennedy in 1992 and his father Fed. Judge Edmond Reggie - part of the Crowley Louisiana mafia including former Gov. Edwin Edwards (incarverated) and former Sen. John Breaux (hardly a bastion of ethics) - I believe went to jail for a host of offenses) during which she talked freely about everyone allegedly about drugs, sex, etc. - well that will never see the light of day as far as almost all are concerned. But, this has yet to play out. Personally, I find it hard to believe that she, like Delay, is totally innocent of all knowledge. Also, while I thinkl Delay is an ass, he hardly did anything significantly different than almost all of them do - so I think it is a little unfair to single him out even though I despise him and think he is a liar and a thief.

Here is the newsmax article. The majors, except O'Reilly on Fox, have yet to pick it up in any significant manner, but word on the street is the Clinton's, the Kennedy's, and a few major R and D's are calling in favors for them to gloss over it.

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2...22/93802.shtml

Friday, April 22, 2005 8:12 a.m. EDT
Kennedy In-Law Secretly Taped Hillary Aide

Sen. Ted Kennedy's brother-in-law, who pled guilty to bank fraud charges yesterday in New Orleans, secretly tape recorded former top Hillary Clinton campaign aide David Rosen - and may have taped Hillary herself - as part of an FBI probe into an Aug. 12, 2000 gala fundraiser for Mrs. Clinton's Senate campaign.

Ray Reggie, the brother of Kennedy's wife Victoria Reggie, was identified by prosecutors yesterday as the confidential witness who had been cooperating with investigators for three years as part of his bank fraud plea bargain.

"I wasn't sure if anybody made any of these connections yet or not," Assistant U.S. Attorney in New Orleans, Jan Mann, told the New York Sun, which first reported the wiretapping on Thursday.
Prosecutors say Rosen, who served as finance chairman for Mrs. Clinton's 2000 Senate race, "made a number of incriminating statements" on the Reggie tapes, which they intend to introduce at his trial, set to begin on May 3.

In an indictment announced in January, Rosen was charged with hiding from the Federal Election Commission hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the related to the Hollywood gala.

Mr. Reggie traveled extensively with both Bill and Hillary Clinton, put together fundraisers for the former first couple and was an overnight guest at the Clinton White House.

During a June 2000 White House visit, the Clintons and the Reggies stayed up late into the night "chatting," the New York Post said.

Asked if Reggie may have also recorded one or both of the Clintons, attorney David Kendall "had no immediate response," the Sun said. The key government witness was "wearing a wire and making secret tapes as recently as last December," the Post said.

Another key witness in the probe, celebrity fundraiser Aaron Tonken, says the FBI asked him to record his conversations with Mrs. Clinton, in a bid to gather evidence about the Aug. 2000 fundraiser, which Tonken helped produce.

But Clinton insiders suspected he was cooperating with investigators and refused to take his calls.

If Mrs. Clinton was captured on tape making comments indicating she knew the extent of Rosen's alleged misdeeds, it could have a devastating impact on her plans to run for president in 2008.

Both Tonken and Hollywood mogul Peter Paul - who bankrolled the Clinton gala - say they personally apprised the top Democrat about the costs of the fundraiser.

"I told her about virtually every penny I'd spent on her behalf," Tonken recalled in his recent book "King of Cons."

"I told her about the money and what a pleasure it was to spend it on her [Senate] candidacy."

Mr. Paul says Mrs. Clinton was even involved in trying to trim some of the event's production costs.

"Hillary Clinton personally called the producer of the concert part of this event," he told Fox News Channel's Eric Shawn last November.

"She asked him to lower the fee that he was charging of $850,000 at my request. So I don't understand how she could possibly say that she didn't know" about the costs.

Here is one from Newsday, but it is an AP article, which has more credibility:

Trial involving Senator Clinton's ex-staffer to start in LA

By PAUL CHAVEZ
Associated Press Writer

May 10, 2005, 1:52 AM EDT

LOS ANGELES -- A federal criminal trial involving a former finance director for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton will be watched by Republicans seeking to derail her re-election next year and potential 2008 bid for the White House.

Jury selection was scheduled to begin Tuesday for the trial against Clinton's former finance director, David Rosen. He is accused of filing false campaign finance statements in connection with the fundraiser for Clinton's successful 2000 senatorial campaign.

Rosen has pleaded not guilty to the charges. If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison and up to $250,000 in fines.

The conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch on Monday urged a Senate panel to investigate Clinton in connection with the fundraiser.

Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton argued that Clinton closely monitored the Hollywood fundraiser and knew its actual cost was much greater than the $400,000 tab reported in campaign financial filings.

Prosecutors claim that Rosen knew that "in-kind" contributions for the event exceeded $1.1 million.

"They're false and she knows them to be false," Fitton said. He equated her situation with the ethics controversy surrounding House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, who has been criticized for privately funded travel.

Clinton adviser Howard Wolfson called Judicial Watch's complaint "a meritless publicity stunt by a thoroughly discredited right-wing attack group."

An FBI agent's 2002 affidavit said the costs were deliberately understated "to increase the amount of funds available to New York Senate 2000 for federal campaign activities."

Justice Department officials, however, recently said they do not need to prove a possible motive by Rosen. The Democratic senator has not been charged.

The trial, which is expected to last about 10 days, will include testimony from Raymond Reggie, a prominent political consultant whose sister is married to Sen. Edward Kennedy. Prosecutors have not named Reggie, but two sources familiar with the case said he is the "cooperating witness" identified in court documents who wore a wire on behalf of the government.

Reggie also is listed in a proposed questionnaire that will be presented to jurors to determine if they know any of the key players in the case.

Others on the questionnaire include longtime Hillary Clinton aide Kelly Craighead; comic book legend Stan Lee, who was an official host of the fundraiser and Peter Paul, who told the FBI he gave hundreds of thousands of dollars that Clintons' campaign didn't report.

___

Associated Press Writer Devlin Barret in Washington contributed to this report.


Copyright 2005 Newsday Inc.

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wi...gion-apnewyork

I realize the rather hienous nature of both of those sources, but I am having trouble finding on google a main stream media outlet that picked it up.

Similarly, here is one from The NY Post:

TED KENNEDY'S IN-LAW SPIED ON THE CLINTONS
By DEBORAH ORIN and IAN BISHOP in D.C. & HOWARD BREUER in L.A.

Sen. Ted Kennedy's brother-in-law is the mystery witness who raised $100,000 for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and then went undercover and wore a wire to help the feds nab one of her top moneymen on charges of fund-raising-fraud, The Post has learned.

The witness, Ray Reggie, 43, has a sister, Victoria, who married Kennedy in 1992, and prosecutors say Reggie secretly recorded "incriminating" statements made by David Rosen, a top Clinton fund-raiser.

Reggie was close enough to Bill and Hillary Clinton to sleep over at the White House in 2000 and stay up chatting with the first couple into the wee hours.

Sources tell The Post that he is the "cooperating witness" — described but not named in recent court papers — and that he is likely to testify at Rosen's May 3 trial as part of a plea deal struck with federal prosecutors.

The well-connected Reggie stayed undercover for nearly 21/2 years, helping the feds on multiple probes, and was still wearing a wire and making secret tapes as recently as last December, federal documents show.

Reggie hobnobbed at the very top Democratic levels. A month after he'd raised $100,000 for Hillary Clinton's Senate campaign in 2000, Bill Clinton invited him to a state dinner for the king of Morocco — and a sleepover at the White House.

Reggie told The Times-Picayune of New Orleans that he and his wife later got a post-midnight knock on their bedroom door. The Clintons had come to chat.

Yesterday, Reggie, a Democratic campaign consultant who worked for both Clintons and for Al Gore, pleaded guilty in New Orleans to unrelated multimillion-dollar bank-fraud charges.

Because of Reggie's high profile, prosecutors in the Rosen case sought to shield his name and identified him only as "CW," for "cooperating witness," in court documents filed in Los Angeles, where Rosen's trial is set to take place.

"The CW is related to an extremely and well-known political figure," federal Prosecutor Peter Zeidenberg wrote in a November 2004 memo asking a federal magistrate to keep Reggie's name secret.

"It can be expected that the fact that CW was working in an undercover capacity for the FBI will become the subject of intense media," the statement added.

Zeidenberg works for the U.S. Justice Department's public-integrity section. Yesterday, the head of that section, Noel Hillman, declined comment.

The existence of the "CW" memo — but not the name of the mystery witness or the fact that he is Ted Kennedy's brother-in-law — was revealed in yesterday's New York Sun.

Rosen, the Clinton moneyman, has been charged with underreporting the costs of a posh Hollywood fund-raising gala for Hillary Clinton on Aug. 12, 2000.

Hillary Clinton has stood behind her top fund-raiser, and sources told The Post this year that she is not expected to be charged.

The prosecutor's declaration, on file in Los Angeles, says the CW "agreed to wear a recording device and engage in a conversation with [Rosen] about the Aug. 12, 2000, Hollywood gala."

Reggie met with Rosen in a Chicago restaurant "and engaged in an extended conversation, all of which was secretly recorded," according to the declaration.

It adds: "During the course of this conversation, defendant Rosen made a number of incriminating statements, which the government intends to introduce against him at trial."

http://www.nypost.com/php/pfriendly/pfriendly_new.php

thanks for the info strand

chris

Man - Repubs are doing all they can to get this woman out...they seem to be scared to death of her...

stophernow.com

That is a site launced by New York Repubs...

You know you're right...I find it so intriquing and fascinating that the Republicans seem so deathly afraid of a Hillary campaign..it's hilarious...

I mean one second they say "Shes terrible for the democratic party, she doesnt stand a chance as a Presidential nominee" and the next second they scramble to ruin her...it's quite funny how they seem so scared of any campaign that has to do with a Clinton.

Chris