#Ray admits he didn't have evidence to charge Clintons with anything
Zepp, No Weasels in the Bush
Ray Criticizes Comments by Former President Clinton
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56807-2002Mar20.html
By Neely Tucker and Susan Schmidt
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, March 20, 2002; 2:39 PM
Bill and Hillary Clinton could not be convicted of committing any
crimes in their Whitewater land development transactions, former
Independent Counsel Robert W. Ray said in his final report released
today, but sharply criticized the former president for his recent
attempts to trivialize the seven-year, $70-million investigation that
eventually led to Clinton's impeachment.
The five-volume, 2,200-page report, filled with documention and legal
observations that compose the final legal word on what was fact and
what was fiction in a decade of Washington intrigue, provides the
historical coda to an investigation that came to influence, if not
define, national politics in the 1990s.
The report's new findings call into question some of the grand jury
testimony by Hillary Clinton, now a U.S. Senator from New York, about
her billings records while working as a lawyer for Madison Guaranty
Savings and Loan, a key part of the investigation.
In sum, the massive tome details the intricacies of a host of loans
and land swaps by the Madison Guaranty, the Little-Rock thrift owned
by Clinton's business partners which failed at a cost to taxpayers of
$73 million. It reprises the years of investigative efforts into the
Clintons' dealings with Madison's owners James and Susan McDougal,
including what the report describes as "lack of cooperation" by the
White House and "novel privilege claims" mounted to thwart the
inquiry.
Clinton, now writing his memoirs on a $10 million book advance, has
recently referred to the entire investigation as "bogus" and
"garbage."
Ray called Clinton's comments a "sustained attack" on his office.
Noting some of the 12 felony and misdemeanor convictions or guilty
pleas in the case, he shot back: "By calling a duly authorized law
enforcement investigation 'bogus,' the president impugns and
undermines not just this office, but also courts, judges and juries
who together have validated this investigation and the prosecutions
brought."
Ray resigned two weeks ago and is now a candidate for a U.S. Senate
seat in New Jersey. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) asked Attorney General
John D. Ashcroft on Monday to investigate Ray for possibly starting
his candidacy before his resignation, which would be a violation of
the counsel's code of ethic. Ray denies the allegation. Ashcroft has
yet to publicly respond.
The report lays out the scope of the Whitewater inquiry in two basic
questions.
First, "Did the president or Mrs. Clinton participate in or know about
the crimes committed by Jim McDougal at Madison Guaranty, Whitewater
Development Corp. or [Capital Management Services]?" Second: "Did they
provide false testimony or attempt to conceal their conduct?"
Capital Management Services was a Little Rock firm backed by the Small
Business Administration that made a $300,000 loan on a fraudulent
basis to Susan McDougal. A portion of those loan proceeds were used by
McDougal to benefit the Whitewater corporation, in which the Clintons
were co-owners. Hillary Clinton represented Madison Guaranty when she
was working as a lawyer at the Rose law firm, one of the most
influential in Arkansas.
"Although there was sufficient evidence to establish that some of the
statements given by both the president and the first lady during
official investigations were factually inaccurate, there was
insufficient available evidence to establish beyond a reasonable doubt
that the president and Mrs. Clinton knowingly gave false statements,
committed perjury or otherwise obstructed investigations. . . . " the
report said.
The report questions Hillary Clinton's explanation of how she came to
be Madison's lawyer.
The McDougals said Bill Clinton asked Jim McDougal to hire his wife
after he was elected governor. Mrs. Clinton said she was not the
principal lawyer in her firm representing Madison, and only got
involved to help resolve a billing dispute. But the report says that
billing records discovered in 1997 in the attic of the late Vincent
Foster, a law partner of Mrs. Clinton, show that a billing dispute her
firm had had with McDougal was actually resolved before she began
working on the Madison account.
The report also casts new light on one of the biggest mysteries in the
Whitewater probe: the Rose law firm billing records that turned up in
the White House 18 months after they were subpoenaed. Mrs. Clinton's
secretary said she found them in the first lady's book room on the
third floor of the residence in August 1995.
Investigators interviewed 381 people--Secret Service, White House
staff, visitors and construction workers replacing heat and
air-conditioning systems--to learn who had had possession of the key
piece of evidence and how it came to surface so suddenly. The first
lady spent four hours on the stand in one 1996 hearing, saying she
couldn't explain how the records got there.
The report now says that a White House employee--identified only as
"confidential witness"--testified to seeing Hillary Clinton in the
hall outside the book room carrying a box containing what could have
been a rolled up sheaf of billing records during the second week of
July. Two construction workers who were with the staffer at the time
testified to seeing her as well, though only one recalled seeing the
rolled up paper, which he said looked like it might have been
engineering or technical drawings.
Whitewater was by name a land investment, but over time the moniker
came to represent a mammoth federal investigation into the business
and personal dealings between the Clintons and several of their
Arkansas colleagues.
The Whitewater Development Corp. was a real estate development
property set along the White River in the Ozarks. The Clintons
invested in the property in 1978, joining James B. and Susan McDougal
as business partners. It would emerge as a significant twist that the
McDougals also operated Madison Guaranty.
Clinton was governor at the time, and Hillary Clinton sometimes did
legal work on behalf of Madison Guaranty. To make the couples even
more closely bound, Clinton appointed James McDougal as director of
economic development in his first gubernatorial cabinet.
The allegations of fraud gained notice with allegations by David Hale,
an Arkansas businessman, that Susan McDougal obtained a $300,000
fraudulent loan in the 1980s, allegedly with Gov. Clinton's knowledge
and support. Some $50,000 of that money went to Whitewater. The loan,
backed by the Small Business Administration, was never repaid.
Madison Guaranty eventually collapsed in 1989.
Clinton was elected president in Nov. 1992, an allegations of
misconduct in Whitewater surfaced within months. Attorney General
Janet Reno first appointed Republican Robert B. Fiske Jr. as a special
prosecutor, while Congress revived the Independent Counsel Act. A
panel of three federal appeals court judges then put Kenneth W. Starr,
a former solicitor general for the Bush administration, in charge of
the investigation on Aug. 5, 1994.
In the months and years that followed, the sprawling Whitewater
inquiry involved some 10 million pages of documents and 3,000 grand
jury subpoenas. It cost $73 million and resulted in 12 felony or
misdemeanor convictions related to the Whitewater deal, the collapse
of Madison Guaranty, related fraudulent land deals, improper billing
in Hillary Clinton's law firm or obstructing investigations into those
matters.
Former Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy Tucker and Jim and Susan McDougal were
convicted of fraud charges for manipulating federally-backed savings
and loans associations, principally Madison Guaranty. Susan McDougal
served two years in prison for fraud, and was also sentenced to 18
months in prison on contempt of court charges for refusing to answer
Starr's questions. Jim McDougal died of a heart attack in prison in
1998.
Webster L. Hubbell, Hillary Clinton's one-time law partner and former
Associate Attorney General, was convicted of defrauding his law firm
partners of more than $400,000.
Tucker was forced to resign as governor, spared prison time only
because of a severe liver condition.
Bill and Hillary Clinton each said they did not know of Susan
McDougal's fraudulent loans in the 1980s. There were frequent
allegations that the Clintons or their supporters paid Hubbell and
others money not to testify against them.
But Starr's successor, Robert W. Ray, said in September 2000 that
there was insufficient evidence to charge the Clintons with "knowingly
participating in any criminal conduct," in any Whitewater-related
charges, signaling that no criminal charges would follow.
By that time, Whitewater had long since spawned a series of other
investigations into almost every controversial act in both terms of
Clinton's presidential terms.
The main branches of Starr's investigations were "Travelgate," an
exhaustive review of whether a presidential aide lied about Hillary
Clinton's role in the firings of seven White House travel office
workers; an investigation of the White House's collection of FBI
background files of appointees from previous Republican
administrations; and finally the Monica S. Lewinsky case. That secret
affair led to Clinton's impeachment by the House of Representatives in
December 1998. The Senate later acquitted him by a narrow margin.
Ray succeeded Starr in 1999, wrapped up the final investigations,
wrote the final report and resigned in early March.
While all the other reports resulted in no findings against the
Clintons, the Independent Counsel's office said in the Lewinsky case
they they had conclusive evidence that Bill Clinton had committed
perjury and obstruction of justice. Ray did not pursue the charges
after Clinton left office because, he explained, Clinton agreed to
acknowledge that he had not been truthful in sworn testimony, pay
nearly $1 million in legal fees, fines or other costs, and to have his
law license suspended for five years.
The Independent Counsel's office, now shipping its materials to
warehouses in Maryland for posterity, is expected to close completely
by the end of this fiscal year, consigning the long saga to an
obscure, musty resting place.
***************
"Who are we calling terrorists here? Outsiders can destroy airplanes
and buildings, but it is only we, the people, who have the power to
demolish our own ideals."
--Barbara Kingsolver
****************
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Chris Nelson
news:g90i9u08l8lm1giar...@4ax.com...
> Final Report on Whitewater Released
> Ray Criticizes Comments by Former President Clinton
>
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56807-2002Mar20.html
>
> By Neely Tucker and Susan Schmidt
> Washington Post Staff Writers
> Wednesday, March 20, 2002; 2:39 PM
>
> Bill and Hillary Clinton could not be convicted of committing any
> crimes in their Whitewater land development transactions, former
> Independent Counsel Robert W. Ray said in his final report released
> today, but sharply criticized the former president for his recent
> attempts to trivialize the seven-year, $70-million investigation that
> eventually led to Clinton's impeachment.
Is the cock-hunt finally over, now that Clinton has been 100% exonerated? Or
are the right-wingers still going to obsess over the curvature of Clinton's
penis?
--
Chris
AUDIO VIDEO DISCO - "I hear, I see, I learn"
Marksman
"Chris Nelson"
<cris...@insightBBB.Replace_BBB_with_BB_and_put_dot-com_after_it> wrote in
message news:6s8m8.86253$q2.9230@sccrnsc01...
Why are LIEberals so obsessed with genitalia?
righ...@scumbag.com
<LIEberals_ar...@lieberal.bull> wrote like a right wing nut;
>Why are LIEberals so obsessed with genitalia?
When Democrats spanked your drooling turnip for his LIES about
Iran-Contra, it was about laundering money, selling arms to enemies,
subverting the constitution, lying to congress, fraud, Perjury,
suboring perjury, misuse of funds------all of which produced over 214
indictments, trials, firings, convictions, reprimands, -----all
directly linked to the abuse of power from ronnie mcreagan's criminal
administration. That cost about $90 million (WELL worth it)
When congressional republicans went on their abusive witchhunts, they
spent $100 million (total on a half dozen different witchhunts) and
found-------NOTHING.
The "fib" about sex was the result of a civil action. To date, NO ONE
has ever proven that clinton lied. NO ONE.
====================================================
Poor, pathetic, DIMWIT DANA, blusterers thusly:
IT PROVES YOU ARE A HYPOCRITE.
Hey ASSHOLE no one but you cares about this,
but it does show you are a hypocritical LOON.
Come on Roseasshole tell us what town you live in,
or are you to chicken to fight.
I am in Phoenix, and my number is listed,
come on chicken man, make your hat.
Zepp, No Weasels in the Bush
<cris...@insightBBB.Replace_BBB_with_BB_and_put_dot-com_after_it>
wrote:
Don't forget, Paula Jones said it had a "distinctive shape". Scaife's
pecker-sniffers won't rest until they find out what that shape was.
Only the GOP would even try to use such sleazy whacks for political
gain.
Foxtrot
>"Chris Nelson" <cris...@insightBBB.Replace_BBB_with_BB_and_put_dot-com_after_it> wrote:
>>Is the cock-hunt finally over, now that Clinton has been 100% exonerated? Or
>>are the right-wingers still going to obsess over the curvature of Clinton's
>>penis?
The pardon of Marc Rich, a sexual criminal, a drug trafficker, and
numerous other lowlifes will forever remind everybody what a
disgusting dirtbag BJ Clinton is.
>Don't forget, Paula Jones said it had a "distinctive shape". Scaife's
>pecker-sniffers won't rest until they find out what that shape was.
Probably shaped like the sickle on the old Soviet flag. We know
his brains are in his dick, and we know he's a commie in his
heart--so I'm guessing they're all the same thing. <g>
>Only the GOP would even try to use such sleazy whacks for political
>gain.
Yeah, they're so much sleazier than Dem spokesman Larry
Flynt.
Weasel Zepp
>"Zepp, No Weasels in the Bush" <ze...@snowcrest.net> wrote:
>
>>"Chris Nelson" <cris...@insightBBB.Replace_BBB_with_BB_and_put_dot-com_after_it> wrote:
>>>Is the cock-hunt finally over, now that Clinton has been 100% exonerated? Or
>>>are the right-wingers still going to obsess over the curvature of Clinton's
>>>penis?
>
>The pardon of Marc Rich, a sexual criminal, a drug trafficker, and
>numerous other lowlifes will forever remind everybody what a
>disgusting dirtbag BJ Clinton is.
How's old Poindexter these days? Still in jail? Or how about the
traitor Ollie North?
And of course, to buttress your sad little exercise in armwving, you
have to call Rich a "sexual criminal, and a drug trafficer". He was a
tax evader, just like Jebediah Bush's lovely wife.
BTW, congratulations to your toy president; not one member of his
family was arrested last week. Isn't right wing morality wonderful.
>
>>Don't forget, Paula Jones said it had a "distinctive shape". Scaife's
>>pecker-sniffers won't rest until they find out what that shape was.
>
>Probably shaped like the sickle on the old Soviet flag. We know
>his brains are in his dick, and we know he's a commie in his
>heart--so I'm guessing they're all the same thing. <g>
>
And you are dying to know, aren't you? Do you fantasize about it as
you are drifting off to sleep?
>>Only the GOP would even try to use such sleazy whacks for political
>>gain.
>
>Yeah, they're so much sleazier than Dem spokesman Larry
>Flynt.
Actually, yes, some of them are. Take Billy Graham, for instance:
pretending to be moral, but just another Jew-hating nazi at heart.
There's Newt, who led his life like a picture essay out of Hustler.
**************************************
"If Laura Bush truly wants her gown to reflect the tone of this inaugural
she ought to shoplift it."
-- San Francisco Chronicle 1/4/01
Not dead, in jail or a slave? Thank a liberal!
To subscribe to Zepp's News and Commentaries, email me at ze...@snowcrest.net with the word SUBSCRIBE in the subject header.
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Chris Nelson
> On Wed, 20 Mar 2002 22:56:02 GMT, "Chris Nelson"
> <cris...@insightBBB.Replace_BBB_with_BB_and_put_dot-com_after_it>
> wrote:
> >Is the cock-hunt finally over, now that Clinton has been 100% exonerated?
Or
> >are the right-wingers still going to obsess over the curvature of
Clinton's
> >penis?
>
> Don't forget, Paula Jones said it had a "distinctive shape".
Isn't her statement, whether she saw Clinton's penis or not, an implicit
admission that she's seen plenty of penises in her young life? Otherwise,
how would she have a basis for comparison?
Jeffrey Scott Linder
Foxtrot
>Foxtrot <fox...@null.com> wrote:
>>The pardon of Marc Rich, a sexual criminal, a drug trafficker, and
>>numerous other lowlifes will forever remind everybody what a
>>disgusting dirtbag BJ Clinton is.
>
>How's old Poindexter these days? Still in jail? Or how about the
>traitor Ollie North?
Traitor Ollie North? I'm afraid I don't know who you're talking
about. The only Ollie North I know about received the Silver
Star, the Bronze Star for Valor and two Purple Hearts for
wounds in action.
>And of course, to buttress your sad little exercise in armwving, you
>have to call Rich a "sexual criminal, and a drug trafficer". He was a
>tax evader, just like Jebediah Bush's lovely wife.
Mel Reynolds, Democrat, is the sexual criminal. The drug
trafficker is Carlos Vignali, busted with 800 lbs of cocaine.
BJ pardoned both of them, and scores of other lowlifes,
along with fatcat donor and crook Marc Rich.
>>Yeah, they're so much sleazier than Dem spokesman Larry
>>Flynt.
>
>Actually, yes, some of them are. Take Billy Graham, for instance:
>pretending to be moral, but just another Jew-hating nazi at heart.
You equate Larry Flynt with Billy Graham? Sheesh, you
lefties really are rudderless, aren't you?
righ...@scumbag.com
like a right wing nut;
>The only Ollie North I know about received the Silver
>Star, the Bronze Star for Valor and two Purple Hearts for
>wounds in action.
Benedict Arnold was a fucking hero too, you ignorant asshole. Then he
made some disastrous personal choices.
>Mel Reynolds, Democrat, is the sexual criminal. The drug
>trafficker is Carlos Vignali, busted with 800 lbs of cocaine.
>BJ pardoned both of them, and scores of other lowlifes,
>along with fatcat donor and crook Marc Rich.
And Bush pardoned Iran-contra criminals who subverted our
constitution, you stupid fuck
>You equate Larry Flynt with Billy Graham? Sheesh, you
>lefties really are rudderless, aren't you?
"rudderless"?
How does a fib about sex rise to a greater moral failing that LYING
(under oath) about selling arms to enemies.
If anyone don't have a "rudder", it's you dumb right wing fuckwits who
venerate a known subversive LIAR, contort the constitution and the
impeachment clause for political gain, and spend $100's of millions of
dollars trying to prove clinton had private, consensual sex.
=====================================================
*Try* it, you crappy little faggot bitch. Don't just sit there:
come try it.
I'll take your fuckin' life, instantly, and sleep like a baby.
Billy
VRWC Fronteer
http://www.mindspring.com/~wjb3/free/
Marie Jordan
Once again, Zepp, I am in awe of your ability to chastise the loons
and succinctly skewer them for their hypocrisy. They always seem to
overlook the fact that Larry Flynt may be sleazy, but he doesn't
pretend to be anything else, unlike the pond scum of the right, those
paragons of virtue and family values, Hyde, Watts, Chenoweth, Lott,
Livingston, Gingrich, Barr, etc. etc. on into infinity. And isn't it
amusing that they can't mention Flynt's name without calling him a
Democratic spokesman? He doesn't speak for the Democratic Party
anymore than David Duke speaks for the Republican Party, Flynt is a
Democrat who speaks for himself. Flynt didn't do anything to
conservatives that Scaife didn't do to Clinton. Had to piss them off
royally that he used his money to expose so many conservatives for the
lying perverted pigs they are.
Foxtrot
>Weasel Zepp <ze...@snowcrest.net> wrote
>> Foxtrot <fox...@null.com> wrote:
>> >Yeah, they're so much sleazier than Dem spokesman Larry
>> >Flynt.
>>
>> Actually, yes, some of them are. Take Billy Graham, for instance:
>> pretending to be moral, but just another Jew-hating nazi at heart.
>> There's Newt, who led his life like a picture essay out of Hustler.
>Once again, Zepp, I am in awe of your ability to chastise the loons
>and succinctly skewer them for their hypocrisy. They always seem to
Schlepp has a fan! But anybody who's impressed by a
feeble attempt to make Billy Graham look as disgusting as
Larry Flynt isn't much to write home about.
>overlook the fact that Larry Flynt may be sleazy, but he doesn't
>pretend to be anything else, unlike the pond scum of the right, those
>paragons of virtue and family values, Hyde, Watts, Chenoweth, Lott,
>Livingston, Gingrich, Barr, etc. etc. on into infinity.
Yeah, Democrats like BJ Clinton, evidence destroyer Gary
Condit, and Jim Traficant, who is on trial for racketeering,
are so much more ethical than Republicans, who merely
had tacky extramarital affairs! Ha ha
>And isn't it
>amusing that they can't mention Flynt's name without calling him a
>Democratic spokesman? He doesn't speak for the Democratic Party
>anymore than David Duke speaks for the Republican Party, Flynt is a
>Democrat who speaks for himself.
The difference is that Republicans publicly and unconditionally
condemned David Duke. Clinton and the Democrats didn't do
that with pornographer and alleged daughter-molestor Flynt.
>Flynt didn't do anything to
>conservatives that Scaife didn't do to Clinton. Had to piss them off
>royally that he used his money to expose so many conservatives for the
>lying perverted pigs they are.
Thanks to whomever is responsible for Newt's collapse!
Good riddance to that pompous blowhard.
bpe...@lib.nmsu.edu
> Yeah, Democrats like BJ Clinton, evidence destroyer Gary
> Condit, and Jim Traficant, who is on trial for racketeering,
> are so much more ethical than Republicans, who merely
> had tacky extramarital affairs! Ha ha
just goes to show, they are not the harbingers of virtue that they would
have all of us believe. merely? there is nothing merely about claiming to be
virtuous & then having tacky, sleezy extramarital affairs. sort of like the
pot calling the kettle black isn't it?
bpe...@lib.nmsu.edu
someone to tell the truth ... about them.
"Marie Jordan" <feminaz...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:53b0f977.02032...@posting.google.com...