It is being reported that Hillary Clinton will be the next United States Secretary of State. Since she is now going to be the official international representative of this country and fourth in the line of succession for the presidency, this would be a great time to discuss why Hillary Clinton is not a good choice for this position and why she is not an agent of “change” or reform for the incoming Obama administration. Her rise to power is riddled with controversies and her uncanny ability to divide the population is a close second to the man who offered her this new position. Mrs. Clinton has a well-documented history of lies, corruption, and scandal, so this is the perfect time to reflect on that history and question whether or not Barack Obama will ever live up to his promise of “change” and “new politics.”

This is the 30-year record of Hillary Clinton that you most likely won’t hear about in the mainstream media today.

A Sweet Deal in Arkansas

The thirst for power and money and the road to corruption started in the early years of the Clinton marriage. In 1977, Hillary Rodham Clinton was brought into the Rose Law Firm in Little Rock, Arkansas. It was a move apparently initiated by Vince Foster, a friend of Bill Clinton. Hillary joined Foster and Webster Hubbell as one of nine full partners of the firm in 1979. Webster Hubbell was later appointed associate Attorney General of the United States by Bill Clinton after he won the presidential election in 1992. Less than two years later, Hubbell plead guilty to mail fraud and tax evasion in December, 1994, because of fraudulent billing records from his days with the Rose Law Firm – and he was sentenced to 21 months in prison.

In 1978, Hillary Clinton began trading commodities (mostly cattle futures) with an Arkansas branch of the Refco brokerage firm. Her friend, lawyer James Blair, had apparently convinced her to begin commodity trading and set her up with broker Robert “Red” Bone. With only a $1,000 initial investment in October of 1978, Mrs. Clinton made almost a 10,000% profit by the following July before getting out of the market. Shortly thereafter, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange “accused Refco of breaking the rules and Mr. Bone, in particular, of ‘serious and repeated violations of record-keeping functions, order-entry procedures, margin requirements and hedge procedures.’” Without any dispute, Refco Chairman Thomas Dittmer and broker Robert “Red” Bone paid penalties that were imposed by the Mercantile Exchange. James Blair continued to contribute in different ways to Clinton campaigns while working for Tyson Foods, a company that received numerous business favors from the Clinton Administration.

Also in 1978, the Clintons started a business venture with friends, James and Susan McDougal. The two couples borrowed over $200,000 to buy 220 acres of land in the Ozark Mountains in Arkansas. Their newly created Whitewater Development Corporation was supposed to develop this land and sell vacation homes on it. Unfortunately, their plan fell through. The McDougals, however, continued with another real estate deal which later became the heart of the “Whitewater” investigation.

The Castle Grande scheme was an intricate ploy by the McDougals meant to quickly flip 1,000 acres of a previously failed industrial development plan and to confuse federal regulators who had already ordered the McDougals’ Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan to mend its faulty lending practices. The scheme would involve a series of transactions between James McDougal, Seth Ward (father-in-law of Webster Hubbell), David Hale (local municipal judge in Arkansas), Dean Paul (friend and business associate of David Hale), Jim Guy Tucker (future governor of Arkansas), R.D. Randolph (business partner of Jim Guy Tucker), and former Senator William Fullbright. So…where do the Clintons fit in?

Hillary Clinton drafted one of the agreements involving McDougal and Seth Ward. This was corroborated by one of McDougal’s senior loan officers, Don Denton, and by the mysteriously misplaced billing records from the Rose Law Firm, which turned up in the White House a few years after the 1993 death of Vince Foster – the person in charge of Hillary’s Whitewater legal affairs. These billing records were previously subpoenaed by the FBI, but everybody involved in the Whitewater investigation claimed to not know where they were or if they even existed. After Foster’s suicide, many of his files were removed from his residence by administration officials before investigators were allowed to enter. It was later determined by the FBI that both Vince Foster’s and Hillary Clinton’s fingerprints were found on these records – even though Hillary testified to knowing nothing about them.

James McDougal and David Hale also testified under oath that Bill Clinton was involved in a loan (which was allegedly connected to the Castle Grande scheme) made to Susan McDougal in the amount of $300,000 to start up a business. However, the money went directly into the McDougals’ personal accounts. Bill Clinton, impeached for perjury in a separate investigation, denied these charges under oath.

In 1992, the Clintons acknowledged – and in 1993 they paid the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for – improper filings made in 1984 and 1985 with their Whitewater Development Corporation. Coincidentally, the payment was made just before the Whitewater investigation reached the White House.

By the end of the Whitewater investigation, James McDougal, Susan McDougal, Webster Hubbell, David Hale, and Jim Guy Tucker were indicted and convicted for multiple felonies. Vincent Foster (keeper of the subpoenaed billing records) committed suicide in 1993 and James McDougal died of a heart attack in 1998 before the investigation concluded. Despite being business partners and friends with most of the players (including multiple felons and others convicted, but not mentioned in this article), and having personal involvement with the Castle Grande affair, neither Hillary Clinton nor her husband were ever charged with a crime.

Early Years in the White House

On May 19, 1993, seven employees of the White House Travel Office were fired. Firing holdover staffers at the beginning of a presidency is nothing unusual, but the way this was handled raised some eyebrows. The Travel Office matter was being examined because of a possible link to it and Vince Foster’s death, which occurred only two months after the firings. During this investigation, it was alleged that Hillary Clinton was the instigator for the firings. This information was volunteered to a federal grand jury by William David Watkins, former Assistant to the President for Management and Administration, and also by Thomas McLarty, former White House Chief of Staff. At the time of Vince Foster’s death, it was discovered by the Special Counsel investigating the Travel Office affair that Mr. Foster was concerned about Congressional and legal queries stemming from the firings.

At the conclusion of this investigation, the Independent Counsel stated that Hillary Clinton had made false statements under oath. However, the Independent Counsel declined to prosecute. This decision was based on the Counsel’s possibly flawed understanding that, in order to file charges, you must be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a crime was committed. Usually, this decision is made by a jury. Once again, Hillary lied under oath and nothing was done.

Deriving from the Travel Office debacle was another scandal involving the Clinton White House. Apparently, while trying to justify the firings of held over Travel Office employees, some personal history – in the form of FBI files – was obtained by the White House. These files were not limited to just those employees, but they were used to try to smear the names of those employees instead of firing them for simply winning the presidential election. In total, over 900 personal FBI files were improperly collected by the Clinton Administration security office which is part of the White House Counsel’s office. Who was in charge of most of the staffing for the Counsel’s office? The answer is…lawyer and former First Lady, Hillary Clinton.

Sworn testimony of several people, including former Clinton White House counsel Bernard Nussbaum, White House whistle-blower Deborah Perroy, and Sherry Rowlands, a friend of Clinton advisor, Dick Morris, all allege that Hillary Clinton did in fact hire director of security for White House personnel, Craig Livingstone. Others, including Linda Tripp, former White House Counsel Office executive assistant, and Sheryl Hall, another White House whistle-blower, testified that Livingstone did work for Hillary Clinton – a claim that Hillary refutes. She claimed to not even know Livingstone, even though there are multiple photographs of them together.

Craig Livingstone was an unqualified head of White House security who became the main player of the FBI document scandal. He and his assistant Anthony Marceca, were the focus of Congressional investigations and also a Special Counsel investigation. In the end, nobody was charged with a crime, but many condemning remarks were issued because of the lack of protecting sensitive data. Once again, Hillary escaped any legal troubles.

After the 1994 congressional elections, the Clinton presidency faced a potential threat of losing relevance. Some people believed that there might have been a challenge to the presidency from the Democrat Party. In order to win re-election, the Clinton administration wanted to devise a large-scale television advertising campaign which translated into extremely high costs. In the effort to obtain contributions, the administration and the Democrat National Committee (DNC) operated under questionable circumstances and allowed murky transactions from many dubious characters.

Most of the controversy that stems from these transactions and campaign contributions is focused on former head of the DNC and Secretary of Commerce under the Clinton administration, Ron Brown. The plan was to sell seats on international trade missions from the Department of Commerce in order to gain campaign contributions for the 1996 election cycle. These types of transactions are illegal and it was alleged by sworn testimony that Hillary Clinton was the person who initially conceived the idea. It was apparently a creation of the First Lady and was implemented by Ron Brown, who reportedly said he was “doing my chores for Hillary Rodham Clinton.” Unfortunately, illegally selling taxpayer-financed trade mission seats was not the worst of this scandal.

It was later discovered that many of the big contributors to the DNC had connections to the Chinese government and military and their contributions were apparently donated with expectations of reciprocal business dealings. Three of the main players involved with the Chinese-DNC fundraising scandal were John Huang, Johnny Chung, and Yah Lin “Charlie” Trie. All three were close to the Clintons, all three had ties to Chinese government, intelligence, or the military, and all three were later convicted of violating campaign finance and election laws as well as other crimes – including tax evasion and bank fraud.

In addition, according to the Cox Report, Huang, Chung, and Trie were involved with people and companies that were at the center of the Chinese operation to acquire U.S. intelligence and military secrets. Also, the Loral Corporation paid a fine of $14 million in 2002 for its violations of U.S. export control laws. Some of Loral’s exports were approved by the White House. The CEO, Bernard Scwartz, was one of Clinton’s largest donors to his 1996 re-election campaign.

All of these transgressions happened under the nose of the Clintons and many of these operations happened because of them and their panicked re-election efforts. Some of the main players were friends of the Clintons and worked for them long before their involvement in this affair. Hillary’s reported involvement in establishing the trade mission scandal led to direct violation of campaign and election laws as well as back-door negotiations of United States Commerce deals with Chinese military and intelligence operatives. And once again, she escaped unscathed.

Former Secretary of Commerce, Ron Brown, died in a plane crash in April of 1996 before he could be indicted. His death effectively stopped any criminal investigations into the Commerce Department. In all, 27 people were prosecuted in the “Chinagate” scandal and 22 were convicted. In addition, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) imposed a total of $719,000 in fines in 2002 for the 1996 fundraising scandal. Of that total, the Democrat National Committee (DNC) had to pay $243,000.

Infidelity and the “Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy”

On January 27, 1998, Hillary Clinton appeared on the Today show in an effort to defend her husband’s innocence concerning allegations that he had an affair with White House intern, Monica Lewinsky. During this interview, Mrs. Clinton said the following:

“The great story here for anybody willing to find it, write about it, and explain it is this vast right-wing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since the day he announced for president.”

When it was later learned that the president did in fact have an affair with Monica Lewinsky, lied about it under oath, and was consequently impeached for perjury and obstruction of justice, Mrs. Clinton had little to say about her previous allegation of a conspiracy against her husband. Even though her claims were incorrect and her husband was guilty, she continued to use the conspiracy idea for other damage-control efforts. The truth was, she and the former president had been involved in many questionable deals, decisions, and personal/professional relationships that warranted hearings or investigations. The “vast right-wing conspiracy” was nothing more than an attempt by investigators and congressmen to find out the truth – something the Clintons became very accustomed to hiding.

The Lewinsky affair was not the first time Bill Clinton had allegedly been involved with another woman and it was not the first time Hillary claimed his innocence. During the 1992 Presidential campaigns, Gennifer Flowers came forward to reveal a supposed twelve-year affair with Mr. Clinton while they lived in Arkansas. Bill Clinton denied these allegations and Ms. Flowers consequently played tapes of intimate conversations they had together. Hillary claimed that some of the intimate-sounding language that was heard on the tapes was just how people talked in Arkansas. Ms. Flowers also wrote about some of her sexual experiences with Bill Clinton in a book in 1995 titled, Gennifer Flowers: Passion and Betrayal.

On May 6, 1994, former Arkansas state employee Paula Jones filed a sexual harassment suit against President Clinton. She charged that Mr. Clinton had an Arkansas State Trooper escort her to a hotel room where Clinton made sexual advances and exposed himself to Jones. After several years of various court proceedings, President Clinton settled with Jones for the entire amount of her claim, which was $850,000 in exchange for her to drop a Circuit Court appeal. In April 1999, President Clinton was held in civil contempt of court and was ordered to pay Jones an additional $91,000 for expenses deriving from misleading and dishonest testimony. Clinton later had his Arkansas law license suspended for five years and resigned from the Supreme Court bar in November 2001.

There were also additional allegations of sexual misconduct and affairs by Juanita Broaddrick (who claims she was raped by Clinton), Kathleen Willey, and Dolly Kyle Browning. But despite the previous infidelities, these accusations of additional ones, and the evidence of prior misconduct from the Whitewater scandal to the illegal selling of trade missions, Hillary Clinton continued to blame Republicans and a fictitious conspiracy for the problems in the White House, instead of her own actions and those of her husband.

The New York Senate Campaign

In the midst of Hillary Clinton’s Senatorial campaign, her joint committee, New York Senate 2000, put on a large fundraising event which was a salute to then President Clinton. The August 12, 2000 gala in Los Angeles, California featured musical performances by singers such as Sugar Ray and Cher and welcomed other celebrities like John Travolta and Barbara Streisand, just to name a few. Hillary’s campaign reported to the FEC that this event only cost them about $400,000. However, when Hillary’s campaign finance chairman, David Rosen was indicted on January 7, 2005, for “causing false filings” with the FEC, it became publicly known that another Clinton election campaign’s activities had come into question.

The four-count indictment of Mr. Rosen charged him with causing campaign officials to file false reports on contribution figures to the FEC. The indictment had stated that the actual cost of the Hollywood Gala in August 2000 was known to be over $1.2 million. Although Rosen was ultimately acquitted, the indictment and trial shed light on new controversies and questionable organizers of the event, and donations made to it.

Other players in this scheme came to the surface and were being investigated and interrogated about the fundraiser. Some were past criminals and some were later charged with crimes unrelated to the event. All of them had close involvement with the gala or Hillary’s Senate campaign. These characters included Aaron Tonken, Peter Paul, Raymond Reggie, and James Levin.

Aaron Tonken was the producer of the fundraiser who worked with Peter Paul, the underwriter and executive producer of the August 2000 gala. Raymond Reggie was a sponsor of the fundraiser and James Levin was a close business friend of President Clinton who oversaw the gala preparation for him. In addition, Kelly Craighead, the First Lady’s trip director, was also responsible for coordinating help from –and relaying information to – Hillary Clinton about the gala. This was revealed in a taped phone call between Mrs. Clinton, Aaron Tonken, Peter Paul, and Stan Lee in which Senate candidate Clinton is heard illegally participating in and helping coordinate an in-kind donation. Here is just a portion of that conversation spoken by Hillary Clinton:

“Oh, Aaron, this is going to be so terrific. Well, you just let me know if there’s anything that I need to do. And I know you and Kelly talk all the time, so she’ll be the person to convey whatever I need.”

In a sworn affidavit to the California Superior Court on April 7, 2006, Senator Hillary Clinton states the following in writing:

“In the summer of 2000, I knew Mr. Gary Smith and believed his work to be professional and of very high quality. I remember that he was asked to produce a fundraising event for my Senate campaign, which was held on August 12, 2000.”

The taped conversation and the written, sworn declaration – and the admission by one of Hillary’s spokesmen, Howard Wolfson that Peter Paul’s donation was an in-kind contribution – provide enough evidence to prove that there was at minimum, a coordinated effort by the candidate, Mrs. Clinton, to produce a fundraising event for her campaign. This would mean the money spent for the event by Peter Paul (he claims almost $2 million for the gala) was no longer a soft-money donation, and hard money donations are limited to $2,000 per person. A felony punishable by up to five years in prison is the penalty for knowingly soliciting a contribution of $25,000 or more. It appears that not only did Hillary possibly break the law, but there was a concerted effort to hide that fact from the FEC and the public, which could translate into other crimes such as perjury, making false statements, false campaign filings, obstruction of justice, and violation of election laws.

As for the other participants in this fundraiser, Aaron Tonken, one of the gala producers was later convicted of defrauding donors to charities and was sentenced to 63 months in prison in 2004. Peter Paul, executive producer and underwriter of the gala, was convicted of conspiracy to defraud the Cuban government and cocaine possession with intent to distribute in 1979. He was sentenced to eleven years in prison, but only served three, then was returned in 1983 for violating the terms of his parole. In June 2001, Paul was indicted, and later plead guilty for manipulating stock prices of Stan Lee Media. Raymond Reggie, gala sponsor, was convicted of bank fraud and sentenced to one year in jail in November 2005. James Levin pleaded guilty in a federal court in Chicago on December 6, 2006. He was indicted for one count of mail fraud for using the names of companies owned by minorities to solicit work in Chicago public schools.

Once again, Hillary was surrounded by convicted criminals and illegal activity, and possibly knowingly participated in some herself, but has yet to be formally interrogated, investigated, or even asked about it by the media.

Final Thoughts

On January 16, 2006, Hillary Clinton made the following comments to an audience at Canaan Baptist Church of Christ in Harlem:

“We have a culture of corruption, we have cronyism, we have incompetence. I predict to you that this administration will go down in history as one of the worst that has ever governed our country.”

Unfortunately, that comment was about six years too late. Given her history and that of her husband’s administration as President of the United States and Governor of Arkansas, it would appear that Hillary’s remarks are simply a consequence of the psychoanalytical definition of projection. The fact of the matter is, Mrs. Clinton’s entire adult career has been mired in and linked with controversy, cronyism, corruption, infidelity, incompetence, crime, and the uncanny ability to forget or misremember the details of, or persons involved in these incidents. She is a documented liar and is also married to only the second president to ever be impeached and the reason was because he too had lied under oath.

Hillary Clinton’s leadership experience consists of hiding or not releasing documents – including ones that had been subpoenaed, knowingly or unknowingly planning schemes that were illegal or lead to other illegal operations, putting questionable characters or criminals in roles of authority or information-sensitive administration-related positions, leading smear campaigns against public servants considered to be unfriendly to her husband’s administration, and attacking victims of her husband’s philandering and accusing them of simply being involved in a “vast right-wing conspiracy”. In addition to that, her eight years in the Senate have amounted to very little significant legislation proving her ability to move anyone to action or demonstrate her leadership capability and “non-partisan” spirit.

When you hear about a culture of corruption, think of Whitewater, “Chinagate”, and her 2000 Senate campaign. When you hear about cronyism, think of Craig Livingstone, Webster Hubbell, or the “Travelgate” affair. When you hear about incompetence, think of all the felons and other criminals that were brought into the White House that had access to top secret intelligence, IRS and FBI files, and also the unintentional selling and exporting of military technology resulting from her and Bill Clinton’s panic to not lose an election. When you hear about incompetence, think of her Senate campaign in 2000 and the indictments and convictions of the top organizers from her major fundraiser. When you hear about incompetence, think of her unrelenting effort to not remember any pertinent information concerning any criminal or civil investigation in which she was involved.

In a time when our government is losing credibility due to waste, secrecy, ineptitude, and security concerns stemming from the actions of our politicians, having a Secretary of State with a history surrounded by corruption, cronyism, and incompetence will not quell the angst felt by the American People. She campaigned about Congressional and Executive transparency during the presidential primaries but continues to prevent the release of documents from her husband’s administration which may reveal some of her “experience” with government processes and some of the corruption that plagued it. Hillary openly assaults individualism and has threatened to “take profits” from big business. She adamantly fights against national security programs that are working to help prevent future attacks on our country. On second thought…she may actually be loved by the international community.

It is not “change” that Hillary will bring to the State Department and her appointment certainly will not be a new era in American politics or government. It will merely be a reversion to the last decade where our headlines were dominated by White House scandals and controversies. With some of the serious problems our nation is facing, do we really want to be distracted and humiliated by more Clinton embarrassments, cover-ups, and blatant dishonesty? Is this the record of experience that Americans are looking for in their official representative to the rest of the world? Is a Clinton really the change people had in mind when they voted for Barack Obama?

How much more Obama-Clinton cronyism can we expect in the future?

Sources:

Once Upon a Time in Arkansas
Clinton Timeline – CNN
Clinton Timeline – Washington Post
Hillary Clinton and the Whitewater Controversy: A Close-Up
Hillary Clinton Futures Trades Detailed
Hillary’s Bull Market
Hillary’s False Testimony
Final Report of the Independent Counsel
Ray’s Travelgate Reasoning is Flawed
Why Does Hollywood Mock Judicial Watch
Essay; Unclosed Filegate
Filegate Unshredded
Judge Rules White House Violated Privacy of Kathleen Willey
The Secret Files of Ron Brown
Final Report on Special Investigation into 1996 Federal Election Campaigns
Cox Report
John Huang Pleads Guilty
FEC Issues Record Fines in Democrats’ Scandals
Hillary Clinton: ‘This is a Battle’
A Chronology: Key Moments in the Clinton-Lewinsky Saga
Lewinsky Scandal – Wikipedia
Impeachment of Bill Clinton – Wikipedia
Truth Boating Hillary Clinton Part 2
Hillary! Uncensored
Full Hillary ‘Smoking Gun’ Video Released
Hillary Courts the X-Men Vote
House of Cards
Paul v. Clinton
FEC Fines Hillary Fund-Raising Group
Political Fundraiser David Rosen Indicted
Fined Group Tied to Hillary
Hillary Clinton Already Making Policy

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