Hillary's America: The Secret History of the Democratic Party (31 page)

This is how Red Bone seems to have orchestrated Hillary’s big score. Moreover, there was something very odd about Hillary’s mode of investing with Red Bone. Normally investors are required to keep a minimum
amount of cash in their accounts so that they can cover declines in the prices of the commodities futures they own. Hillary’s $1,000 investment was well below the $12,000 deposit required by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. In effect, Red Bone was covering for her so Hillary made money while taking no risk.

With the Clintons, there’s always a payback. Here the payback went to Red Bone’s former employer, “Big Daddy” Don Tyson, the chicken mogul of Arkansas. Tyson is the one who connected Red Bone and Hillary. And Tyson had important business before her husband, who had just been elected governor. During Clinton’s gubernatorial tenure Tyson benefited from millions of dollars in tax breaks, state loans, and the relaxation of environmental regulations.

In short, the $100,000 payoff to the Clintons was a bribe. Tyson wanted something from Bill, so they figured out a way to get money to Hillary. Now $100,000 may not seem like a very big payoff, but it was a handsome sum for the Clintons, representing more than their joint income for that year. So Tyson made off like a bandit, and the Clintons got their first taste of how to profit handsomely from their political influence.
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Once the Clintons got to the White House, they put up just about everything in there for sale. Want a job? How much will you give us for it? Want to jump up and down on the bed in the Lincoln Bedroom? Here’s our price. If you’re willing to fork over an appropriate sum, you can sit at the president’s table at the next state dinner or go jogging with him. Want a presidential pardon for your drug conviction or tax evasion? How much are you willing to pay?

Throughout the Clinton presidency, donors to the Clinton campaigns, the Clinton Foundation, or the Democratic Party were offered such perks as: two seats on Air Force One; six seats at private White House dinners; seats to White House events and ceremonies; spots on official delegations abroad; appointments to boards and commissions; dinners in the White House mess; and overnight stays in the Lincoln Bedroom. People who had never previously met Bill could, for an appropriate sum, dine at his table or go running with him.

Now it is customary for presidents to invite friends and donors to the White House. The Clintons, however, took this practice way beyond acceptable boundaries. Commerce Secretary Ron Brown frequently complained that he had become “a m*th*rf*ck*ng tour guide for Hillary” because foreign trade missions had become nothing more than payback trips for Clinton donors. The Clintons arranged for one fat-cat donor without any war experience to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
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They essentially converted White House hospitality into a product that was for sale. They had unofficial tags on each perk, and essentially donors could decide how much to give by perusing the Clinton price list. In a revealing statement, Bill Clinton said on March 7, 1997, “I don’t believe you can find any evidence of the fact that I changed government policy
solely
because of a contribution.”
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Here we see the business ethic of the man; he seems to think it perfectly acceptable to change policy as long as it is only
partly
because of a contribution.

Remember Travelgate? In May 1993, the entire Travel Office of the White House was fired. The move came as a surprise because these people had been handling travel matters for a long time. The official word was that they were incompetent. But a General Accounting Office inquiry showed that the Clintons wanted to turn over the travel business to her friends the Thomasons.

Once the scandal erupted, Hillary, in typical Clinton evasive style, claimed to know nothing about it. She said she had “no role in the decision to terminate the employments,” that she “did not know of the origin of the decision,” and that she did not “direct that any action be taken by anyone with regard to the travel office.”

But then a memo surfaced that showed Hillary was telling her usual lies. Written by Clinton aide David Watkins to chief of staff Mack McClarty, the memo noted that five days before the firings, Hillary had told Watkins, “We need those people out—we need our people in—we need the slots.” Watkins wrote that everyone knew “there would be hell to pay” if they failed to take “swift and decisive action in conformity with the First Lady’s wishes.”
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Independent counsel Richard Ray concluded after his investigation that Hillary had provided “factually false” testimony to the GAO, the Independent Counsel, and Congress. He decided, however, not to prosecute her. This would be the first, but not the last, time Hillary’s crimes would go unchecked by the long arm of the law. Just as Bill kept up his predatory behavior toward women because he was never arrested for it, Hillary kept up her moneymaking crime schemes because she was never indicted for any of them. In essence, the Clintons’ behavior was encouraged by lack of accountability.

THE GREAT PARDON SALE

In the waning days of the Clinton administration, Bill pardoned a long list of drug traffickers, fugitives, tax cheats, relatives, and friends who had fallen afoul of the law. The details can be found in Barbara Olson’s
The Final
Days. As Olson documents, some of these crooks were longtime Clinton and Democratic Party donors. Others became new donors—following their exoneration, they turned around and dispatched large sums of cash to the Clintons, the Clinton Library, or other Clinton causes.

The Clintons, for example, pardoned drug kingpin Carlos Vignali and also Almon Glenn Braswell, an herbal remedy magnate convicted of mail fraud and perjury. Braswell was a millionaire who supported Democratic Party projects, and Vignali’s family had funneled large amounts of money to the Democratic Party since Carlos’s imprisonment in 1994. Moreover, Hillary’s brother Hugh Rodham pressed for the pardons and received $400,000 in fees for helping to secure them. Hillary said she had no idea that Hugh stood to gain from the deal. She called on him to return the money, but Hugh didn’t think that was a good idea.

The Gregory brothers, Edgar and Vonna Jo, from Brentwood, Tennessee, owned United Shows of America. They were convicted in 1982 on charges of bank fraud. Upon their release, they became buddies of the Clintons, spending time with them at Camp David. They even organized White House parties in 1998 and 2000. Longtime contributors to
the Clintons—including to Hillary’s Senate campaign in 2000—the Gregorys also gave $35,000 to the Democratic National Committee in 1998, and $50,000 in 2000. Of course, Clinton pardoned them.

Once again, a Hillary relative was involved. Hillary’s other brother Tony Rodham had struck a deal with the Gregorys, as they later confessed. The two brothers admitted approaching Tony Rodham to help them, and confessed to paying him while declining to specify how much. The Gregorys issued a statement that said, “We have a business contract with Tony Rodham. The compensation definitely fits the work he’s done. He has not been overpaid.”

Joseph Hendrick, a North Carolina automobile dealer, was convicted of mail fraud in a racket involving millions in cash and jewels that he gave to executives at Honda Motor Company in exchange for favorable treatment from those executives. Hendrick is a close friend and former business associate of Hugh McColl, chairman of Bank of America. Two weeks before he got his pardon from the Clintons, the Bank of America’s charitable foundation pledged $50,000 to the Clinton Library. Of course the Bank denied any connection between the gift and the pardon, but as the Greek saying goes,
res ipsa loquitur
, which means “the thing speaks for itself.”

In the late 1990s Clinton’s agriculture secretary Mike Espy was accused of illegally accepting gifts from major food corporations, notably from Clinton’s old buddy John Tyson. Tyson got immunity for cooperating with the investigation. Espy was acquitted, but two Tyson Foods employees were sentenced to prison. The Clintons pardoned them, no doubt continuing the favor swapping with the Tyson group.

Longtime Clinton pal Jesse Jackson—who was summoned to advise Clinton in the wake of the Lewinsky scandal, even though he was carrying on his own affair with an aide at the time—successfully sought a pardon for his buddy, former congressman Mel Reynolds, who along with two aides had been sentenced to prison for bank and wire fraud. Reynolds had also served a two-year term for having sex with a teenager. One can see how Bill might identify with both Jackson and Reynolds.

Jackson also prevailed on the Clintons to pardon Dorothy Rivers, a former top official at Jackson’s Rainbow-PUSH Coalition. In 1997, Rivers pleaded guilty to stealing $1.2 million in federal grants following her indictment for fraud, theft, tax evasion, obstruction of justice, and making false statements. She took money intended for the homeless to buy a fur coat, a Mercedes for her son, and clothes and gifts for her live-in boyfriend. Clinton pardoned her as well.

Clinton advisors William Kennedy III, David Dreyer, and James Hamilton got clemency for various cocaine traffickers, money launderers, and tax cheats who happened to be Clinton supporters and Democratic donors. Clinton also pardoned his former Housing Secretary Henry Cisneros, who made secret payments to his mistress Linda Jones and then misled the FBI about them. The Clintons pardoned both Cisneros and his mistress.

Harry Thomason convinced Clinton to grant pardons to two Arkansas tax evaders, and DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe successfully pressed Clinton to pardon lobbyist James Lake, convicted of masterminding an unlawful campaign contribution scheme.

Are we done yet? Actually, no. The Clintons pardoned Christopher Wade, a real estate agent involved in Whitewater who concealed his assets in a bankruptcy case and pleaded guilty to fraud charges. President Clinton also pardoned Art and Doug Borel, a couple of Arkansas crooks who were caught rolling back the odometers on used cars.

The Clintons’ most notorious pardon involved Marc Rich, a wealthy financier and oil trader whose customers included Fidel Castro, Muammar Qaddafi and Ayatollah Khomeini. Rich faced life in prison for illegally trading with the government of Iran and for evading $48 million in taxes. These crimes got him on the FBI Most Wanted List. Rich fled to Switzerland with his ex-wife Denise and his business partner.

Denise pressed the Clintons for a pardon. Bill said he was having difficulties even though he was “doing all possible to turn around” the White House counsel who objected to the idea. Eventually Rich got his pardon, but only after Denise Rich gave $100,000 to Hillary Clinton’s 2000 New York Senate campaign, $450,000 to the Clinton Library, and
more than $1 million to the Democratic Party. She also gave the Clintons several items of furniture for their post–White House digs and in November 2000 presented Bill with a gold saxophone.

At the time, the pardons stirred outrage. Even the
Washington Post
—usually friendly to the Clintons—said the “defining characteristic” of the Clintons was that “they have no capacity for embarrassment.” In a rare break with party unity, Democrats condemned the Clintons’ behavior. Former president Jimmy Carter said it was “disgraceful.” Congressman Barney Frank called it “contemptuous” and “unjustified” and a “real betrayal” by the Clintons.

Given the heat the Clintons took over Marc Rich, one might expect them to feel a bit remorseful, if not out of conscience—this may be expecting too much—then at least out of the tactical realization that this one backfired on them. The Clintons, however, have never backed down. Bill even wrote a disingenuous self-defense in the
New York Times
falsely claiming that respected attorneys Leonard Garment, William Bradford Reynolds, and Lewis Libby had approved the Rich pardon. As the
Times
subsequently wrote in an editorial disclaimer, this was not true.
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How can we explain the Clintons’ unyielding obstinacy in the Rich case? Peter Schweizer seems to have figured it out. Schweizer recently revealed that in the years since Rich’s pardon, millions more have flowed from Rich and his associates to the Clintons and the Clinton Foundation. Russian investor Sergei Kurzin—who worked for Rich in the 1990s looking for investment opportunities in the former Soviet Union—donated $1 million to the Clinton Foundation. Other Rich cronies gave smaller amounts.

The big payoff, however, came from Rich’s close friend and business associate Gilbert Chagoury. Chagoury was convicted in Geneva of money laundering and aiding criminal organizations in connection with billions stolen from Nigeria during the reign of dictator Sani Abacha. As a result of a plea deal, however, Chagoury got his conviction expunged from the record. Chagoury paid Bill Clinton $100,000 to speak in 2003,
donated millions to the Clinton Foundation, and in 2009 pledged a whopping $1 billion to the Clinton Global Initiative.
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In retrospect, the Rich pardon was the Clintons’ most lucrative pardon sale and the initial contributions from Denise Rich to the Clintons and the Democrats were merely a down payment.

The Clintons’ last act before leaving the White House was to take stuff that didn’t belong to them. The Clintons took china, furniture, electronics, and art worth around $360,000. Hillary literally went through the rooms of the White House with an aide, pointing to things that she wanted taken down from shelves or out of cabinets or off the wall. By Clinton theft standards $360,000 is not a big sum, but it certainly underlines the couple’s insatiable greed—these people are not bound by conventional limits of propriety or decency.

When the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee blew the whistle on this misappropriation, the Clintons first claimed that the stuff was given to them as gifts. Unfortunately for Hillary, gifts given to a president belong to the White House—they are not supposed to be spirited away by the first lady. The Clintons finally agreed to return $28,000 worth of gifts and reimburse the government $95,000, representing a fraction of the value of what they took.