Senator Clinton Won't Be Deposed before November 2008 in FEC Fraud Case

A legitimate case with numerous postponements, it has finally worked its way to depositions - a Federal Election Commission fraud case based on a complaint filed against the Clintons that $1.2 million raised in a 2000 Hollywood Gala was illegally diverted to Senator Clinton's 2000 US Senate campaign for the seat she now holds.

Yesterday's Breaking News

In the landmark civil fraud case against Bill Clinton in Los Angeles, where the former President is charged with defrauding a Hollywood dot com millionaire to help Hillary Clinton obtain more than $1.2 million from him for her 2000 Senate campaign, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Aurelio Munoz ruled on Friday, April 25 that Hillary Clinton would not be required to testify in a sworn deposition as a material witness in the case until AFTER the November election!

Quite an interesting cast of characters - Stan Lee, the big time comic book cartoonist, La Streisand, Cher, and the ex-convict and central complainant, Peter F. Paul, who works with Lee.

FEC Complaint:

D. Colette Wilson
Attorney at Law
1880 S. Redwood St.
Escondido, California 92025
[phone]

December 29, 2007

By Federal Express
Office of the General Counsel
Federal Election Commission
999 E Street, NW
Washington, DC 20463

Complaint: Calling Upon the Commission to:

(1) Void the conciliation agreement granting immunity to
Respondents for any possible violations of law arising out of
fundraising events between 9/16/99 and 11/7/00;

(2) Re-open the Commission’s investigation into MUR 5225, including
clear evidence of Senator Clinton’s and her agents’ illegal solicitation
and coordination of excessive federal campaign contributions,
pursuant to 2 U.S.C. sections 437g(d)(1)(A)(i) and 441a, subsections
(a)(7)(B)(i) and (f); and

(3) Investigate Respondents’ continuing violations of 2 U.S.C. section
434(b) and 18 U.S.C. sections 1001 and 2, based on New York Senate
2000’s fourth amended FEC report filed January 30, 2006.

Complainant: Peter F. Paul

Respondents: Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton; Hillary Rodham Clinton for U.S. Senate Committee, Inc.; Harold Ickes, Treasurer; New York Senate 2000 Committee; Andrew Grossman, Treasurer; William Jefferson Clinton, Edward Rendell, Howard Wolfson, Kelly Craighead, David
Rosen, and James Levin,

The Lawsuit

In an astonishing ruling by the Judge [on Friday, April 25,2008], Hillary Clinton may NOT be deposed about her role in the illegal solicitation and cover up of the largest contribution made to her Senate campaign until after the presidential election.

This is the same contribution Hillary denied knowing about or receiving when Lloyd Grove of the Washington Post asked her specifically about it and her relationship with the donor, Peter Paul, in August 2000.

It's the same contribution [for which] her finance director David Rosen was criminally tried in May, 2005, for hiding from her and her campaign.

It's the same contribution the FEC fined her campaign for hiding from the voters in three false FEC reports by her treasurer between 2000-2006.

Hillary has never publicly commented on the case in which she was a defendant from 2003-2006. Nor has Hillary ever commented on the videotaped phone call she made to Peter Paul the day he began spending more than $1 million for her Senate campaign, the false statements she made through Howard Wolfson to the Washington Post denying working with Paul or receiving any contributions from him, the sworn Declaration she made under oath where she refused to deny any of Paul’s allegations, the role her White House aide Kelly Craighead played in coordinating Paul’s expenditures and befirending Paul’s Japanese business partner during a White House visit and many other unanswered questions of illegal conduct.

The illegalities detailed in Paul’s civil complaint and FEC complaint caused Hillary’s finance director to be criminally indicted and tried in 2005 by the Department of Justice Office of Public Integrity (the same group that prosecuted Scooter Libby) for hiding the cost of a fundraiser paid for by Paul. Paul’s FEC allegations forced Hillary’s campaign to admit to the FEC in October, 2005, that it violated FEC reporting requirements by hiding more than $700,000 received from Paul that Hillary personally said she never received.

Hillary’s sworn deposition is expected to reveal numerous illegalities directed by Hillary, with Bill’s help, to win and keep her Senate seat and avoid being accountable to the law. The judge’s sua sponte decision to delay Hillary’s deposition until after the presidential election denies the public’s right to know what a presidential candidate and a former president have done to undermine the Rule of Law and the Constitution by corrupting the Department of Justice Office of Public Integrity and its very Chief, Noel Hillman, federal judge A Howard Matz appointed by Bill Clinton (who deceived the jury in the criminal trial of Hillary’s finance director by telling the jury that Hillary was not involved in any way) and the FEC itself which aided and abetted Hillary filing a fourth false FEC report in January, 2006 that omitted any reference to the $1.2 million contribution the FBI and DOJ swore Paul made.

It is more intriguing than that even:

The latest court ruling comes after an October 2007 decision by the California Court of Appeals (Second Appellate District) that said Sen. Clinton would not be a defendant in the lawsuit Paul initially brought against both Clintons.

So the recent court ruling - barring appeal - could effectively remove any possibility that Sen. Clinton would be deposed on the matter in the midst of a presidential campaign, were she to be the nominee.

Paul's lawsuit claimed that in exchange for producing a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton's Senate race, then-President Bill Clinton agreed to work as a rainmaker for Paul's company after leaving the White House but that he reneged on the agreement, causing investors to pull their money out of the company.

Sen. Clinton's firmest rebuttal of Paul's charges came in a written declaration on Apr. 7, 2006: "I have no recollection whatsoever of discussing any arrangement with him whereby he would support my campaign for the United States Senate in exchange for anything from me or then-President Clinton, and I do not believe I made any such statement because I believe I would remember such a discussion if it had occurred."

The Clinton campaign later admitted to under-reporting $721,000 in receipts from the Paul event. Though the Federal Election Commission (FEC) fined the Clinton campaign $35,000 and Sen. Clinton's campaign finance chairman David Rosen was indicted by a federal grand jury (and later acquitted on charges related to the Paul event), no official investigative agency determined the New York senator had direct knowledge of the wrongdoing.

But Paul said the Clinton campaign continued to misreport the event as recently as the amended report in 2006.

Still,

The Department of Justice prosecutor in the May, 2005 criminal case stated that $1.2 million was personally contributed by Paul at the request of Bill Clinton as part of an employment deal for Clinton’s post White House rainmaking services and was confirmed by FBI Special Agent David Smith as explained by Dept of Justice Prosecutor Dan Schwaber (pages 55,57,72) during the criminal trial of Hillary’s finance director David Rosen in May 2005.

Hillary’s treasurer was later forced to admit filing the false FEC reports to hide more than $700,000 paid by Paul, and fined $35,000 (the only fine imposed on Hillary’s campaign) yet Hillary has never answered one question to the media or the courts about these charges!

Except for TPMCafe and the other obscure, maybe right wing fundamentalist "Christian" links, I've found nothing else on the web; there seems a virtual blackout on this.

Oh yeah, it's gotten over 3400 Diggs.