|
 Partito
Nostro
Doing Business with the Clinton Syndicate...
[Justin
Darr] 3/21/06
In the final
years of the Clinton Presidency, Hollywood producer and entrepreneur,
Peter Paul, attempted to recruit outgoing President Bill Clinton to take
a seat on the Board of Directors of Stan Lee Media, the innovative on-line
animation company Paul co-founded in 1999.
Paul’s
motives were simple. He wanted to “…hire an ex-President
to promote a company that inspired and motivated adolescents.” To
accomplish this, Paul organized an offer to Clinton of $17
million in cash, stock, and donations to the Clinton Library.
Well worth the price when you consider the notoriety and prestige
Stan Lee Media would have gained if Clinton joined the company.
Contributor
Justin Darr
Justin
Darr is a freelance writer from the Philadelphia area
where he lives with this wife, Erin, twin children
, a mouse, three cats, and a spoiled dog named Xena.
Darr is a staff writer for The New Media Alliance a proud
member of the Moveoff Network. His website is at www.justindarr.com[Darr index] |
However, what Peter Paul got was a guided tour of the putrid
underbelly of Clintonian politics. A place where the powerful
openly manipulate our justice and political systems for their
own personal gain, conspire to destroy anyone who stands in their
way. They systematically ignore the laws, and standards of morality
and common decency that apply to the rest of us. Peter Paul discovered
the hard way that there are two systems of justice in America:
One for the Clintons, and another for the rest of us.
Hillary Clinton
hid Paul’s contributions
of over $1.2 million to her campaign from the F.E.C. and denied
she even knew
Paul. When the smoke cleared, Hillary was elected to the Senate
while Paul's company was forced into bankruptcy and he personally
lost $1.2 million dollars. All because he wanted to 'sell some
super heroes'
A survey
of the major players in the case of Peter Paul shows just how
deeply Bill and Hillary Clinton,
their closest associates,
and some of the most prominent officials in the Democratic Party,
have allowed corruption to infect our political process. They
may have impressive titles, but take those away and the Clinton
Political Syndicate is nothing more than a gang of street thugs… with
one key difference, the government will do nothing to stop them.
The Hustler.
You would
think it would be fairly easy to get noticed if you were offering
someone $17 million to come work
with you. No so
in the case of Bill Clinton. In order for Peter Paul just to
gain access to President Clinton’s associates so he could
begin talking to them about talking to Clinton for him, he first
had to deal with the Democratic Party’s main moneyman,
Chairman on the Democratic National Committee, now Pennsylvania
Governor, Ed Rendell. Paul met Rendell at a fundraiser, where
he proposed his idea about Clinton joining Stan Lee Media. Rendell,
long time veteran of the Philadelphia “Pay for Play” system
where kickbacks, bribes, and back room deals with corrupt politicians
are the price of doing business, told him quite bluntly that
in order to get his proposal to Clinton, he would have to pay
up. For starters, $30,000 to co-host a DNC fundraiser on February
17, 2000, featuring Bill Clinton as the key note speaker, at
Café De Artistes, in Hollywood.
At the fundraiser, Paul was seated with Bill, however, by now
the hustle was on. Rendell approached Paul and told him that
in order to get even more access to the President, he would have
to come up with even more cash and offer to hold a Clinton fundraising
event in his home. But that was not all. In April 2000, Rendell
also asked Paul for an additional $150,000 to underwrite and
produce yet another fundraiser, this time for Al Gore, in June
2000.
While producing
the “Hollywood Supports Gore” fundraiser,
Rendell was back again asking Paul for yet another $150,000,
this time to underwrite a fundraiser at Spago Restaurant for
Hillary Clinton. Paul ended up paying $32,000 in expenses related
to the luncheon, in addition to the $150,000 he pledged, but
now he could at least get to talk to Hillary about Paul’s
deal with Bill.
Finally,
after over a quarter of a million dollars spent in campaign
donations and event promotions, Rendell arranged
with
the Secret Service to have Paul’s deal mentioned to President
Clinton in person.
Unlike many other political donors, Peter Paul was not politically
motivated in his donations. He was seeking out a business relationship
with an outgoing President. Rendell opened the door for Paul
to get his offer to the President, but also lined the pockets
of the DNC, Al Gore, and Hillary Clinton campaigns in the process.
Curiously, reporting none of it to the F.E.C.
The Shill.
The relationship between Bill and Hillary Clinton is a complex,
some would say incomprehensible one. It is obvious that while
most couples’ marriages exist for the purpose of creating
a family and happiness, the Clinton marriage has existed only
to produce power.
Maintaining
power, and keeping themselves in the limelight, was the only
thing Bill and Hillary Clinton
were thinking about
as the Clinton Presidency ended. Just as Hillary was pushing
aside Monica Lewinski’s blue dress, Bill was pushing aside
his Vice President, Al Gore, so he could focus more completely
on getting his wife into the Senate.
This was a larger task than many imagine. While Hillary is one
of the most popular political figures in the country, her support
tends to be diffused along national, rather than regional lines.
Lacking a preexisting geographic base, the Clintons had to shop
for a venue with a sufficient number of liberal voters to elect
Hillary into office.
The problem
was that most of these liberal areas already had liberal Senators
representing them: California,
both seats taken;
Massachusetts, both seats taken; the Clinton’s home for
decades, Arkansas, well, they were happy to see Hillary leave
and the feeling was mutual. Luckily, there was one seat open
in one blue state, New York, and that, coincidentally, was where
the Clintons decided to “retire” after leaving the
White House.
The second
problem for Hillary’s Senate run was funding.
Most people running for Senate are political veterans who already
have established organizations in place to produce political
donations from local sources. Hillary did not have the time,
or desire, to build up a grass roots organization. Hillary, never
fond of getting down with the “dirty nail” crowd,
chose, instead, to solicit funding for her campaign through her
existing network of special interest groups and large block donations
generated from mega fundraisers scattered across the nation.
Who better to drive this national fundraising effort than the
popular two term President Clinton?
The left’s
enthusiasm for Bill Clinton is something rarely seen outside
of religious cults. During
the Clinton years, the
sun was a little brighter; the grass a little greener, and cherry
soda was pumped through all the drinking fountains, according
to the left.
In the final
months of his Presidency, Clinton supporters would do anything
to make the claim that they had
a piece of the Clinton
legacy. Whether it was a weekend in the Lincoln Bedroom, seeing
him speak, or stealing all the pens and toothpaste (and probably
floor mats) off Air Force One, everyone wanted something that
said “I was there when Clinton was king.”
Clinton exploited
this by using access to himself to generate revenue for Hillary’s political ambitions. Want to hear
Clinton talk about the price of tea in China? No freebies here,
shell out a grand to the benefit of Hillary 2000. Whether Clinton’s
fans supported Hillary or not, they were all willing to pay to
see Bill.
No small time tea and sandwich events either. Hillary likes
her money in big chunks, preferably from big name donors who
might impress people into voting for her.
Where better to find supporters like this than Hollywood, California?
And, who better to organize events like this than respected
Hollywood producer Peter Paul?
After initial
contacts, Bill Clinton agreed to accept Paul’s
$17 million deal to join Stan Lee Media. However, Clinton’s
agreement came with a caveat. Help Hillary win the Senate, or
there is no deal.
Peter Paul
responded by organizing the largest Senate political fundraiser
in history. “The Hollywood Tribute” was
also the largest single private concert in history, featuring
the talents of Cher, Michael Bolton, Diana Ross, and Paul Anka,
among others. Tickets to attend the concert were $1000 each,
with an additional offer of attending the concert and dinner
with the Clintons for $25,000 a couple. In all, over 1,200 people
attended the concert with 350 staying for dinner, raising over
$1.1 million in donations. This event was billed as Bill Clinton’s
goodbye to Hollywood as President, and his supporters turned
out in droves with their pocket books open. However, the beneficiary
of this concert was not Bill Clinton, or his Presidential Library,
by the Senate campaign of his wife.
The Triggerman.
After the initial contacts with President Clinton regarding Paul’s
offer to join Stan Lee Media, Clinton indicated that he would
prefer if Paul would deal directly with his close friend and
associate, Jim Levin, rather than himself.
Jim Levin,
the former owner of “The Doll House,” a
Chicago top-less bar that nationally popularized the trend of
strip clubs offering lap dances to their patrons, filled many
roles in the Clinton White House.
In addition
to serving on Hillary’s fundraising committee,
Levin played prominently in the Al Gore Presidential campaign,
raising money for the Clinton Library, and was allegedly “the
lap dance provider to the President.”
In any other
organization, a person with Jim Levin’s background
would be considered an embarrassment, or at least a hindrance
to the group’s public image. However, in the Clinton White
House, Jim Levin was considered a personal friend and confidant.
A person with such a low standard of ethics that he could be
counted on to do the Clinton’s dirty work.
After Levin
presented the President with Paul’s official
written offer to join Stan Lee Media, Levin returned the message
to Paul that the President had accepted the offer subject to
Paul’s underwriting and producing a major fundraising event
for the benefit of Hillary’s Senate campaign.
Paul agreed, and Levin set up a conference call between Paul,
himself, and other high level contacts within the Hillary Camp.
During this
conference call, the first discussions of Paul’s
helping underwrite and produce the Hollywood Tribute were made.
Initially, Paul agreed to pay roughly half the costs of the event,
about $525,000, with the rest of the funding coming from other
sources. However, as the event neared, the other sources of funding
did not materialize and Paul was forced to cover the entire cost.
The Hillary campaign even refused to help finance the cost of
printing and sending the invitations for the event.
In the face of funding the entire Hollywood Tribute on his own,
Paul began to balk at the astronomically escalating expenses.
At this point, Levin turned from Clinton confidant to Clinton
enforcer, as he, and others associated with Hillary, threatened
Paul that if he failed to produce the entire Hollywood event,
as planned, the deal between Stan Lee Media and the President
would be off, Paul would lose all the money he had already invested
into the event, and Levin and his associates would accuse Paul
of incompetence and blame him personally for the failure of the
event, irreparably damaging his reputation in Hollywood.
Blackmailed with no alternative, Paul continued to produce the
event. However, only at the continued assurance from Levin that
the deal to have the President work with Stan Lee Media was still
intact.
Levin even became a frequent visitor to the offices of Stan
Lee Media, interviewing employees, evaluating the accommodations,
and otherwise planning for the President to eventually joining
the company. During one of these visits, Levin was introduced
to Tendo Oto, President of Venture Soft Company, Ltd., out of
Japan.
Oto learned
of Paul’s plans to bring Clinton
onboard Stan Lee Media, and desiring to gain access to the
President to assist
him in taking Venture Soft public in Japan, agreed to finance
one half of the $5 million cash portion of the $17 million Clinton
deal and to joint ventures between Venture Soft and Stan Lee
Media in the far east.
Paul explained
the association between Oto and Stan Lee Media, and Levin signed
a confidentiality agreement
acknowledging the “proprietary
nature” of their relationship. In other words, Levin agreed
that Oto and Stan Lee Media where one in the same. The Clintons
could not work with Oto independently of Stan Lee Media.
Based on the access gained by Paul with the President, Levin
arranged for Oto to attend events at the White House normally
forbidden to foreign national under normal circumstances, even
managing to have a photo of Oto taken sitting in the chair of
the President in the Oval Office.
Oto, Levin,
and the Clinton’s became so
close that Oto was initiated into the time honored Clinton
tradition of backstabbing
their friends. After arranging for Oto to attend a state dinner
at the White House in September 2000 and the Hollywood Tribute,
Paul learned that Levin had flown to Japan to personally set
up a deal between Oto and the President independent of Stan Lee
Media in complete violation of his confidentiality agreement.
Instead of Oto working with Stan Lee Media, he entered into
an independent deal where Clinton would get the $2.5 million
promised to Stan Lee Media, Venture Soft would get its U.S. subsidiary,
with Levin at its head, and Peter Paul would be left holding
the bag with Stan lee Media and its public shareholders sharing
the consequences of being denied $2.5 million in funding Oto
promised in November, 2000 when the dot com meltdown made funding
in the US impossible.
After Hillary
utilized the money generated from the Hollywood Tribute to
win her seat on the Senate, Bill and
Hillary Clinton
never spoke to Paul again. It was not until 2005 that Paul learned
Levin and the Clintons had induced Oto into secretly incorporating
Venture Soft, USA, in Illinois with Levin as the manager, just
days after Hillary's Senate election victory. The Clinton’s
effectively pulling the plug on Stan lee Media's financing from
Japan caused the company to fold a month later and made the job
offer to Bill untenable.
In typical
Clintonesque style, Bill's defense for not working with Stan
lee media in late January 2001 was
that the company
had become insolvent. An insolvency created by Clinton’s
own interference with a strategic partner of the company.
When Paul
reached out to the Clintons, he could not even get a return
phone call. The Clintons acted as though
nothing had
ever happened. Paul’s role in producing the Hollywood Tribute
was denied; over half the money Paul spent on the Tribute was
not reported to the F.E.C., leaving Paul with nothing to show
for his good faith efforts than a damaged reputation and depleted
bank account.
Just add one more victim to the pile of those unfortunate enough
to do business with the Clintons.
The Patsy.
After Hillary’s election and the subsequent fallout from
the attempted deal with Bill Clinton, Paul decided to fight back
and pursue the Clintons through the Justice Department and courts
in an attempt to hold them accountable for what they have done.
In the case
of “PETER F. PAUL, Plaintiff,
v. WILLIAM JEFFERSON CLINTON, HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, HILLARY
RODHAM CLINTON FOR U.S.
SENATE COMMITTEE, INC., NEW YORK SENATE 2000, DAVID ROSEN,
GARY SMITH, JAMES LEVIN, and AARON TONKEN”, the Clintons
tried to pass off a campaign worker, David Rosen, as the mastermind
behind the entire plot to defraud Paul out of millions of dollars
and hide his enormous contributions from the F.E.C.
David Rosen
was Hillary Clinton’s national finance director
and had extensive contact with Paul throughout his entire association
with the Clintons and the planning of the Hollywood Tribute.
However, as the foreman of the jury at the trial said, “Rosen
did not have the ‘means or clout’ to carry out what
the government alleged.” (Associated Press, May 29, 2005.)
The Court acquitted Rosen of all charges because he was so low
on the Clinton political totem pole that he was not even responsible
to sign the fraudulent F.E.C. paperwork submitted by the Hillary
Campaign.
Contrary
to the Clinton’s duplicitous efforts to on one
hand feign support for Rosen and attest to his innocence, and
on the other to paint him as some kind of super criminal out
of one of Stan Lee’s comics, David Rosen is, in reality,
a 30-something political fundraiser whom Peter Paul “would
not have bought an encyclopedia from,” if it had not been
for the fact that he was representing the Clintons.
In fact,
treasurer of Hillary’s Joint Fundraising
Committee, New York State 2000, Andrew Grossman, admitted to
filing the
false F.E.C. reports and hiding over $700,000 in contributions
from Paul in January 2006. But he is not the one getting charged.
Nor have the Clintons been called to the stand to testify under
oath.
However, this has not stopped the Clintons from declaring victory
in the case and acting as though the acquittal of a person who
was not responsible for their crimes is the same as an acquittal
for themselves.
This is just one more example of the Clintons destroying a person
to cover up their own crimes.
The Enablers.
The Clintons could not get away with what they do if they did
not have some pretty powerful friends, or, as is the case with
the Clintons, enemies who are unwilling to do what is right.
If the Clintons were not the Clintons but you, me, or any other
person, they would be in jail for the crimes they committed long
before the they ever met Peter Paul. However, Bill Clinton offers
something to the Democratic Party that they have not had in over
40 years. A candidate with true charisma and appeal to the general
public.
Take Bill
Clinton away from the Democrats and all you would have would
be a conglomeration of organized labor
puppets with
ties to organized crime, 1960’s burnouts, effeminate college
professors, animal-rights activists, and people who want to burn
all our cars, build thatched huts, and live on nothing but tofu
and wi-fi internet access.
Despite the fact Bill Clinton can never again be President,
his awesome presence and ability to generate cash is so indispensable
to the survival of the Democratic Party that they are even willing
to try to propel his acidic wife into the White House to keep
him happy.
The Democrats are also willing to sell themselves out and cut
deals to protect him.
In June 2002,
word was leaked that Congressional Democrats and the White
House had made a secret deal where
the Clintons would
escape criminal indictments stemming from the “Pardongate” scandal,
and, in return, Democrats would not aggressively obstruct Bush’s
agenda in the Congress.
Who really
knows how far this deal with the devil the Republicans made
to protect the Clintons actually goes.
However, these are
the facts in Peter Paul’s case:
The Federal
Election Commission, despite finding evidence supporting Peter
Paul’s allegations against the Clintons and even
the admission of wrongdoing of Hillary’s campaign treasurer
has done almost nothing in five years to prosecute this case.
The Bush controlled Justice Department, likewise has done almost
nothing in five years. They have refused to call the Clintons
as witnesses, withheld information regarding the case from the
public for years, and they have refused to prosecute high-ranking
Clinton officials in lieu of David Rosen, and even then, made
efforts to stress that the Clintons themselves were not targets
of the prosecution.
However, the largest enabler of them all has been, surprisingly,
the Republican Party.
Setting all backroom deals aside about protecting the Clintons,
the Republicans know that Hillary is going to run for the Presidency
in 2008 as certainly as she still does not know who the catcher
for the Yankees is. The Republicans also know Hillary is no Bill
Clinton.
While Hillary
may be “unconvictable,” she is far
from “unbeatable.” Her record on the issues alone
makes John Kerry look like an icon on consistency by comparison,
and her personality is one the American people will find abhorrent
once the barriers Hillary has erected between herself and anyone
who might ask her a tough question collapse under the scrutiny
of a Presidential run.
Despite the
fact that every conservative blogger worth his salt has a “Hillary” file
at the ready for the day she declares her candidacy, much of
this information
is outdated.
Nobody is
really going to care about Whitewater, Travelgate, Pardongate,
or Monica Lewinski in 2008. These issues
will be
old news and Hillary would be able to easily deflect these attacks
calling them “efforts to drum up the resolved issues of
the past,” or “the vast right wing conspiracy” trying
to take another shot at Bill.
What the Republicans need is a new Clinton scandal for the 2008
election, and the Peter Paul scandal fits the bill perfectly.
However,
it is too early. The Republicans do not want Hillary to lose
her seat in the Senate; they want
her to lose her bid
for the White House. When Hillary wins the Democratic nomination,
as expected, only then will the Republicans have a need for Peter
Paul. But, the Republicans want to time this information’s
release so it has the maximum political impact.
When the magnitude of what Hillary has done becomes apparent
to the American people, and they realize just how dangerous this
woman is, they will never vote for her, and the White House will
easily be won by another Republican.
Sounds like a good plan if you do not mind that it is unethical
and deceitful. Justice delayed is justice denied, and political
expedience should have no impact on the prosecution of Hillary
Clinton for her violations of federal election law. No person,
no matter how powerful should ever be above the law.
The Scam.
The most troublesome aspect of the Peter Paul scandal is that
it is over something so basic: Being honest to the voters.
Hillary Clinton did not report how much money Peter Paul gave
her campaign to produce the Hollywood Tribute, or even the fact
that he ever gave it to her.
She could have easily reported it and there would have been
no problem. Actually, that is not correct, there would have been
a very big problem. The Hillary for Senate Campaign stated it
would accept no money from Peter Paul.
On August
15, 2000, three days after the Hollywood Tribute, “The
Washington Post” ran a story exposing Peter Paul’s
organizing the event and his felony convictions from the 1970’s
for his role in the “Cuban Coffee Caper.” The story’s
author, Lloyd Grove, asked quite bluntly, “Is Hillary soft
on crime?” Hillary’s campaign spokesman, Howard Wolfson,
stated firmly that Hillary “will not be accepting any donations
from him [Paul].” Two days later, Wolfson clarified that
the campaign actually had received a $2000 donation from Paul
in June 2000, but that they had “returned the check.”
$2000 is
one heck of a lot less than $1.2 million, and being not just
the underwriter of the Hollywood Tribute,
but Hillary’s
single largest single contributor is a far cry from not “accepting
any donations” from someone.
Paul was even forced to play along with this charade in fear
that the multimillion dollar deal he believed he had with Bill
Clinton would be jeopardized if he told the truth.
Hillary Clinton’s
unremitting lust for power has left her incapable of admitting
the most basic facts
in fear that
someone might criticize her for them. She would rather do whatever
she wants, and lie about it, than tell the truth or act ethically
to begin.
In a sickening
attempt to create a façade
of infallibility, Hillary Clinton willfully lied to every single
American over
something most people would not have even cared about. If Hillary
is so audacious to lie about who her largest contributor is,
what else is she capable of lying about? How could anyone who
even considers voting for her trust what she has to say?
The second very big problem Hillary has is that she raised the
money to win her Senate seat illegally.
Federal election
law regulates how much and in what ways “soft” money
contributions like Paul’s can be used to raise “hard” money.
Exceed the limits, and the candidate either has to pay the soft
money back within 60 days, or face restrictions on the uses of
the hard money raised at the event.
If Hillary had either reported the actual cost of the event,
or returned the excess expenses to Paul, she would not have had
enough cash to win her election bid.
So, she chose to break the law, lied about the money Paul spent
on her fundraiser, kept the full amount of the hard money raised,
and tried to destroy Peter Paul in the process to keep him quiet.
What is truly
horrifying are the depths Hillary Clinton will sink to gain
power. Is it really worth breaking
the law, destroying
peoples’ lives, and undermining our governmental institutions
just to hold an elected office? Are the benefits of the power
so great as to justify anything the Clintons have done? Just
how far is Hillary Clinton willing to go, and how many of us
is she willing to destroy so she can add her Presidential portrait
next to her husband’s?
Hillary Clinton’s
lust for power goes beyond mere ambition, and enters the realm
of mental illness. There
is literally no
telling how far she would go to win, or what she would do once
elected.
Peter Paul
says, “The truth is worth fighting for.” Faced
with the possibility of a megalomaniac like Hillary Clinton being
elected President, I hope he fights hard. And, I pray he wins. -one-
© March 2006 Justin Darr
Justin@justindarr.comJustin@justindarr.com
www.justindarr.com
This article based on research at www.peterfaul.com, and personal
interviews between the author and Peter F. Paul. It was originally
published at www.newmediajournal.us as part of a multipart expose
on the abuses of Hillary Clinton during her 2000 New York Senate
candidacy.
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