The media's
blackout of this story demonstrates how Senator Clinton
is once
again benefiting from the protection provided by the
mainstream media. At the very least, she ought to be asked
what she thinks of her brother's legal predicament. And
if she won't answer, they should ask Bill Clinton about
it.
The story
takes us back to the end of husband Clinton's second term
in office, when he made a number of very dubious pardons,
some for significant amounts of cash. Hillary's brother
Tony had received $244,769 in salary, and loans totaling
over $100,000 from people who were granted presidential
pardons. According to the suit, he didn't pay them back.
The bankruptcy
filings are for a carnival company based in Tennessee,
United Shows, which originally filed for bankruptcy protection
in 2002. In a related document filed last year, Rodham
was said to have "received the benefit of the loans without
making any repayment." According to the Times, he claimed
to work for the company as a consultant. He denied that
any money he took was to lobby the White House, or seek
pardons. The owners of the company were Edgar Gregory,
Jr. and his wife Vonna Jo Gregory, who were both "convicted
of bank fraud in 1982 on charges of illegally giving loans
to friends." Mr. Gregory died in 2004.
In 2002,
The House Government Reform Committee issued
a report titled "Justice Undone: Clemency Decisions
in the Clinton White House." The report said that Tony
Rodham used his influence to seek pardons for the Gregorys,
and received nearly $250,000 in salary and $79,000 in loans
from them. It said that the loans were consolidated into
a single note, due in December 2001. The committee said
that Mr. Gregory had no documentation detailing the work
that Rodham supposedly had performed.
Hillary's
other brother, Hugh Rodham, an attorney, ended up returning
about $400,000 that he had received "for lobbying for a
presidential pardon and prison commutation for two clients," the
Times said.
Clinton's
most famous pardon was given to fugitive financier Marc
Rich. That was apparently the first time that someone who
had fled the country and remained a fugitive, rather than
face justice, had received a presidential pardon. A 2005
article from Business Week provided a detailed account
of what Rich had done, and how he has schemed and manipulated
his way to an estimated net worth of $8 billion, by skillfully
trading with every outlaw regime, including Iraq under
Saddam Hussein.
Before
he was pardoned, his companies pled guilty to 78 counts
of fraud and corruption and paid more than $150 million
in fines. But when he couldn't negotiate a deal to pay
up to another $100 million in fines for tax evasion and
other white collar crimes, in order to stay out of jail,
he refused to come back to the U.S. In the meantime, his
ex-wife Denise Rich raised over $1 million and gave it
to the Democratic National Committee, plus tens of thousands
more to the Clinton legal defense fund, the Clinton Library,
and other such causes.
These
are some of the issues that could hang over Mrs. Clinton's
presidential ambitions, if the media should choose to examine
them. But that's a big "if." CRO
The America Show
