Im Bestseller Elin Hilderbrands erster Weihnachtsroman, eine Familie sammelt Nantucket für einen Urlaub voller Überraschungen. Kelley Quinn ist der Besitzer von Nantuckets Winter Street Inn und der stolze Vater von vier, alle von ihnen gewachsen und leben in verschiedenen Staaten der Unordnung. Patrick, der älteste, ist ein Hedge-Fonds-Manager mit einem schuldigen Gewissen. Kevin, ein Barkeeper, schläft heimlich mit einer französischen Haushälterin namens Isabelle. Ava, ein Schullehrer, ist endlich aus dem perfekten Kerl, aber ich kann ihn nicht begehen. Und Bart, das jüngste und einzige Kind von Kelleys zweiter Ehe mit Mitzi, hat vor kurzem alle durch den Beitritt zu den Marines geschockt. Als sich Weihnachten nähert, freut sich Kelley darauf, die Familie für eine gewisse Zeit im Gasthaus zu verbringen. Aber wenn er auf Mitzi küsst, der den Weihnachtsmann küsst (oder der Kerl, der in der Gastgeber-Party zu Hause kommt), stammt das Chaos. Mit den drei älteren Kindern, die jeweils in ihren eigenen Dramen und Bart in Afghanistan nicht erreichbar sind, könnte es bis zu Kelleys Ex-Frau, nächtlichen News-Anker Margaret Quinn, um Weihnachten im Winter Street Inn zu retten. Bevor der Muller-Apfelwein weg ist, wird die herrlich dysfunktionale Quinn-Familie ein Liebesdreieck überleben, eine ungeplante Schwangerschaft, ein Bundeskriminalität, ein kleines Hausfeuer, viele Schüsse von Whisky und endlose Runden von Weihnachts-Caroling, in diesem herzzerreißenden Roman Nach Hause kommen für die Feiertage. LESEN SIE EINE EXCERPT DEZEMBER 23 Er wusste nicht, dass etwas falsch war. George der Weihnachtsmann. Ist er mich fragt er Habe ich etwas getan, mit dem Mitzi nicht reagiert, und Kelley erlebt einen Moment der Schwäche, in dem er daran denkt, George und Mitzi zu bitten, durch Weihnachten zu bleiben. Das Gasthaus braucht seinen Weihnachtsmann, und Kelley braucht seinen Geschäftspartner. Wie wird er die Party morgen nacht werfen Und was ist mit Weihnachtsessen Aber nein. Nr. Zwölf Jahre. Unter seinem eigenen Dach Wie konnte er nicht wissen, dass Mitzi ihm ein reumütiges Lächeln gibt. Es ist nicht du, Kelley, sagt sie. Da ich bin. Zeug Sie gibt ihm einen quizzischen Blick. Deine ornaments, deine nussknacker deine carolers, für götter willen Oh, sagt sie. Kranke lassen die für den Rest von Ihnen zu genießen. Und damit geht sie aus ihrem Schlafzimmer und schließt leise die Tür hinter ihr. Ist Mitzi zu gehen weg mit Happy Scrooge Ich hatte gehofft, es durch Weihnachten zu machen, sagte sie, aber es hat nicht funktioniert, dass way. Okay, warten, sagte Kelley. Warte nur, dass seine Stimme überraschend stern ist, ist ein Ton aus seinem Leben vor, sein Leben an der Wall Street und der Brownstone auf der East Eighty-Eighth Street, sein Leben mit Margaret und den Jungs und Ava, zurück, als er ein Brotverdiener anstelle eines Brotes war Bäcker, ein Arschkicker statt eines Arschküssers. Er ließ seine Arbeit verlassen und verließ Manhattan und heiratete Mitzi die Roller-Disco-Königin von König von Preußen, Pennsylvania, um Nantucket ganzjährig zu bewegen, ein Bed-and-Breakfast zu kaufen und ein anderes Kind zu haben, das Alter von vierundvierzig Jahren hat Kelley weich gemacht. Feige. Ein Schwächling. Aber er ist nicht dabei, seine Frau mit 305 Pfund George den Weihnachtsmann loszulassen, bis er einige Antworten bekommt. HBG-KAPITEL-NAME valueAVANo, sagt sie. Jetzt sagt er, und sie folgt ihm. Mitzi Quinn, dessen richtiger Name auch Margaret ist, ist das polare Gegenteil der ursprünglichen Margaret. Mitzi ist ditzy, Kelleys Kinder pflegten zu singen, und Kelley muss zugeben, sie hat ihre Momente. Sie glaubt an ganzheitliche Medizin und Chakren und Energiearbeit und die heilende Kraft der Kristalle, die sie liest New Age Selbsthilfe Bücher, sie geht zum heißen Yoga, sie trinkt nie etwas stärker als Kräutertee, sie isst kein Rindfleisch oder lass es zu kochen im Haus. Sie ist in astrologische Zeichen und der Mondkalender, aufgrund der Tatsache, dass sie ein Mitglied der Bevölkerung ist, die am Leap Day geboren wurde. Mitzi trägt fließende Kleidung, meistens Seide und Leinen, und Kaschmir im Winter. Ihre Kleider sind unangemessen teuer, und sie liebt es, jeden Tag des Monats etwas anderes zu tragen, ein weiterer Grund, den Kelley brach. Wie hat sie sich auf zwei Koffer beschränkt, sagt er: Also, was verliebt in George George der Weihnachtsmann Du verstehst, wie lächerlich ich das finde. Er ist ein alter Mann, der nur sechsundsechzig ist, sagt sie. zu alt. Aber Kelley kann sagen, dass dieses Argument vergeblich ist. Wie lange hat es gelaufen, fragt er. Sie starrt ihn tot in die Augen gibt es keine Ausweichen oder Angst, nur die schönen blau-grauen Iris fiel er für einundzwanzig Jahre früher. Mitzi hat Augen wie die Discokugel, die sich über die Holzbänke ihrer Jugend drehte. Ihre Augen strahlen Licht und Farbflaschen aus Grün, Blau, Silber. Die ganze Zeit sagt Mitzi. Sagt Kelley. Du meinst zwölf Jahre, seit George mit uns zusammengekommen ist, Lenox George, der Weihnachtsmann, der bei ihnen gleich bleibt, nächstes Jahr, mit Alan Alda und Ellen Burstyn, ein Film, den Kelley tatsächlich genossen hat, als er es vor einer Million Jahren mit dem Original Margaret gesehen hat. Der Arbeit, um es zu einem Ziel der High-End-Komfort der prächtigen Marmorbäder, die dicken türkischen Handtücher, die Himmelbetten King-Size-Betten aus massiver Kirsche, die Kissen-Matratzen, die Original-Gemälde von Nantucket Künstler. Ganz zu schweigen von zentraler Klimaanlage, einem Inn-weiten Stereo-System, Plasma-TVs und iPod-Docking-Stationen und LOccitane Toilettenartikel. Die Restaurierung des Gasthauses war teuer und stressig gewesen. Margaret sagte Kelley nicht zu heiraten Mitzi sie dachte, dass Mitzi albern und zu jung war. Ich weiß nicht, was du denkst, Kelley. Shes gehen, um Kinder zu wollen, und Sie können sich auch nicht um die kümmern, die wir jetzt haben. Kelley hörte Margaret laut und klar, aber er überraschte sie selbst, indem sie nicht nur Mitzi heiratete, sondern indem sie das Rattenrennen verließ, Manhattan verließ, die Kinder in die Haft nahm und sie nach Nantucket verlegte. Und kaufte das Gasthaus, das war Mitzis Traum. Obwohl es fair war, war es ein Traum für beide. Es begann vielleicht eine grandiose Geste der Liebe. Mitzi war im Winter Street Inn für ein Dutzend Jahre, bevor sie Kelley traf, und sie hatte beobachtet, dass es in Niedergang und Niedergang fallen. Als Kelley die Gaststätte für sie kaufte, als Hochzeitsgeschenk, war wirklich die Idee, dass sie sich auf ein neues Leben begeben würden. Dieser Gasthof, erbaut im Jahre 1873, der ursprünglich zu den Städten gehörte, brauchte HBG-KAPITEL-NAME valueMARGARETa viel So war es nicht immer die beiden von ihnen Händchen haltend, überspringen in goldenen Sonnenschein, aber es war gut gewesen. Sie wurden renoviert und restauriert, sie beworben und vermarktet, sie heirateten und zeigten sich. Kelley war gern ein Wirt. Er mochte seinen großen Steinherd und seine tiefen Lederclubstühle und die Treppen, die knarrten, weil ihre Treppen fast hundertfünfzig Jahre alt waren. Er mochte die Lunchpakete packen, die seine Gäste zum Strand bringen konnten. Er liebte es, die Flotte von acht Vintage Schwinns für ihre Gäste in die Stadt zu fahren. Er genoß es, neue Leute zu treffen und ihnen eine Pause von ihrem normalen Leben zu geben. Und er liebte es, ein hübscher Vater zu Bartand zu sein, ein bisschen verspätet zu seinen älteren Kindern. Das Kaufen des Gasthauses und des Wesens mit Mitzi und das Anheben seiner Familie auf Nantucket Insel hatte Kelley wirkliches Glück gebracht, die Art von Glück, das er so sicher gewesen war, dass er nie wieder finden würde. Aber jetzt geht Mitzi ab. Kelley sinkt auf ihr Bett. Der Raum riecht wie Weihnachten. In der Nacht, wenn sie sich bereit für das Bett, Mitzi leuchtet ihre Lieblings Fraser Tanne Kerze. Ein paar Wochen am Samstagabend des Spazierganges WochenendeKelley und Mitzi liebten das niedrige Flackern dieser Kerze. Die Entlassungsglocke läutet, und das Chaos ist so schlimm wie der letzte Tag der Schule, wenn nicht noch schlimmer. Heute sind die Kinder auf Zuckerschokolade, Kekse, Zuckerstangen, und da ist die Faszination des Weihnachtsmanns und Geschenke, Geschenke, Geschenke. Es gibt auch Mäntel zum Reißverschluss und Hüte, Schals und Handschuhe, um den Überblick zu behalten. Ava nimmt zwei Strohhandschuhe zwischen dem Auditorium und dem Schuleingang auf. Sie lässt sie auf den Tisch vor dem Hauptbüro fallen. Verloren und gefunden, um im nächsten Jahr behandelt zu werden. Ava ist heiser und ihre Finger schmerzen. Wenn sie nie wieder Jingle Bells spielt, wird es zu früh sein. Es ist, die Hände nach unten, die am wenigsten interessante Carol jemals geschrieben. Warum liebt jeder es so, dass sie sich wie Sisyphus mit seinem Felsbrocken fühlt, muss sie es wenigstens noch einmal spielen, an der jährlichen Weihnachtsabend-Party im Gasthaus. Es wird kein Flucht geben. Dennoch gibt es etwas Magisches am Nachmittag. Der Himmel ist aus Sterling Silber, die Luft schimmert vor Nebel. Sein kühl aber wohl zu warm für Schnee Ava steht am Fahnenmast und winkelt zu ihren Schülern, die sich wütend auf sie durch die beschlagenen Fenster des Schulbus winken. Frohe Weihnachten, Fräulein Quinn, Frohe Weihnachten, Frohe Weihnachten. Wie Ava sehnt sich, acht wieder zu sein, oder nein, nicht acht, sondern fünf. Sie war fünf Jahre alt, bevor ihre Eltern sich spalteten. Ava sieht Claire Frye, mit einem langen roten Mantel und einem passenden roten Hut, der prekär auf ihre dunklen Locken gesetzt ist, in ihre Väterarme laufen. Ihr Vater, Gavin Frye, der wie der Piraten Bluebeard aussieht, nimmt Claire auf und schwingt sie herum, damit ihr Hut durch die Luft fährt und auf den feuchten Pflaster trifft. Gavin holt Claires Hut und zieht aus seiner Tasche eine Wachspapiertasche, die Ava aus dem Nantucket Bake Shop kennt. Claire entdeckt zwei aufwendig mattierte Zuckerplätzchen im Inneren Santa, ein Rudolph. Sie wählt Sankt und frisst sofort das Ohr. Gavin munches Rudolphs Geweihe und bietet seiner Tochter seinen Arm, wie ein Gentleman-Anrufer des 19. Jahrhunderts. Ava wird erstickt. Claires Mutter wurde im September von einem Auto getroffen. Sie starb im Krankenwagen auf dem Weg ins Krankenhaus. Das wird Claire und Gavins zuerst Weihnachten ohne sie sein. Wenn sie in den Geist des Feiertags kommen können, dann auch, so kann Ava. Wenn sie Jingle Bells noch hundertmal in dieser Saison spielen muss, wird sie dies in Claire Fryes Ehre tun. Ava überprüft nicht ihr Handy, bis sie auf dem Vordersitz ihres roten Jeep Wranglers sitzt, während der Motor läuft, die Heizung gekröpft und ihr Sicherheitsgurt befestigt ist. Das ist ihr sinnloses Ritual, das sie für eine Kollision mit der Realität bereit sein will, falls ihr Telefon ihr nicht sagt, was sie hören will. Das, dank ihrer verrückten Familie und ihrem wahnsinnig fremden Freund, das macht es selten. Tiefer Atemzug. Sie drückt den verdammten Knopf. Ein Text von ihrer Mutter, der dazu neigt, Textnachrichten wie handgeschriebene Briefe zu behandeln, bis hin zur tadellosen Interpunktion: Hallo, Schatz Im im Auto, geleitet ins Studio. Ich vermisse dich. Ihr Papier Engel ist die einzige Urlaub Dekoration in meiner Wohnung. Im weg nach maui morgen werde ich in den vier Jahreszeiten bleiben. Ich schicke dir ein Ticket, wenn du dem Winterwunderland entfliehen würdest. Daddy klang auch, obwohl er versucht war. (Mitzi muss einen besonders hässlichen Pullover gekauft haben, der laut laut ist) Ich liebe dich, Sweetie Xoxo, Mama Ava schließt ihre Augen und sieht ihre Mütter drei-Zimmer-Wohnung auf der zweiunddreißigsten Etage eines Luxusgebäudes auf Central Park Westsumptuous und Seelenlosen . Ava hat keinen Zweifel daran, dass das, was ihre Mutter sagt, wahr ist Margaret Quinn ist viel zu beschäftigt, um mit Weihnachtsdekorationen umzugehen, mit Ausnahme der Papier-Engel Ornament Ava in der zweiten Klasse Sonntagsschule in der Heiligen Dreifaltigkeit Episcopal, auf East Eighty-Achte Straße, Zurück, als ihre Eltern Eltern waren und sich um Dinge wie religiöse Erziehung kümmerten. Zurück, als sie in dem glücklichen, unordentlichen Brownstone zwischen York und East End lebten. Margaret hat den Engel all diese Jahre in einer uncharakteristischen Show der Sentimentalität gerettet. Der Engel würde durch die Angelschnur in einem der deckenhohen Fenster mit Blick auf den Park baumeln, oder es würde in einer Sechs-Tausend-Dollar-Dale Chihuly-Glasschale auf dem Zehntausend-Dollar-Couchtisch liegen, der aus einem Ein Stück Teakholz geerntet aus einem alten südostasiatischen Wald. Ava liebt ihre Mutter und sehnt sich nach ihr schon im Alter von neunundzwanzig Jahren. Ava kann ihre Mutter auf Kanal 3 jede Woche Nacht um sechs Uhr sehen, aber das ist kaum dasselbe in der Tat, es macht Avas Sehnsucht schlechter, so dass sie vermeidet, die nächtlichen Nachrichten zu beobachten. Ein Text von Mitzi: Im tut mir leid. Tut mir leid, was Ava fragt. Aber sie löscht die Nachricht. Sie wird zu viel Mitzi haben, wie es über die Ferienpause ist. Ein Text von ihrem Bruder Kevin: Stoppen Sie an der Bar auf dem Weg nach Hause. Ein Text von ihrem Bruder Patrick: Etwas kam auf, Jen und Kinder gingen nach Westen, ich bleibe in der Stadt für Weihnachten. Was Ava liest den Text zweimal, denke da muss ein Fehler sein. Sie kümmert sich nicht, wenn sie Patrick sieht oder nicht. Als der Erstgeborene neigt er dazu, bossy zu sein, an diktatorisch angrenzend zu sein, und hes hartnäckig mercenaryall er scheint, sich mehr zu kümmern, ist Geld, Geld, Geld, aber Ava kann nicht glauben, dass ihre Neffen arent kommen. Was ist Weihnachten ohne Kinder Sie nennt Patrick fast, aber sie weiß, dass er nicht antworten wird, während die Börse noch offen ist. Punkt 5: Ein verpasster Anruf von ihrem Vater (keine Nachricht). Seltsam, weil er weiß, dass sie bis drei Uhr nicht erreichbar ist, und wenn er sie braucht, um Eier oder Zucker oder Lebensmittelfärbung oder Bananen für die Herberge aufzuheben, dann besser mit ihr persönlich zu sprechen, oder Shell bequem ihm sagen, dass sie von der Bar, um Kevin zu sehen und bekam nie die Nachricht. Schließlich rollt sie auf den Namen, auf den sie gehofft hat. Nathaniel Oscar, beschriftet in ihrem Telefon durch seine Initialen, NEIN. Es gibt drei Textnachrichten von NO, und Avas Herz sinkt. Drei Meldungen bedeuten schlechte Nachrichten. 6 a. Beschlossen, nach Hause zu gehen, nachdem alle, unter 1:30 flt, Autovermietung. 6 b. Hyannis Gehen Sie zu Panera für Chipotle ckn xtra mayo. 6 c. Sei nicht wütend, Mama legte Schuldreise. Zurück nächstes wk, krank rufen Xxx Arrraugh Ava fängt an zu schreien, aber ihre Stimme ist so gespannt vom Singen von Liedern, dass sie kaum den Ton herausholen kann. Sie beobachtet ihre Lieblingsgruppe der fünften Klasse Jungen laufen für die Eisbahn, mit ihren Hockey-Skates über ihre Schultern geschleudert. Sie hupen das Horn an sie, und sie sehen sie und winken. Frohe Weihnachten, Fräulein Quinn, Merry ChristMAS Liam packt Joel und Darian stiehlt Jarretts Hut. Keiner von ihnen kann eine Melodie tragen, und doch reden sie unaufhörlich über das Starten einer Rockband. Ava liebt sie und hofft, dass sie erwachsen werden, um rücksichtsvolle Freunde und nachdenkliche Ehemänner zu sein. Nathaniel ist wahrscheinlich auf halbem Weg nach Greenwich. Es gibt viele Dinge falsch mit diesem Szenario. Ava wird nicht mit Nathaniel für Weihnachten sein, wird er eindeutig nicht vorschlagen, wie sie gehofft und gebetet hat für jede Nacht (sie betet zu St. Jude, der Schutzpatron der verzweifelten Ursachen), und er wird nicht eine Flucht vor dem Nusshaus geben Ist das Winter Street Inn. Er wird nicht gern singen, während sie Jingle Bells für die zehn Zillionste Zeit spielt oder die Tassen Mitzis schrecklich gewürzten Apfelwein (so schwer auf die Nelken, seine fast undrinkable). Nein, stattdessen wird er in dem riesigen Steinhaus sein, wo er aufgewachsen ist, in Greenwich, Connecticut, mit seinen Eltern, seinen beiden Schwestern und ihren Kindern. Er wird eine halbe Meile die Straße von Kirsten Cabot, seine High-School-Freundin, die vor kurzem geschieden und zu Hause für den Urlaub. Ava kennt nur diese letzte Information, weil sie zufällig über Nathaniels offene Facebook-Seite auf seinem Computer stolperte, während er vor ein paar Tagen in der Dusche war. Die Nachricht von Kirsten hatte gelesen: Bitte komm nach Hause, ich brauche eine Schulter zum Weinen. Budweiser Dosen im Rücksitz deines Vaters Auto wie alte Zeiten Als Ava das sah, hatte Nathaniel noch zu antworten, aber Ava weiß jetzt, welche Entscheidung er gemacht hat. Ava will nicht, Nathaniel Oscar zu lieben, will sie nicht wollen, ihn zu heiraten und fünf oder zehn seiner Nachkommen in rascher Folge zu gebären, aber sie kann nicht scheinen zu helfen, wie sie sich fühlt. Sie betrachtet sich eine hübsche zusammen junge Frau. Unterrichtsmusik an der Nantucket Grundschule gibt ihr enorme Zufriedenheit. Sie liebt ihre Schüler und ihr Klassenzimmer auf dem aufrechten Klavier, stimmte den ersten Tag eines jeden Monats ab, der Vintage Turntable, wo sie ihre Klassen die Beatles und Frank Sinatra spielt. Im Zeitalter von iTunes hat Ava erkannt, jemand muss den Kindern eine musikalische Ausbildung geben, jemand muss ihnen die Klassiker beibringen. Als sie eine Vinylkopie von Revolver hielt, die sich von ihrer Väter-Sammlung entlehnte, wusste kein einziges Kind, was es war. Es ist ein Rekord, sagte Ava. Und sie wussten immer noch nicht, dass Ava auch liebt, im Gasthaus zu leben, das nicht unähnlich von ihrem Wohnheim in der Schule ist. Sie ist ein sozialer Vogel und liebt es, wenn das Gasthaus mit Gästen gefüllt ist. Es ist immer jemand neu zu reden, immer jemand, der will, dass Ava das Klavier spielt, damit er oder sie singen kann. Ava mag sogar mit ihrem Familienbrüder Kevin, ihrem Bruder Bart und Kelley und Mitzi leben. Bart ist jetzt weg, von courseto Afghanistan, das sie schmerzt Ava überprüft ihr Telefon wieder und fragt sich, warum es noch kein Wort von Bart gibt. Sie hat ihn vor vier Tagen gezeichnet. Als er nach Deutschland gegangen war, versprach er, er würde immer antworten, sobald er konnte, und er hat immer bis Freitag, als er einsetzte. Ava prüft ihre E-Mail nichts. Nun, hes im Krieg jetzt, also ist er beschäftigt, aber nicht einmal der richtige Weg, um es zu beschreiben und vielleicht gibt es keinen Zelldienst in Afghanistan Noch schickt sie einen anderen Text. Es sagt: Ich vermisse dich, Baby Butt. Bitte lass mich wissen, dass du lebendig bist. Dieser Text springt zurück: Unzustellbar. Ava will wieder schreien Keiner in ihrem Leben kooperiert Sie liest Nathaniels Texte. Chipotle ckn xtra mayo ist was die beiden von ihnen bestellen jedes Mal, wenn sie nach Panera gehen. Ava stellte Nathaniel dem Chipotle-Huhn vor, ihr Sandwich, ihr Kettenrestaurant, ihre Tradition. Einer der Gründe, warum Ava in Nathaniel verliebt ist, ist, dass sie es liebt, regelmäßige, alltägliche Dinge mit ihm zu machen. Sie liebt es, in Panera in der beschissenen Hyannis Strip Mall mit ihm zu essen, sie liebt es, in der Post bei der Post mit ihm zu warten. Sie liebt es, in seinen Armen auf seinem braunen Cord-Sofa zu kräuseln und Urlaubsfilme zu beobachten. Trading Places ist ihr Favorit. Mindestens ein Dutzend Mal in den letzten drei Wochen hat er das Telefon mitgeteilt, indem er sagt: Gut aussehen, Billy Ray Und sie hat geantwortet, Wohlfühlen, Louis Neben ihrem Liebhaber ist er auch ihr Freund. Aber jetzt, seine zwei Tage vor Weihnachten, und hes gegangen. Eeeeeeearrgh Ava schreit. Theres ein Klopfen an ihrem Fenster, und sie springt. Sie wischt den Nebel ab, den ihr Atem verursacht, und dort steht Scott Skyler, der Assistent, in nur seinem Hemd und Tieno Wintermantel. Sie krummt ihr Fenster herunter. Hallo, Scott, sagt sie. Ja, sagt sie. Nicht wirklich. Nathaniel ging nach Hause. Oh Junge, sagt Scott. Scott hat als Avas Vertraute für die vergangenen zwanzig Monate gedient, was nicht wirklich fair ist, da Scott eine Zerstampfung auf Ava beherbergt, die anscheinend nur stärker wird, je mehr sie über Nathaniel spricht. Willst du in die Bar gehen, fragt sie. Ein Bier und ein Schuss mit Scott und ihrem Bruder sind zwei Schüsse, denn neben dem Nathaniel-Problem vermisst sie Bart und ihre Mutter, und es werden keine entzückenden Neffen geben, um die Geschenke zu öffnen, die sie Hunderte von Dollar angeschlagen hat, wie die einzige Ding in der Welt, die ihre Stimmung verbessern wird. Ich kann nicht, sagt er. Im servieren Abendessen auf unserer Insel Haus heute Abend. Salisbury Steak. Du bist willkommen, mich anzuschließen. Ava lässt eine einzelne Träne über ihr Gesicht fallen. Auch Scott ist beschäftigt. Er ist ein unermüdlicher Do-Gooder, etwas, das Ava über ihn liebt. Sie versucht, sich vorzustellen, dass jeder ihrer drei Brüder Salisbury Steak bei Our Island Home serviert und leer kommt. Du kommst morgen abend, aber genau das sagt sie. Würde es nicht verpassen, sagt Scott, und er reicht, um die Träne zu fangen, eine zärtliche Geste, die nur anfängt, dass Ava härter weint. Sie wischt sich mit ihren Handflächen an ihr Gesicht und sagt: Schrauben Sie es, ich werde mich betrinken. Okay, sagt Scott. Vielleicht sehe ich dich später. Er eilt zurück in die Schule, und Ava merkt, dass er nur auf den Parkplatz kam, um sie zu überprüfen. Süßer, süßer Mann, toller Freund, aber nicht ihre Art. Womit sie meint, nicht Nathaniel. Sie ist versenkt. Sunk Sie wird in die Bar gehen. Dann ruft ihr Handy und sie denkt, Nathaniel Kein Glück. Sein ihr Vater. Was Ava in das Telefon bellt Sie liebt ihren Vater, aber er hat den Nachteil, ständig verfügbar zu sein, und weil sie immer noch im Gasthaus wohnt, immer umher, und damit muss er mit ihren dunkleren Stimmungen umgehen. Kelley sagt nichts für eine Sekunde, und Ava fragt sich, ob er sie verurteilen will, weil sie unhöflich ist, oder wenn er es rufen wird, ihr zu sagen, dass Patrick abgesagt hat, oder wenn Gott für Bart etwas passiert ist. Mitzi links, sagt Kelley. Sie ist ausgezogen. Sie liest das Briefing-Blatt: Vier Truppen, die in Afghanistan getötet wurden, ein scheinbarer Serienmörder in Alaska, der Inuit-Mädchen mit Klavierdraht zerbricht, hört aus dem St. St. Helens zum ersten Mal in fast fünfunddreißig Jahren und SkyMall erklärt Konkurs. Boring, sagt sie zu Darcy, ihrem Assistenten. Oder bin ich nur verstopft Boring ist gut, Darcy erinnert sie. Es ist Weihnachten. So ist es. Margaret schaut sich um die Redaktion: Es gibt Tischbäume und Streicher von farbigen Lichtern, die über Kabinen drapiert sind. Es gibt gefälschte, verpackte Geschenke in einem lustigen Haufen auf dem Aktenschrank, die leeren Kisten sitzen in einem Abstellraum für elf Monate, sammeln Staub, bis Cynthia, der Büroleiter, bringt sie den Montag nach Thanksgiving. Dieser Gedanke schlägt Margaret als unerträglich traurig an. In so vielen Weisen ist ihr Leben eine leere Schachtel, hübsch verpackt. Aber nein, sie wird nicht dorthin gehen. Sie ist in Kleiderschrank, etwas Grün oder Rot heute Abend, leider. Beide Farben waschen sie aus. Wann war das letzte Mal Weihnachten, was sie sich fragt. Sie muss noch vierundzwanzig Jahre lang harken, als die Jungs in der Mittelschule waren und Ava war fünf Jahre alt, mit ihren Sommersprossen und dem Hauchschnitt und trug ihr rosa Flanell-Nachthemd mit der Spitze am Kragen. Margaret kann sie sich als Tag vorstellen, die Treppe des Braunsteins hinunterkriechen und Margaret und Kelley auf dem Sofa vor den sterbenden Glut des Feuers vergehen, nachdem sie zu viele goldene Träume getrunken haben. Zum Glück hatten sie die Geschenke ausgesprochen und sich daran erinnert, die Kekse zu essen, die nach Santa gelassen wurden. Ava hatte ihren Strumpf gehakt und kam, um ihn in Margarets Schoß zu öffnen, und er hielt auch den kleinsten Gegenstand, der Kompakt, der Wurzel-Bierlip-Glanz, die Lavendelsocken mit Tupfen. Margaret atmete den Duft von Avas-Haaren ein und streichelte ihre weiche Wange, nichts war leckerer als das Gefühl der Haut ihrer Kinder. Und dann, eine Weile später, trugen die Jungen rhythmische Pyjamahosen und Yankees T-Shirts, Miesmuscheln, vertiefende Stimmen, stinkende Füße, die beiden sprangen auf den Boden und zerreißen ihre Geschenke, während Kelley langsam durch den David stellte McCullough Biographie und Margaret entschuldigte sich, ein Glas echt kalten Champagner zu gießen und die stehende Rippe in den Ofen zu stecken. Ihre jüdischen Nachbarn, die Rosenthals, kamen zum Abendessen jedes Jahr, und Kelleys Bruder, Avery, kam aus dem Dorf mit seinem Partner, Marcus. Das war Weihnachten. Keiner in der Redaktion würde glauben, dass Margaret Quinn jemals einen stehenden Rippenbraten gekocht hatte. In diesem Jahr, als Margaret mit der Sendung um sieben Uhr dreißig nach vierundzwanzig Uhr endet, wird ihr Fahrer, Raoul, nach Newark bringen, wo sie erstklassig nach Maui fliegen wird, für fünf luxuriöse Tage in einer Suite an den Vier Jahreszeiten. Drake soll hereinfliegen und sie treffen, obwohl er sich noch nicht ganz verpflichtet hat, was Margaret, vielleicht mehr als jede andere Frau in der Welt, versteht. (Ein Erdbeben in Kalifornien, ein anderes Schießschießen, ein Attentat oder ein Dutzend Dinge, die weniger ernst waren, konnten Margarets Urlaubspläne sofort zerschlagen.) Drake ist ein pädiatrischer Hirnchirurg bei Sloan Kettering, und die Sache, die Margaret am besten über ihn hat, ist, wie beschäftigt er ist Ist. Es ist eine Beziehung ohne Schuld oder Erwartung, wenn sie beide frei sind, sie kommen zusammen, aber wenn nicht, keine harten Gefühle. Wenn Drake nach Maui kommt, werden sie schlafen, haben einen guten, schnellen, zielorientierten Sex und reden über Arbeit. Drake liebt es, ausgezeichneten Wein zu trinken, und er wird neun Löcher golfieren, wenn Margaret aus ihrem Laptop herauskommt, lange genug, um zum Spa für ihre Gesichts - und Hot-Stone-Massage zu gehen. Drake kümmert sich nicht, wenn Margaret erkannt wird, was sie ist, überall. Es ist nicht genau Weihnachten, aber es ist besser als die Chinesen in ihrer Wohnung mit nur Avas Papier Engel für die Firma, was ist, wie shes einige Ferien in der jüngsten Vergangenheit verbracht hat. Shes in Wardrobegreen heute Abend. Es ist ein Seidenboot-Mantelkleid, das sie denkt, sie sieht aus wie Vanna White, aber Roger, ihr Stylistin, sagt, dass sie in Urlaubsfarben bleiben müssen. Er hat ein silbernes Perlen-Cocktailkleid angerichtet, weil er dachte, es sei zu Audrey Hepburn. Margaret sehnt sich nach dem Silber. Sie sagt, gibt es wirklich so etwas wie lsquo auch Audrey Hepburn Aber Roger wird nicht rühren. Sie sagt, Sie wissen genau, was der Nasty Blogger über dieses Kleid sagen wird. Ich habe mich noch nie an den Nasty Blogger gewandt, sagt Roger. Und ich tue es heute Nacht nicht. Sie tragen das Grün, meine Liebe. Margaret seufzt Es gibt einen Blog von jemand namens Queenie229, der Margarets Mode Entscheidungen kritisiert, die Farbe ihrer Haare und scheint, eine besondere Vendetta gegen Margarets Watcha Cartier Tankuhr mit einer benutzerdefinierten Eidechse Band, die Kelley gab ihr nach Ava wurde geboren zu halten. Wenn Queenie229 kann nichts finden, um besonders über Margarets Outfit nicht zu mögen, wird sie auf Picking auf, was sie nennt diese scheußliche Uhr. Bitte, Roger, sagt Margaret. Das Silber. Roger ignoriert sie. Sie nimmt die grüne Vanna-Hülle in die Garderobe. Darcy fängt sie im Korridor ab. Nachricht für dich, sagt sie. Kelley Kelley Margaret sagt. Mein ehemaliger Ehemann Darcy nickt, und Margaret schaut auf den rosa Slip. Bitte rufen Sie sofort an. Sie denkt an Kelleys Sohn, Bart, der am vergangenen Freitag nach Afghanistan entsandt wurde. Sie denkt an die vier Soldaten, die an diesem Tag getötet wurden. Oh Gott, nein. Sie übergibt Darcy das grüne Vanna-Kleid und läuft den Hallen hinunter zu ihrem Computer, wo sie die Namen der vier Toten in Afghanistan aufbringt. Keiner von ihnen Bartholomäus Quinn. Hugh Ausatmen der Erleichterung. Es ist doch etwas anderes. Sie ruft Kelley zurück, obwohl sie wirklich keine Zeit hat. Er nimmt noch vor dem ersten Ring auf. Mitzi hat mich verlassen, sagt er. Sie ist gegangen. Es ist überraschend zivil, ihre Abreise. Sie tritt aus dem Zimmer 10 und lässt George hinter sich und sagt zu Kelley, ich gehe meine Sachen. Dinge, die er denkt. Er folgt ihr den Flur entlang, vorbei an den Räumen 8 und 9, hinunter die Haupttreppe, die das Geländer in eine Girlande von frischem Grün gehüllt ist, die mit burgundigem Samt gebeugt ist, in den Hauptraum, wo ihr zwölf-Fuß-Baum steht. Ihr Baum ist mit geschmackvollen weißen Lichtern und wunderlichen, handgefertigten Ornamenten, die von den Weihnachtsclubs gemacht wurden, eine Gruppe von Frauen, die in Mitzis Nachbarschaft wohnten und die Mitzis Liebe von diesem Urlaub und zwanzig anderen Ornamente, die von Kelley vor allem für Mitzi und Ihr jeden Weihnachtsmorgen gegeben. Wird sie diese Sachen sammeln, wird sie die Ornamente aus dem Baum nehmen und es ausgesetzt und nackt lassen. Und was ist mit ihrer Nussknacker-Kollektion, die eine der beeindruckendsten Nussknacker-Kollektionen auf der ganzen Welt sein muss Mantel Es ist der Chef Nussknacker, mit seinem Toque und Schneebesen, der Feuerwehrmann Nussknacker, mit seinem schwarzen Hut und Schlauch, und in diesem Jahr ein United States Marine Corps Nussknacker, die Bart nachdenklich für seine Mutter gekauft, bevor er ging. Wird sie diese Sachen sammeln, was ist mit ihrer Menge von Byers Choice carolersthe Figuren, die sie arrangiert und umgibt mindestens zweimal pro Saison Zu Beginn des Monats wurden die Carolers auf dem Sideboard aufgestellt, als ob sie an einem Urlaubskonzert im Dorfplatz teilnahmen Zentrale Figuren spielten Instrumente, und die anderen waren versammelt, um zuzusehen und zu singen. Aber jetzt sind die Carolers wie auf einem geschäftigen Markt aufgestellt. Da ist der Cheesemonger, ein Mädchen, das Lebkuchen verkauft, ein rosig-cheeked Junge, der Kränze schlägt. Ist Mitzi, um diese Dinge zu sammeln Mitzi liebt diese carolers sie erinnern sie an ein Kind und spielen mit ihrem Puppenhaus, ein großartiger viktorianischen ihr Vater baute sie mit siebzehn Räumen. Kelley muss zugeben, auch er hat die Carolers im Laufe der Jahre geliebt. Wenn die Box aus dem Dachboden kommt und die Figur von Happy Scrooge aus der Box kommt, fühlt Kelley ein Gefühl der Freude an Familientradition, dass Happy Scrooge Kelleys Favorit ist, vielleicht sogar eine Zwölf-Zoll-Darstellung von Kelley selbst. Komm Mitzi geht mit Happy Scrooge Mitzi dringt durch die französischen Türen in das Hinterhaus, wo Kelley und Mitzi mit Kevin und Ava leben und bis zu diesem Herbst Bart. Von dem begehbaren Leinenschrank im Flur zieht Mitzi zwei Koffer aus. Kelley sagt, Warte mal, du hast dich schon verpackt und George hat geplant, dass Kelley sagt. Ich hatte gehofft, es durch Weihnachten zu machen, sagte sie, aber es hat nicht so geklappt. Okay, warte, sagte Kelley. Warte nur, dass seine Stimme überraschend stern ist, ist ein Ton aus seinem Leben vor, sein Leben an der Wall Street und der Brownstone auf der East Eighty-Eighth Street, sein Leben mit Margaret und den Jungs und Ava, zurück, als er ein Brotverdiener anstelle eines Brotes war Bäcker, ein Arschkicker statt eines Arschküssers. Er ließ seine Arbeit verlassen und verließ Manhattan und heiratete Mitzi die Roller-Disco-Königin von König von Preußen, Pennsylvania, um Nantucket ganzjährig zu bewegen, ein Bed-and-Breakfast zu kaufen und ein anderes Kind zu haben, das Alter von vierundvierzig Jahren hat Kelley weich gemacht. Feige. Ein Schwächling. Aber er ist nicht dabei, seine Frau mit 305 Pfund George den Weihnachtsmann loszulassen, bis er einige Antworten bekommt. Schlafzimmer, sagt er. Jetzt. Jetzt sagt er, und sie folgt ihm. Mitzi Quinn, dessen richtiger Name auch Margaret ist, ist das polare Gegenteil der ursprünglichen Margaret. Mitzi ist ditzy, Kelleys Kinder pflegten zu singen, und Kelley muss zugeben, sie hat ihre Momente. Sie glaubt an ganzheitliche Medizin und Chakren und Energiearbeit und die heilende Kraft der Kristalle, die sie liest New Age Selbsthilfe Bücher, sie geht zum heißen Yoga, sie trinkt nie etwas stärker als Kräutertee, sie isst kein Rindfleisch oder lass es zu kochen im Haus. Sie ist in astrologische Zeichen und der Mondkalender, aufgrund der Tatsache, dass sie ein Mitglied der Bevölkerung ist, die am Leap Day geboren wurde. Mitzi trägt fließende Kleidung, meistens Seide und Leinen, und Kaschmir im Winter. Ihre Kleider sind unangemessen teuer, und sie liebt es, jeden Tag des Monats etwas anderes zu tragen, ein weiterer Grund, den Kelley brach. Wie hat sie sich auf zwei Koffer beschränkt, die er sich fragt. Er sagt: Also, du bist in George George der Weihnachtsmann verliebt Du verstehst, wie lächerlich ich das finde. Er ist ein alter Mann, der nur sechsundsechzig ist, sagt sie. Sechsundsechzig Vier Jahre älter als Kelley Ist das möglich Kelley, George scheint mindestens ein Jahrzehnt älter zu sein. Mitzi ist nur sechsundvierzig, also ist George zu alt. Aber Kelley kann sagen, dass dieses Argument vergeblich ist. Wie lange hat es gelaufen, fragt er. Sie starrt ihn tot in die Augen gibt es keine Ausweichen oder Angst, nur die schönen blau-grauen Iris fiel er für einundzwanzig Jahre früher. Mitzi hat Augen wie die Discokugel, die sich über die Holzbänke ihrer Jugend drehte. Ihre Augen strahlen Licht und Farbflaschen aus Grün, Blau, Silber. Die ganze Zeit sagt Mitzi. Was meinst du die ganze Zeit, sagt Kelley. Du meinst zwölf Jahre, seit George mit uns ankam. Du kommst mir Kelley schreit. Mitzi doesnt flinch, even though that is most certainly the only time Kelley has ever screamed at her. Kelley and the original Margaret used to have raging arguments with legendary cursing and yellingonce, notably, in the back of a New York City cab, when the driver dumped them out on a sketchy block near St. Marks Place, saying, You both crazy Mitzi doesnt care for venting her anger this way she thinks its unhealthy and that unkind words can cause permanent psychic damage. This is why Bart was rarely reprimanded and never, ever spanked, which has led him to grow up spoiled, which landed him in heaps of trouble as a teenager, which eventually ended with him joining the Marines (he was low on other reasonable options), and now might very well place him in the line of danger. No, Mitzi says calmly. Not kidding. Twelve years, but only when he was staying here. I mean, its not like I flew off to meet him in St. Tropez. Is that supposed to make me FEEL BETTER Kelley shouts. Kelley, Mitzi says. Lower your voice. So what now Youre moving out Youre going to Lenox to live with George the Santa Claus And thats it Kelley says. Were splitting Getting divorced Kelley cant believe this. He cant believe it A thousand thoughts collide: Mitzi, a woman Kelley watched transform from the Roller Disco Queen of King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, into a warm, inviting innkeeper here on Nantucket, beloved by the guests because she cared about their lives, remembered their kids names, and asked about their hip replacements, is leaving him. Another divorce, another failure he cant believe it, he didnt even realize there was anything wrong aside from the obvious: the precarious state of their finances, and Bart in Afghanistan. Kelley cant keep from thinking this behavior has to do with Bart Bart is Mitzis north star, he is her reason. She has always put Barts needs and interests and desires before anyone elses. Mitzi has been hysterical since Bart left for Germany in October, even though he was keen to go. Bart has always been a risk taker, which historically landed him in a lot of trouble. Being in the Marine Corps seems to have whipped him into shape. All of his texts and e-mails from Germany exclaimed how much he loved rules he was thriving under strict discipline and, in fact, craved more (confirming Kelleys theory that one always wants what one doesnt have). Barts unit, the lowliest of the low, woke up at 0500 hours, and their every move was prescribed until they went to bed, at 2300 hours. Bart was, in his own words, Slaying every goddamned dragon like St. George. Kelley wasnt quite sure what he was talking about, so he checked Google, which educated him. When Kelley later e-mailed, Bart confirmed that during a weekend ofR in Munich, he had visited the Alte Pinakothek, where he had seen the Altdorfer painting of St. George slaying the dragon. The Alte Pinakothek had been recommended by Barts drill sergeant, Sergeant Corbo, because Germany wasnt only beer gardens and bratwurst, it also contained culture, and the soldiers might as well avail themselves of it while they had the chance. R Bart goes to art museums now, Kelley thinks. He runs ten miles in combat boots without complaining, and he does it faster than anyone else in his unit. He scales walls, he can do a one-handed push-up, hes learning how to box, and he knows how to shoot a variety of weapons. He speaks a little German and he wants to learn Arabic. He is using basic geometry, a subject he barely passed his sophomore year. If I had known it was going to come in handy, I would have paid closer attention he wrote. All of this, Kelley knows, is horrifying to Mitzi. Her baby is shooting guns And, probably, eating hamburger Kelley knows that Bart doesnt tell Mitzi half of what he tells Kelley, and that Kelley is to keep certain things on the down low, between them, as father and son, as men. Such as: Bart will be working with Afghan national security to take down insurgent strongholds and prevent a Taliban takeover when U. S. troops withdraw. Mitzis acting out over Barts deployment makes a certain kind of sense. But shes been boinking George for twelve years While George was staying with them In other words, the love affair was happening under Kelleys own roof, under Kelleys nose On Christmas Eve On Christmas Day It has been going on every Christmas since Bart was seven or eight years oldjust like in the movie Same Time, Next Year, with Alan Alda and Ellen Burstyn, a movie Kelley actually enjoyed when he saw it a million years ago with the original Margaret. Margaret told Kelley not to marry Mitzi she thought Mitzi was silly and too young. I dont know what youre thinking, Kelley. Shes going to want children, and you cant even care for the ones we have now. Kelley heard Margaret loud and clear, but he surprised herand himselfby not only marrying Mitzi but by quitting the rat race, leaving Manhattan, taking custody of the children, and moving them to Nantucket. And buying the inn, which was Mitzis dream. Although, to be fair, it had been a dream for both of them. It started out, perhaps, as a grandiose gesture of love. Mitzi had stayed at the Winter Street Inn for a dozen years before she met Kelley, and she had watched it fall into decline and decrepitude. When Kelley bought the inn for her, as a wedding present, really, the idea had been that they would embark on a new life together. This inn, built in 1873, originally belonging to the towns grocer, needed a lot of work to make it a destination of high-end comfortthe sumptuous marble bathrooms, the thick Turkish towels, the four-poster king-size beds made from solid cherry, the pillow-top mattresses, the original paintings by Nantucket artists. Not to mention central air-conditioning, an inn-wide stereo system, plasma TVs and iPod docking stations, and LOccitane toiletries. Restoring the inn had been expensive and stressful. So it hadnt always been the two of them holding hands, skipping along in golden sunshine, but it had been good. They renovated and restored, they advertised and marketed, they married and procreated. Kelley liked being an innkeeper. He liked his great stone hearth and his deep leather club chairs and the stairs that creaked because their treads were almost a hundred and fifty years old. He liked packing up box lunches that his guests could take to the beach. He liked tuning up the fleet of eight vintage Schwinns for their guests to ride into town. He enjoyed meeting new people and providing them with a respite from their normal lives. And he loved being a hands-on father to Bartand, a bit belatedly, to his older kids. Buying the inn and being with Mitzi and raising his family on Nantucket Island had brought Kelley real happiness, the kind of happiness he had been so certain he would never find again. But now, Mitzi is leaving. Kelley sinks onto their bed. The room smells like Christmas. At night, when they get ready for bed, Mitzi lights her favorite Fraser fir candle. A few weeks agothe Saturday night of Stroll weekendKelley and Mitzi made love by the low flicker of this candle. He didnt know anything was wrong. George the Santa Claus. Is it me he asks. Did I do something Mitzi doesnt respond, and Kelley experiences a moment of weakness in which he thinks of asking George and Mitzi to stay through Christmas. The inn needs its Santa Claus, and Kelley needs his business partner. How is he going to throw the party tomorrow night And what about Christmas dinner But no. No. Twelve years. Under his own roof How could he not have known Mitzi gives him a rueful smile. Its not you, Kelley, she says. Its me. What about the rest of your stuff he asks. What about all your your Christmas stuff She gives him a quizzical look. Your ornaments, your nutcrackers your carolers, for Gods sake Oh, she says. Ill leave those for the rest of you to enjoy. And with this, she walks out of their bedroom, shutting the door quietly behind her. FIRST FIRST LADY to come under criminal investigation FIRST FIRST LADY to almost be indicted according to one of the special prosecutors NUMBER of Hillary Clinton fundraisers or major backers convicted of, or pleading no contest to, crimes: 9 including Jeffrey Thompson, Paul Adler, Norman Hsu, Jorge Cabrera, Abdul Jinnal, Alcee Hastings, Johnny Chung, Marc Rich, Sant Chatwal NUMBER OF TIMES that Hillary Clinton, providing testimony to Congress, said that she didnt remember, didnt know, or something similar: 250 NUMBER OF CLOSE BUSINESS partners of Hillary Clinton who ended up in prison: 3. The Clintons two partners in Whitewater were convicted of 24 counts of fraud and conspiracy. Hillary Clintons partner and mentor at the Rose law firm, Webster Hubbell, pleaded guilty to federal mail fraud and tax evasion charges, including defrauding former clients and former partners out of more than 480,000. Hillary Clinton was mentioned 35 times in the indictment. IN THE 1980s, Hillary Clinton made a 44,000 profit on a 2,000 investment in a cellular phone franchise deal took advantage of the FCCs preference for locals, minorities and women. The franchise was almost immediately flipped to the cellular giant, McCaw. HILLARY CLINTON AND HER HUSBAND set up a resort land scam known as Whitewater in which the unwitting bought third rate property 50 miles from the nearest grocery store and, thanks to the sleazy financing, about half the purchasers, many of them seniors, lost their property. IN 1993 HILLARY CLINTON and David Watkins moved to oust the White House travel office in favor of World Wide Travel, Clintons source of 1 million in fly-now-pay-later campaign trips that essentially financed the last stages of the campaign without the bother of reporting a de facto contribution. The White House fired seven long-term employees for alleged mismanagement and kickbacks. The director, Billy Dale, charged with embezzlement, was acquitted in less than two hours by the jury. HRCS 1994 HEALTH CARE PLAN, according to one account, included fines of up to 5,000 for refusing to join the government-mandated health plan, 5,000 for failing to pay premiums on time, 15 years to doctors who received quotanything of valuequot in exchange for helping patients short-circuit the bureaucracy, 10,000 a day for faulty physician paperwork, 50,000 for unauthorized patient treatment, and 100,000 a day for drug companies that messed up federal filings. TWO MONTHS after commencing the Whitewater scheme, Hillary Clinton invested 1,000 in cattle futures. Within a few days she had a 5,000 profit. Before bailing out she earns nearly 100,000 on her investment. Many years later, several economists will calculate that the chances of earning such returns legally were one in 250 million. IN 1996, Hillary Clintons Rose law firm billing records, sought for two years by congressional investigators and the special prosecutor were found in the back room of the personal residence at the White House. Clinton said she had no idea how they got there. DRUG DEALER Jorge Cabrera gave enough to the Democrats to have his picture taken with both Hillary Clinton and Al Gore. Cabrera was arrested in January 1996 inside a cigar warehouse in Dade County, where more than 500 pounds of cocaine had been hidden. He and several accomplices were charged with having smuggled 3,000 pounds of cocaine into the United States through the Keys In 2000, Hillary Clintons Senate campaign returned 22,000 in soft money to a businesswoman linked to a Democratic campaign contribution from a drug smuggler in Havana. IN AUGUST 2000, Hillary Clinton held a huge Hollywood fundraiser for her Senate campaign. It was very successful. The only problem was that, by a long shot, she didnt report all the money contributed: 800K by the US governments ultimate count in a settlement and 2 million according to the key contributor and convicted con Peter Paul. This is, in election law, the moral equivalent of not reporting a similar amount on your income tax. It is a form of fraud. Hillary Clintons defense is that she didnt know about it HILLARY CLINTONS participation in a Whitewater related land deal became suspicious enough to trigger an investigation by the Arkansas Supreme Court. IN 2007, A Pakistani immigrant who hosted fundraisers for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton became a target of the FBI allegations that he funneled illegal contributions to Clintons political action committee and to Sen. Barbara Boxers 2004 re-election campaign. Authorities say Northridge, Calif. businessman Abdul Rehman Jinnah, 56, fled the country shortly after being indicted on charges of engineering more than 50,000 in illegal donations to the Democratic committees. HILLARY CLINTON SUPPORTED the appointment of Rudy Giulianis buddy, Bernie Kerick, to be Secretary of Homeland Security. Kerick subsequently withdrew and not long after was indicted. TALES OF HILLARY Times, UK, 2009 - Hillary Clinton. was back in Belfast last week, giving a gentle push to politicians dragging their heels over a final piece in the peace process jigsaw. But according to the Sunday Life newspaper, during a speech she made to the Stormont parliament, she said that Belfasts landmark Europa Hotel was devastated by an explosion when she first stayed there in 1995. The Europa, where most journalists covering the decades-long conflict stayed, was famed as Europes most bombed hotel, earning the moniker quotthe Hardboard Hotelquot. However, the last Provisional IRA bomb to damage the Europa was detonated in 1993, two years before President Clinton and his wife checked in for the night. The last time the Europa underwent renovations because of bomb blast damage was in January 1994, 22 months before the presidential entourage booked 110 rooms at the hotel. Mrs Clinton told assembled politicians at Stormont: quotWhen Bill and I first came to Belfast we stayed at the Europa Hotel. even though then there were sections boarded up because of damage from bombs. quot During the presidential campaign Mrs Clinton drew on her Bosnia experience, saying: quotI remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport but we just ran with our heads down to get in the vehicles to get to our base. quot After archive news footage was shown of her walking calmly from her plane with her daughter, Chelsea, Ms Clinton admitted: quotI did mis-speak the other day. ON APRIL 27, 1998 . deputy independent counsel Hickman Ewing met with his prosecutors to decide on whether to indict Hillary Clinton. Heres what happened as reported by Sue Schmidt and Michael Weisskopf in their book, quotTruth at Any Cost:quot quotEwing paced the room for more than three hours, recalling facts from memory in his distinctive Memphis twang. He spoke passionately, laying out a case that the first lady had obstructed government investigators and made false statements about her legal work for McDougals S amp L, particularly the thrifts notorious multimillion-dollar Castle Grande real estate project. The biggest problem was the death a month earlier of Jim McDougal. Without him, prosecutors would have a hard time describing the S amp L dealings they suspected Hillary Clinton had lied about. quot CNN, MAR 18, 1999 - Deputy independent counsel Hickman Ewing testified at the Susan McDougal trial Thursday that he had written a quotrough draft indictmentquot of first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton after he doubted her truthfulness in a deposition. Ewing, who questioned Mrs. Clinton in a deposition at the White House on April 22, 1995, said, quotI had questions about whether what she was saying were accurate. We had no records. She was in conflict with a number of interviews. quot Ewing said those interviews by investigators were primarily with other people in the Rose Law Firm. Ewing said he had questioned Mrs. Clinton about her representation of Jim McDougals Madison Guarantee Savings amp Loan when she was at the Rose Law firm in Little Rock. quotI dont know if she was telling the truth. I did not circulate the draft. I showed it to one lawyer (in the independent counsels office) who said he didnt want to see it, quot Ewing said, under questioning from McDougal attorney Mark Geragos. Ewing also testified that in a later deposition with both the president and first lady on July 22, 1995, he had questions about the truthfulness of both Clintons. McDougals attorney Mark Geragos asked Ewing: quotDid you say the Clintons were liarsquot quotI dont know if I used the L-word but I expressed internally that I was concerned, quot Ewing said. In August 2000, the NY Post reported: quotThe Arkansas man who accused Hillary Rodham Clinton last month of uttering an anti-Semitic slur in 1974 has passed a lie-detector test arranged by The Post. Paul Fray, who has charged Mrs. Clinton called him a quotf - - - ing Jew bastardquot after Bill Clinton lost his race for Congress, cleared the polygraph exam administered Sunday near his home here. quotTheres no doubt in my mind that Mr. Fray is truthful, quot concluded state-licensed Arkansas polygrapher Jeff Hubanks, who gave the three-hour test. The findings were reviewed yesterday by another expert, Richard Keifer, a former head of the FBIs polygraph unit who has 20 years of experience. Keifer judged the results quotinconclusivequot because they didnt meet the high federal polygraph standards - but said he found nothing to indicate Fray was lying. Clinton campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson said, quotPaul Fray is an admitted liar, and were not going to be responding to his lies anymore. quot That same year former Arkansas state trooper Larry Patterson claimed that in their frequent arguments, Bill and Hillary Clinton would use such expressions as quotJew motherfcker, quot quotJew Boyquot and quotJew Bastard. quot Christopher Hitchens, Slate, 2008 - quotAn upstate New York developer donated 100,000 to former President Bill Clintons foundation in November 2004, around the same time that Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton helped secure millions of dollars in federal assistance for the businessmans mall project. quotMrs. Clinton helped enact legislation allowing the developer, Robert J. Congel, to use tax-exempt bonds to help finance the construction of the Destiny USA entertainment and shopping complex, an expansion of the Carousel Center in Syracuse. quotMrs. Clinton also helped secure a provision in a highway bill that set aside 5 million for Destiny USA roadway construction. quot Why should anyone doubt, then, that in small matters as well as in large ones, the old slogan from the 1992 election still holds true As Bill so touchingly put it that year, if you voted for him, you got quottwo for one. quot What the country-and the world-has since learned is a slight variation on that, which I would crudely phrase as quotbuy one, get one free. quot NY Times, 2001 - The former chairman of the Rockland County Democratic Party, an active supporter of Hillary Rodham Clintons Senate campaign, stood before a federal judge today and admitted that he had sought to bribe a town official for a vote on a development project and had evaded paying income taxes. Under an agreement with federal prosecutors, the man, Paul W. Adler, 42, who stepped down as party chairman after his arrest in September, pleaded guilty to two of the more than a dozen charges filed against him. USA Today, 2014 - A Washington businessman pleaded guilty Monday to funding shadow campaign activity for several candidates, including Hillary Rodham Clintons 2008 presidential campaign and the 2010 election of Washingtons current mayor. Wash Times - In 2007, when Mrs. Clinton was considered the front-runner for the Democratic nomination, she took the unprecedented step of returning 850,000 in contributions raised by Norman Hsu, a top campaign bundler who was wanted on criminal charges in a multimillion-dollar Ponzi scheme. Ward Harkavy, Village Voice, 2000 - Twice in three days last week, Hillary Rodham Clinton basked in the adulation of cheering unions. They would have dropped their forks if they had heard that Hillary served for six years on the board of the dreaded Wal-Mart, a union-busting behemoth. If they had learned the details of her friendship with Wal-Mart, they might have lost their lunches. As she was leaving the dais, she ignored a reporters question about Wal-Mart, and she ignored it again when she strode by reporters in the hotel lobby. But there are questions. In 1986, when Hillary was first lady of Arkansas, she was put on the board of Wal-Mart. Officials at the time said she wasnt filling a vacancy. In May 1992, as Hubbys presidential campaign heated up, she resigned from the board of Wal-Mart. Company officials said at the time that they werent going to fill her vacancy. So what the hell was she doing on the Wal-Mart board According to press accounts at the time, she was a show horse at the companys annual meetings when founder Sam Walton bused in cheering throngs to celebrate his non-union empire, which is headquartered in Arkansas, one of the countrys poorest states. According to published reports, she was placed in charge of the companys quotgreenquot program to protect the environment. But nobody got greener than Sam Walton and his family. For several years in the 80s, he was judged the richest man in America by Forbes magazine his fortune zoomed into the billions until he split it up among relatives. Its no surprise that Hillary is a strong supporter of free trade with China. Wal-Mart, despite its quotBuy Americanquot advertising campaign, is the single largest U. S. importer, and half of its imports come from China. Was Hillary the voice of conscience on the board for American and foreign workers Contemporary accounts make no mention of that. They do describe her as a quotcorporate litigatorquot in those days, and they mention, speaking of environmental matters, that she also served on the board of Lafarge, a company that, according to a press account, once burned hazardous fuels to run its cement plants. And the Clintons depended on Wal-Marts largesse not only for Hillarys regular payments as a board member but for travel expenses on Wal-Mart planes and for heavy campaign contributions to Bills campaigns there and nationally. Lisa Featherstone, Nation 2005 - Unlike so many horrible things, Wal-Mart cannot be blamed on George W. Bush. The Arkansas-based company prospered under the states native son Bill Clinton when he was governor and President. Sam Walton and his wife, Helen, were close to the Clintons, and for several years Hillary Clinton, whose law firm represented Wal-Mart, served on the companys board of directors. Bill Clintons quotwelfare reformquot has provided Wal-Mart with a ready workforce of women who have no choice but to accept its poverty wages and discriminatory policies. WAL-MART BOARD MEMBER CLINTON WAS SILENT AS FIRM FOUGHT OFF UNIONS Stuart Taylor, National Journal - Castle Grande: In the summer of 1995, the Resolution Trust Corp. reported that Hillary had been one of 11 Rose Law Firm lawyers who had done work in the mid-1980s on an Arkansas real estate development, widely known as Castle Grande, promoted by James McDougal and Seth Ward. McDougal headed a troubled thrift, Madison Guaranty Savings amp Loan, and had given Hillary legal business as a favor to Bill. McDougal and his wife, Susan, were the Clintons partners in their Whitewater real estate investment. Ward was father-in-law to Webb Hubbell, another former Rose Law Firm partner, who was briefly Clintons associate attorney general in 1993. Later, Hubbell went to prison for fraud, as did James McDougal. Castle Grande was a sewer of sham transactions, some used to funnel cash into Madison Guaranty. Castle Grandes ultimate collapse contributed to that of the thrift, which cost taxpayers millions. Hillary told federal investigators that she knew nothing about Castle Grande. When it turned out that more than 30 of her 60 hours of legal work for Madison Guaranty involved Castle Grande, she said she had known the project under a different name. A 1996 Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. report said that she had drafted documents that Castle Grande used to quotdeceive federal bank examiners. quot Hillarys billing records for Castle Grande were in a 116-page, 5-inch-thick computer printout that came to light under mysterious circumstances on January 4, 1996 -- 19 months after Starrs investigators had subpoenaed it and amid prosecutorial pressure on Clinton aides who had been strikingly forgetful. For most of that time, Hillary claimed that the billing records had vanished. But a longtime Hillary assistant named Carolyn Huber later admitted coming across the printout in August 1995 on a table in a storage area next to Hillarys office Huber said she had put it into a box in her own office, without realizing for five more months that these were the subpoenaed billing records. This implausible tale, on top of other deceptions, prompted New York Times columnist William Safire to write on January 8, 1996, that quotour first lady. is a congenital liar. quot Jerry Seper, Washington Times, 2000 - The Arkansas Supreme Court, which is considering disbarment proceedings against President Clinton, yesterday said it also is investigating whether first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton engaged in fraud in a questionable Whitewater-related land deal. The probe, confirmed by the courts Committee of Professional Conduct, has focused on accusations about Mrs. Clintons legal representation of a failed Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan Association real estate venture, which the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. called a quotsham. quot A major area of concern is an option agreement that facilitated a 300,000 payment to Seth Ward, father-in-law of Mrs. Clintons law partner, Webster L. Hubbell. The option, written by Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Hubbell while they were at Little Rocks Rose Law Firm, guaranteed Mr. Ward a payoff and negated his liability in the project. During the 1992 campaign, Hillary Clinton defended her role in the Madison Guarantee SampL scandal by saying, quotI suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas. But what I decided to do was pursue my profession, which I entered before my husband was in public life. quot Forgotten, however, is what inspired this homily: accusations that Ms. Clinton had represented Whitewater business partner Jim McDougals SampL before her husbands government. Heres what the New York Times reported on March 17, 1992: quotHillary Clinton said today that she did not earn a penny from state business conducted by her Little Rock law firm and that she never intervened with state regulators on behalf of a failed Arkansas savings and loan association. quot Records would show that she did, in fact, represent Madison before the state securities department. After the revelation, she says, quotFor goodness sakes, you cant be a lawyer if you dont represent banks. quot Susan McDougal recalled Ms. Clinton coming in and drumming up the business. Ms. McDougal told the Washington Post: quotThe problem was finances, her finances. quot The Washington Times quoted an unnamed Clinton business associate who claimed the governor used to quotjog over to McDougals office about once a month to pick up the retainer check for his wife. quot Jim McDougals version of the story, according to the LA Times, was that Clinton asked him to throw some legal work his wifes way to help the Clintons out of a financial crunch: quotI hired Hillary because Bill came in whimpering that they needed help. quot Hillary Clinton wrote Jim McDougal enclosing a power of attorney for him to sign quotauthorizing me to act on your behalf with respect to matters concerning Whitewater Development Corporation. quot Another power of attorney was enclosed for Susan McDougal. The power of attorney included the right to endorse, sign and execute quotchecks, notes, deeds, agreements, certificates, receipts or any other instruments in writing of all matters related to Whitewater Development Corporation. quot This letter, uncovered in 1993 by Jerry Seper of the Washington Times, directly contradicted the claim of the Clintons that they were quotpassive shareholdersquot in Whitewater. From a 1996 Chicago Tribune editorial: quotThe legal issues will sort themselves out in time. But one thing has become all too clear. Bill and Hillary Clinton and their aides have made a concerted effort to deceive official investigators and the American public with half truths and outright lies. Its not clear what the Clintons want to conceal, but its clear that they have made extraordinary efforts to do New Republic, 1994 - Although Rodham Clinton was a litigator--that is, a lawyer whose task is to appear in court, if only to force the other side to settle-- and an attorney who was named one of the 100 most influential in the country by the National Law Journal in 1988 and 1991, she was almost never seen in the courtrooms of Little Rock some court reporters remember an occasional appearance, and one could not remember having seen her at all. According to a search conducted by American Lawyer, she tried just five cases during her fifteen years at Rose other published sources say her work revolved around copyright infringement cases involving songwriters and bread companies. so. quot Stephen Zunes, Foreign Police In Focus - Senator Hillary Clinton has opposed restrictions on U. S. arms transfers and police training to governments that engage in gross and systematic human rights abuses. Indeed, she has supported unconditional U. S. arms transfers and police training to such repressive and autocratic governments as Egypt, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Pakistan, Equatorial Guinea, Azerbaijan, Cameroon, Kazakhstan, and Chad, just to name a few. She has also refused to join many of her Democratic colleagues in signing a letter endorsing a treaty that would limit arms transfers to countries that engage in a consistent pattern of gross and systematic human rights violations. Civilian Casualties Not only is she willing to support military assistance to repressive regimes, she has little concern about controlling weapons that primarily target innocent civilians. Senator Clinton has refused to support the international treaty to ban land mines, which are responsible for killing and maiming thousands of civilians worldwide, a disproportionate percentage of whom have been children. She was also among a minority of Democratic Senators to side with the Republican majority last year in voting down a Democratic-sponsored resolution restricting U. S. exports of cluster bombs to countries that use them against civilian-populated areas. Each of these cluster bomb contains hundreds of bomblets that are scattered over an area the size of up to four football fields and, with a failure rate of up to 30, become de facto land mines. As many as 98 of the casualties caused by these weapons are civilians. Senator Clinton also has a record of dismissing reports by human rights monitors that highlight large-scale attacks against civilians by allied governments. For example, in the face of widespread criticism by reputable human rights organizations over Israels systematic assaults against civilian targets in its April 2002 offensive in the West Bank, Senator Clinton co-sponsored a resolution defending the Israeli actions that claimed that they were quotnecessary steps to provide security to its people by dismantling the terrorist infrastructure in the Palestinian areas. quot She opposed UN efforts to investigate alleged war crimes by Israeli occupation forces and criticized President Bush for calling on Israel to pull back from its violent re-conquest of Palestinian cities in violation of UN Security Council resolutions. Similarly, when Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other reputable human rights groups issued detailed reports regarding Israeli war crimes during that countrys assault on Lebanon in the summer of 2006, Senator Clinton insisted they were wrong and that Israels attacks were legal. Furthermore, though these groups had also criticized the radical Lebanese group Hezbollah for committing war crimes by firing rockets into civilian-populated areas in Israel, exhaustive investigations have revealed absolutely no evidence that they had used the civilian population as quothuman shieldsquot to protect themselves from Israeli assaults. Despite this, Senator Clinton, without providing any credible evidence to the contrary, still insists that they in fact had used human shields and were therefore responsible for the death of more than 800 Lebanese civilians. Senator Clinton has voted to send tens of billions of dollars unconditionally to Baghdad to prop up that regime, apparently unconcerned about the well-documented reports of death squads being run from the Interior Ministry that have killed many thousands of unarmed Sunni men. In Senator Clintons world view, if a country is considered an important strategic ally of the United States, any charges of human rights abuses 150 no matter how strong the evidence 150 must be summarily dismissed. Indeed, despite the Israeli governments widespread and well-documented violations of international humanitarian law, Senator Clinton has praised Israel for its quotvalues that respect the dignity and rights of human beings. quot Hil Clin gets at least 200,000 to speak at Goldman Sachs conference RAYMOND HERNANDEZ and ROBERT PEAR, NY TIMES - As she runs for re-election to the Senate from New York this year and lays the groundwork for a possible presidential bid in 2008, Mrs. Clinton is receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from doctors, hospitals, drug manufacturers and insurers. Nationwide, she is the No. 2 recipient of donations from the industry, trailing only Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, a member of the Republican leadership. HAARETZ - U. S. Sen. Hillary Clinton said Sunday that she supports the separation fence Israel is building along the edges of the West Bank, and that the onus is on the Palestinian Authority to fight terrorism. quotThis is not against the Palestinian people, quot Clinton, a New York Democrat, said during a tour of a section of the barrier being built around Jerusalem. quotThis is against the terrorists. The Palestinian people have to help to prevent terrorism. They have to change the attitudes about terrorism. quot Clintons comments echoed Israels position that the Palestinians must crack down on militants or Israel will find ways to prevent attacks on its citizens. Clinton is not slated to visit the Palestinian areas during her visit. UPI - U. S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is in Israel on a visit intended to put to rest any lingering doubts about her support for Israel. In 1999, Clinton traveled to the West Bank as first lady and was acclaimed there as a champion of Palestinian nationhood because of comments she had made in 1998 that seemed to express support for a Palestinian state. The comments, criticized by some American Jewish groups, were disavowed by the White House, the newspaper said. In her 2000 Senate race, Clinton staked out a number of positions that appealed to Jewish voters, declaring, for example, that Jerusalem should be the quoteternal and indivisible capital of Israel. quot. Mike McIntire, NY Times, 2007 - When former President Bill Clinton and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton took a family vacation in January 2002 to Acapulco, Mexico, one of their longtime supporters, Vinod Gupta, provided his companys private jet to fly them there. The company, Info USA, one of the nations largest brokers of information on consumers, paid 146,866 to ferry the Clintons, Mr. Gupta and others to Acapulco and back, court records show. During the next four years, Info USA paid Mr. Clinton more than 2 million for consulting services, and spent almost 900,000 to fly him around the world for his presidential foundation work and to fly Mrs. Clinton to campaign events. Those expenses are cited in a lawsuit filed late last year in a Delaware court by angry shareholders of Info USA, who assert that Mr. Gupta wasted the companys money trying quotto ingratiate himselfquot with his high-profile guestsquot Sarah Baxter, Times UK - The frontrunner for the Democrats in the 2008 presidential election, Hillary Clinton, has been hit by a legal dispute in which one of her fundraisers is accused of trying to quotingratiatequot himself with powerful friends at the expense of his company. The row has revived accusations of the influence peddling and favors for donors that marred Bill Clintons presidency in the 1990s. For years the Clintons flew on Vinod Guptas corporate plane, introduced him to world leaders - including Tony Blair - and received donations for their political campaigns and charitable foundations. They relaxed at his holiday home in Hawaii - next door to Pierce Brosnan, the former James Bond star - and jetted to Acapulco, the Mexican resort, while Gupta once spent the night as a favored guest in the Lincoln bedroom at the White House. quotIf were negotiating with a company, it helps if Bill Clinton says, Oh Vin, hes a good guy, quot said Gupta in a frank interview with The Sunday Times. DICK MORRIS amp EILEEN MCGANN, NEWSMAX - Since he left office in 2001, former president Bill Clinton has been paid by 3.3 million by Info USA, an Omaha, Nebraska company that has been identified as a key provider of specially designed databases that have been sold to criminals who use the detailed information to defraud the unsuspecting elderly. According to the New York Times, Info USA compiled and sold lists that disclosed the names of elderly men and women who would be likely to respond to unscrupulous scams. The lists left no doubt about the vulnerability of the elderly targets. The Times reported, for example, that Info USA advertised lists of quotElderly Opportunity Seekers, quot 3.3 million older people quotlooking for ways to make money, quot and quotSuffering Seniors, quot 4.7 million people with cancer or Alzheimers disease. quotOldies but Goodiesquot contained 500,000 gamblers over 55 years old, for 8.5 cents Sun Sentinel, FL - U. S. Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, of Weston, and Alcee Hastings, of Miramar, were appointed national campaign co-chairs on Thursday for U. S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clintons Democratic presidential effort. quotWe need a leader with a clear vision and sound judgment, who can work with a Democratic Congress to renew the promise of America. Hillary is that leader, quot Wasserman Schultz said in a statement. WIKIPEDIA - In 1981 Judge Hastings was charged with accepting a 150,000 bribe in exchange for a lenient sentence and a return of seized assets for 21 counts of racketeering by Frank and Thomas Romano, and of perjury in his testimony about the case. He was acquitted by a jury after his alleged co-conspirator, William Borders, refused to testify in court (resulting in a jail sentence for Borders). In 1988, the Democratic-controlled U. S. House of Representatives took up the case, and Hastings was impeached for bribery and perjury by a vote of 413-3. Voters to impeach included Democratic Representatives Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, John Conyers and Charles Rangel. He was then convicted in 1989 by the United States Senate, becoming the sixth federal judge in the history of the United States to be removed from office by the Senate. The vote on the first article was 69 for and 26 opposed, providing five votes more than the two-thirds of those present that were needed to convict. The first article accused the judge of conspiracy. Alleged co-conspirator William Borders went to jail again for refusing to testify in the impeachment proceedings, but was later given a full pardon by Bill Clinton on his last day in office. Hastings filed suit in federal court claiming that his impeachment trial was invalid because he was tried by a Senate committee, not in front of the full Senate, and that he had been acquitted in a criminal trial. Judge Stanley Sporkin ruled in favor of Hastings, remanding the case back to the Senate. The Supreme Court, however, ruled in Nixon v. United States that the federal courts have no jurisdiction over Senate impeachment matters, so Sporkins ruling was vacated and Hastings conviction and removal were upheld. Wikipedia - After the 2006 United States House of Representatives elections, Hastings attracted controversy after it was reported that incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi might appoint him as head of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Pelosi reportedly favored Hastings instead of the ranking Democrat Jane Harman due to political differences and support for Hastings by the Congressional Black Caucus. However, Hastings impeachment led to accusations that Democrats, who had campaigned against a Republican quotculture of corruption, quot were themselves elevating a corrupt official to a committee chair. On November 28, 2006, Pelosi announced that Hastings would not be the next chairman of the House Select Committee on Intelligence. 1993 - Hillary Clinton and David Watkins move to oust the White House travel office in favor of World Wide Travel, Clintons source of 1 million in fly-now-pay-later campaign trips that essentially financed the last stages of the campaign without the bother of reporting the de facto contribution. The White House fires seven long-term employees for alleged mismanagement and kickbacks. The director, Billy Dale, charged with embezzlement, will be acquitted in less than two hours by the jury. An FBI agent involved in the case, IC Smith, will write later, quotThe White House Travel Office matter sent a clear message to the Congress as well as independent counsels that this Whit House would be different. Lying, withholding evidence, and considering - even expecting - underlings to be expendable so the Clintons could avoid accountability for their actins would become the norm. quot Richard L Berke, NY Times, 1993 - After a third day of embarrassing disclosures about the ouster of its travel office, the White House tonight abruptly announced the withdrawal of the Arkansas travel agency with close ties to President Clinton that it had selected to take over the operation. CNN, 2000 - Independent Counsel Robert Rays final report on the White House travel office case found first lady Hillary Rodham Clintons testimony in the matter was quotfactually false, quot but concluded there were no grounds to prosecute her. The special prosecutor determined the first lady did play a role in the 1993 dismissal of the travel offices staff, contrary to her testimony in the matter. But Ray said he would not prosecute Clinton for those false statements because quotthe evidence was insufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubtquot that she knew her statements were false or understood that they may have prompted the firings. The final report concludes that quotdespite that falsity, no prosecution of Mrs. Clinton is warranted. quot CNN, 2000 - Ray also criticized the White House on Thursday for what he called quotsubstantial resistancequot to providing quotrelevant evidencequot to his investigators. quotThe White House asserted unfounded privileges that were later rejected in court, quot Ray said. quotWhite House officials also conducted inadequate searches for documents and failed to make timely production of documents, including relevant e-mails. quot Progressive Review - Mrs. Clintons victim, Bill Dale, put it this way: quotEveryone, especially Robert Ray, knows Hillary Clinton lied under oath about her key role in firing me and my colleagues. Of course, the Clinton Justice Department prosecuted me with no evidence of any wrongdoing on my part. Despite my 38 years of government service, Bill and Hillary Clinton tried to destroy my good name. They put my wife and me through pure hell. quot After quitting the Justice Department and before going to jail, Hubbell is a busy man. He meets with Hillary Clinton, and follows up by getting together with major scandal figures John Huang, James Riady, and Ng Lapseng. Riady and Huang go to the White House every day from June 21 to June 25, 1994 according to White House records. Hubbell has breakfast and lunch with Riady on June 23. Four days later -- and one week after Hubbells meeting with Hillary -- the Hong Kong Chinese Bank, jointly owned by Lippo and the Chinese intelligence services, send 100,000 to Hubbell. Mrs. Clinton is mentioned 36 times in a fraud indictment against Webster Hubbell. Writes the APs Peter Yost: quotStarr alleges Hubbell concealed his own and Mrs. Clintons work during the 1980s on a failed Arkansas land deal, known as Castle Grande, that federal regulators say was riddled with insider dealing, fictitious sales and land flips. quot Yost notes that the criminal contempt trial of Susan McDougal, which begins next month, could also raise problems for Mrs. Clinton: quotThe indictment against Mrs. McDougal details a series of grand jury questions about Mrs. Clinton and Castle Grande that Mrs. McDougal refused to answer. quot The Castle Grande project involved a baroque set of deals aimed at least in part in shoring up the McDougals failing savings and loan. Not until the sudden discovery of Mrs. Clintons billing records in 1996 did her extensive role in the matter come to light. She still claimed that she could not remember her work on the project nor 15 conversations with Hubbells wheeler-dealer father-in-law, Seth Ward. In the end, Castle Grande cost the SampL nearly 4 million in unpaid principal and interest. The billing records documenting HRCs work on the Castle Grande development scam are discovered in the family quarters of the White House. HRC says she has no idea how they got there. A photo of Bill and her standing next to illegal fundraiser Johnny Chung was signed by HRC, quotTo Johnny Chung with best wishes and appreciation. quot Chung reportedly funneled several hundred thousand dollas from Chinese military intelligence to Bill Clintons 1996 campaign. As Chung put it once, quotI see the White House is like a subway -- you have to put in coins to open the gates. quot He was talking about the 50,000 he gave Hillary Clintons top aide while seeking VIP treatment at the White House. CNN, March 1998 - Democratic fund-raiser Johnny Chung has agreed to plead guilty to election law violations and cooperate in the ongoing Justice Department investigation into illegal campaign fund-raising in the 1996 elections. Chung became a major figure in the Democratic fund-raising scandal when it was learned he made almost 50 visits to the White House. During one visit, Chung gave first lady Hillary Rodham Clintons then-chief of staff, Maggie Williams, a 50,000 check for the Democratic National Committee. The check was delivered inside the White House. Two days later Chung was able to bring a group of Chinese businessmen to watch President Bill Clinton deliver a radio address in the Oval Office. They then had their picture taken with the president. The DNC returned more than 300,000 that Chung raised because of questions about the source of the money. A drug dealer donated 20,000 to the DNC, attends a Christmas reception hosted by Hillary Clinton, has his photo taken with the Clintons and Al Gore and then -- three weeks later -- is arrested for smuggling 6,000 pounds of cocaine into the United States. It should have come as no surprise to anyone involved. After all, Jorge Cabrera had already served two prison sentences -- one for trying to bribe a grand jury witness and the other for filing a false income tax return. Later he will be back in the news when a businessman pleads guilty to laundering 3.5 million for Cabrera between 1986 and 1996 NY Post, 2000 - Hillary Rodham Clintons Senate campaign returned 22,000 in quotsoft moneyquot to a businesswoman linked to a Democratic campaign contribution from a drug smuggler in Havana. The donation by Vivian Mannerud Verble was the largest single contribution received by Clintons soft-money committee. Verble, whose company runs charter flights between Cuba and Miami, also served as the fund-raising intermediary between Jorge Cabrera and the Democratic National Committee in 1995, according to congressional investigators. The probers reportedly learned that Cabrera cut a 20,000 check to the DNC from a bank account in which he also kept profits from his lucrative cocaine trade. The DNC eventually returned the money, while Cabrera pleaded guilty to importing 6,000 pounds of cocaine into the United States. He is serving a 19-year federal prison sentence in Florida. Gennifer Flowers on the Sean Hannity Show - Clinton came in one day and told me that Hillary had found out, had heard from some friends that hed been doing cocaine. And that she said, quotHey, you better stop it. quot And I said, quotWell, what are you going to doquot And he said, quotWell, Im going to stop it. quot But this wasnt until, Id say about the mid-80s. So she was aware of his drug problem, as, like I said, as were many others. It was very common knowledge in Arkansas by a number of people, including his wife, that he was a user of cocaine. Susan McDougal recalls Ms. Clinton coming in and drumming up the business. Ms. McDougal tells the Washington Post: quotThe problem was finances, her finances. quot The Washington Times quotes an unnamed Clinton business associate who claims the governor used to quotjog over to McDougals office about once a month to pick up the retainer check for his wife. quot Jim McDougals version of the story, according to the LA Times, is that Clinton asked him to throw some legal work his wifes way to help the Clintons out of a financial crunch: quotI hired Hillary because Bill came in whimpering that they needed help. quot Hillary Clinton writes Jim McDougal enclosing a power of attorney for him to sign quotauthorizing me to act on your behalf with respect to matters concerning Whitewater Development Corporation. quot Another power of attorney is enclosed for Susan McDougal. The power of attorney includes the right to endorse, sign and execute quotchecks, notes, deeds, agreements, certificates, receipts or any other instruments in writing of all matters related to Whitewater Development Corporation. quot This letter, uncovered in 1993 by Jerry Seper of the Washington Times, directly contradicts the claim of the Clintons that they were quotpassive shareholdersquot in Whitewater. Hillary Clinton and the Rose law firm Jim McDougal tries to prevent state agencies from shutting down his SampL, which has been providing cash for the Whitewater operation. According to the Washington Times, Ms. Clinton is put on a 2000 a month retainer by the SampL. Ms. Clinton will later claim not to have received any retainer nor to have been deeply involved with Madison. During the 1992 campaign, Hillary Clinton defends her role in the Madison Guarantee SampL scandal by saying, quotI suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas. But what I decided to do was pursue my profession, which I entered before my husband was in public life. quot Forgotten, however, is what inspired this homily: accusations that Ms. Clinton had represented Whitewater business partner Jim McDougals SampL before her husbands government. Heres what the New York Times reported on March 17, 1992: quotHillary Clinton said today that she did not earn a penny from state business conducted by her Little Rock law firm and that she never intervened with state regulators on behalf of a failed Arkansas savings and loan association. quot Records will show that she did, in fact, represent Madison before the state securities department. After the revelation, she says, quotFor goodness sakes, you cant be a lawyer if you dont represent banks. quot Hillary Clinton makes a 44,000 profit on a 2,000 investment in a cellular phone franchise deal that involves taking advantage of the FCCs preference for locals, minorities and women. The franchise is almost immediately flipped to the cellular giant, McCaw. In the late 1970s, the Clintons and McDougals buy land in the Ozarks with mostly borrowed funds. The Clintons get 50 interest with no cash down. The plot, known as Whitewater, is fifty miles from the nearest grocery store. The Washington Post will report later that some purchasers of lots, many of them retirees, quotput up houses or cabins, others slept in vans or tents, hoping to be able to live off the land. quot HRC writes Jim McDougal, quotIf Reagonomics works at all, Whitewater could become the Western Hemispheres Mecca. quot More than half of the purchasers will lose their plots thanks to the sleazy form of financing used. The McDougals will be among a number of close HRCs friends and business associates who will end up in jail. Details of the Whitewater story Things that happened to Barbara Feinman after becoming ghostwriter for quotIt Takes a Villagequot -- She got no acknowledgement in the book by HR Clinton, contrary to what was stipulated in the contract -- A reporter asked her how much she had written and she replied, quotAll I can say is they didnt pay me 120,000 to spell-check it. quot -- The White House spread rumors that Feinman had been fired -- Simon amp Schuster refused to pay the last 30,000 of her fee. Asked why, Feinman was told that the White House didnt want her paid. -- Feinman is still getting Christmas cards from the White House -- The cards always spell her name wrong. Reported by William Triplett in Capital Style Wikipedia - The majority of It Takes a Village was reportedly written by ghostwriter Barbara Feinman. When the book was first announced in April 1995, The New York Times reported publisher Simon amp Schuster as saying quotThe book will actually be written by Barbara Feinman, a journalism professor at Georgetown University in Washington. Ms. Feinman will conduct a series of interviews with Mrs. Clinton, who will help edit the resulting text. quot Feinman spent seven months on the project and was paid 120,000 for her work. Feinman, however, was not mentioned anywhere in the book. Clintons acknowledgment section began: quotIt takes a village to bring a book into the world, as everyone who has written one knows. Many people have helped me to complete this one, sometimes without even knowing it. They are so numerous that I will not even attempt to acknowledge them individually, for fear that I might leave one out. quot During her promotional tour for the book, Clinton said, quotI actually wrote the book. I had to write my own book because I want to stand by every word. quot Clinton stated that Feinman assisted in interviews and did some editorial drafting of quotconnecting paragraphsquot, while Clinton herself wrote the final manuscript in longhand. This led Feinman to complain at the time to Capitol Style magazine over the lack of acknowledgement. In 2001, The Wall Street Journal reported that quotNew York literary circles are buzzing with vitriol over Sen. Clintons refusal, so far, to share credit with any writer who helps on her book. quot Later, in a 2002 article for The Writers Chronicle, Barbara Feinman Todd (now using her married name) related that the project with Clinton had gone smoothly, producing drafts in a round-robin style. Feinman agrees that Clinton was involved with the project, but also states that, quotLike any first lady, Mrs. Clinton had an extremely hectic schedule and writing a book without assistance would have been logistically impossible. quot Feinman reiterates that her only objection to the whole process was the lack of any acknowledgement Greg Estervbrook, ESPN - Once again, Clinton is presented as the author of what is actually a ghosted book. This time around, the pages of quotLiving Historyquot thank three people -- the much-admired former White House speech writer Alison Muscatine, veteran ghost Maryanne Vollers and researcher Ruby Shamir -- who are assumed to be the actual authors. But the cover and the frontispiece still boldly state, quotby Hillary Rodham Clinton. quot quotLiving Historyquot is a 562-page book. A work of that length would take an average writer perhaps four years to produce a highly proficient writer might finish in two years, if working on nothing else. Clinton signed the contract to quotwritequot the book about two years ago. About the same time, she also was sworn in as a member of the United States Senate. Clinton took an oath to protect the Constitution and to serve the citizens of New York. So in the last two years Clinton has either been neglecting her duties as a United States Senator - that is, violating her oath -- in order to be the true author of quotLiving History, quot or she is claiming authorship of someone elses work. If you didnt write something, and claimed to the world that you did, what you would be doing is lying. Wouldnt it be a nice gesture if United States senators did not lie Perhaps youre thinking, quotBut all people who reach the limelight lie about being authors. quot No, they dont. Consider that the previous book project of Maryanne Vollers, one of Hillarys ghosts, was about Jerri Nielsen, the doctor who had to be airlifted out of Antarctica. How was that book presented As quotIce Bound: A Doctors Incredible Battle for Survival at the South Polequot by Jerri Nielsen with Maryanne Vollers. No lying about the true author. Consider that John McCains autobiographical work, quotFaith of My Fathers, quot proclaims on its cover quotby Mark Salter, with John McCain. quot The true authors name is there for everyone to see, and this neither detracts from sales (quotFaith of My Fathersquot was a commercial success) nor causes anyone to think any less of McCain. Famous people who care about their honor, like McCain, freely acknowledge using ghostwriters -- this is called quothonesty. quot Famous people with serious ego problems, or who dont care about their honor, lie about being authors. Now suppose you were a college student, hired someone to write a thesis paper for you, then submitted the work as your own. Suppose, when caught, rather than confess, you indignantly insisted you were the true author. What would happen to you is that youd be expelled. For you to lie about having written something would be considered inexcusable Judicial Watch sues Hillary Clinton in a 90 million lawsuit on behalf of the 900 persons whose FBI files were taken by the White House. Progresive Review - Fighting a subpoena by Judicial Watch in a 90 million lawsuit on behalf of GOP officials and others whose FBI files were abused by the Clinton White House, HRC, in her brief, declares that quotas a general proposition, high-ranking government officials are not subject to depositionsquot and she shouldnt have to testify so she can quothave time to dedicate to the performance of her government functions. quot One problem: Mrs. Clinton is not a government official. She is, however, a defendant in the suit. Special prosecutor Starr decides not to pursue the FBI file matter after an investigation that included a nine-minute interview with HRC over tea and coffee. FBI Director Louis Freeh calls the handling of the FBI tapes an quotegregious violation of privacy. without justification. quot quotMr. Starr also botched the investigation into the White Houses illicit use of confidential FBI files on 900 Republican opponents. He used FBI agents to probe misconduct involving the FBI itself. Needless to say, they came up empty handed. A civil suit on behalf of the victims has since uncovered evidence that the purloined files were part of a campaign of political espionage ordered by Hillary Clinton herself. The dirt in the files, including raw data on congressional leaders, was fed into computers. Presumably it was later used for blackmail, or fed to media surrogates for the systematic smearing of Republicans. quot -- Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, London Telegraph Sam Smith, Shadows of Hope, 1993 - During the first months of the Clinton administration, one of the biggest national policy changes of the past fifty years was being forged by a secret committee led by Mrs. Clinton under procedures that periodically defied the courts and the Government Accounting Office and whose public manifestations consisted of highly contrived media opportunities, carefully staged quottown meetings, quot and similar artifices. Despite the contrary evidence of public opinion polls, the concept of Canadian-style single-payer insurance was dismissed early. Tom Hamburger and Ted Marmor in the Washington Monthly tell of a single-payer proponent being invited to the White House in February 1993. It was, he said, a quotpseudo-consultationquot the doctor was quickly informed that quotsingle payer is not politically feasible. quot When Dr. David Himmelstein of the Harvard Medical School pressed Mrs. Clinton on single payer, she replied, quotTell me something interesting, David. quot In other words, write Hamburger and Marmor: quotFewer than six weeks into the Clinton presidency, the White House had made its key policy decision: Before the Health Care Task Force wrote a single page of its 22-volume report to the President, the single payer idea was written off, and quotmanaged competitionquot was in. quot If there was any popular, grassroots demand for quotmanaged competitionquot it never appeared. Managed competition had not been tested anywhere. Nonetheless, reported Thomas Bodenehimer in Nation: quotAround Hillary Rodham Clintons health reform table sit the managed-competition winners: big business, hospitals, large (but not small) commercial insurers, the Blues, budget-worried government leaders and the Jackson Hole Group, the chief intellectual honchos of the managed competition movement. Adherence to the mantra of managed competition appears to be the price of a ticket of admission to this gathering. quot What was finally proposed involved a massive transfer of the American health industry - by some accounts now larger than the military-industrial complex - to a small number of the largest insurance companies and other major corporations. These were companies that had the assets to play the game being offered - a medical oligopoly that would dispense health-care under the rules of the Fortune 500 rather than according to those of Hipprocrates. Tony Snow, 1994 - HRC set out to redesign the American health-care system and convened a panel that drafted its plan secretly -- in violation of federal law. The plan prescribed some eye - popping maximum fines: 5,000 for refusing to join the government - mandated health plan 5,000 for failing to pay premiums on time 15 years to doctors who received quotanything of valuequot in exchange for helping patients short-circuit the bureaucracy 10,000 a day for faulty physician paperwork 50,000 for unauthorized patient treatment and 100,000 a day for drug companies that messed up federal filings. When told the plan could bankrupt small businesses, Mrs. Clinton sighed, quotI cant be responsible for every undercapitalized small business in America. quot When a woman complained that she didnt want to get shoved into a plan not of her choosing, the first lady lectured, quotIts time to put the common good, the national interest, ahead of individuals. quot As for privacy, forget it: Her plan would have required people to carry national identification cards that embedded confidential patient information on computer chips. A federal judge issued a fine for a quarter million dollars because, quotThe Executive Branch of the government, working in tandem, was dishonest with this court. quot At issue is the composition of Hillary Clintons health task force, a body stacked with those from the medical industry who would gain most from its faux reforms. Jerry Zeifman was general counsel chief of staff of the House Judiciary Committee during the Watergate investigation. In an article for the Wall Street Journal he reviews HRCs performance as a staff member: -- She violated House and committee rules by disclosing confidential information to unauthorized persons. -- A number of the legal procedures she recommended were ethically flawed -- In one written legal memorandum, she advocated denying President Nixon representation by counsel. -- She proposed that the committee should neither 1) hold any hearings with or take the depositions of any live witnesses, nor 2) conduct any original investigation of Watergate, bribery, tax evasion, or any other possible impeachable offense of President Nixon. Instead, the committee should rely on prior investigations conducted by other committees and agencies. -- She advocated that the official rules of the House be amended to deny members of the committee the right to question witnesses. -- Zeifman decided that he could not recommend her for any position of public or private trust. Washington Post, 1999 - In a move that enables the Clintons to buy the house 150 and Hillary Rodham Clinton to have a base for her New York Senate run 150 the 42-year-old real estate developer and dealmaker pledged to put up 1.35 million in cash to secure a mortgage for the Clintons. Otherwise, swamped by more than 5 million in legal debts, the Clintons might have had difficulty obtaining the loan for the five-bedroom, century-old house. Ethics law experts said yesterday that there is no legal difficulty with the Clintons accepting McAuliffes help, but some questioned the propriety of the presidents accepting such a benefit from a private citizen. quotIts just plain wrong. Its dangerous. Its inappropriate, quot said Fred Wertheimer of Democracy 21. quotThis is a financial favor worth over a million dollars to the president. quot McAuliffe is not actually giving any money to the Clintons. Rather, he will deposit 1.35 million in cash 150 the full amount of their mortgage 150 with Bankers Trust the only risk to McAuliffes money is in the unlikely event that the Clintons default. Progressive Review - And theres the little matter reported by John McCaslin in the Washington Times: Chapter 5 of the Federal Elections Commissions guide for candidates states: quotAn endorsement or guarantee of a bank loan is considered a contribution by the endorser or guarantor and is thus subject to the laws prohibitions and limits on contributions. quot Wall Street Journal, 1999 - What Terry McAuliffe did in essence is make a contribution to Hillarys campaign. Its whole purpose is to enable her to establish residence in New York, thus the money is absolutely essential to her campaign. In the Hillary race, no McAuliffe quotloan, quot no residency, no campaign. His contribution would seem to be more than 1,000. TPR, 1999 - An example of Washingtons culture of impunity can be found in a column by the Washington Posts Richard Cohen in which he justifies Hillary Clintons cattle futures scam by equating it to some of the sweetheart deals into which George the Lesser has so easily fallen. Cohen suggests that the futures deal was nothing more than a businessman doing HRC a favor and writes, quotI have to wonder why Hillary Clintons preferential treatment is such a scandal and George Ws is not. quot He then proceeds to ask a series of questions suggesting that Mrs. Clinton is a victim because of extraneous factors ending, naturally, with imputations of class and gender bias. Let us ignore the Harold Ickesian spin to the piece so suggestive of its provenance and assume more kindly that Cohen once again just doesnt know what hes talking about. That still leaves a lot of Washington Post readers terribly ill-served. Since your editor may be the only journalist in the country to have taken on the business dealings of both GWB Jr. and HRC, a review of the bidding might help: -- Hillary Clintons cattle deal was not just a political favor from Tyson Food, the same firm that would later pay a 6 million penalty for bribing an official of the Department of Agriculture. The sheer mathematical probabilities against it happening legally present us with a smoking gun. There is no statistically logical way in which HRC could have done what she did without someone committing a felony. This case screamed for investigation and never got it. Dubyas sweetheart deal in which he gained an highly profitable interest in the Texas Rangers was, in fact, much closer to the Clintons original Whitewater scam in which Jim McDougal put up the cash and the Clintons got the percentage. There is, however, one major difference which makes even Whitewater far more sinister: Clinton was a public official at the time. But then Cohen doesnt worry about things like that, dismissing Whitewater as quota mess about something no one can keep straight. quot Agbiz Tiller - Mrs. Clintons ability to turn 1000 into a near 100,000 in ten months of futures trading, a Congressional study would learn, coincided with a period of time that a select group of executives from packing houses, grain companies, feedlot operators and commodity brokers reaped tens of millions of dollars in an quotinsiderquot trading scheme in the cattle futures market. Between February, 1978 and April, 1979 some 32 cattle industry insiders made profits of 110 million by selling cattle futures after they received some 15 quotsecret signals, quot which was followed within an average two and one half day period, by a marked drop in cattle future prices. Then Rep. Neal Smith (Dem.-Iowa), chairman of the House Small Business Committee, which released the report in February, 1981 noted that in all a total of some 1027 individuals made total net profits of approximately 156 million. Thus, three percent of the large traders --- those with 50 contracts or more --- with correlated trading activity andor common business affiliations accounted for 70 of the total net profits of this group of traders. Mrs. Clinton traded 50 or more contracts three times. A previous USDA study in 1979, for example, pointed out that during 20 of the 21 months preceding October, 1979 there was not a single day in which a farmer-feeder could have used the futures market to hedge in a profit and only five days in the remaining month that the farmer-feeder could have broken even. Meanwhile, the eight largest packers, who at the time were slaughtering 44 of the nations beef, held over one-half of the futures contracts and made twice as much money in the futures market as they did in trading cattle. In all, between February, 1978 and December, 1980, some 29 quotsecret signalsquot were given although Smiths Committee staff made no estimates on the profits earned after April, 1979. There are estimates that 75 to 95 of individual investors lose money in commodity futures markets. Eric Shawn, Fox News: How will you deal with the critics who dont believe you when youre dealing with the White House billing records and turning 1,000 into 100,000 HR CLINTON: Well I think New Yorkers will make their own judgments about that. I think weve moved beyond all of it and Im going to be talking about the future of education and health care and making sure that upstate New York gets the same kind of economic opportunities that the rest of the state has enjoyed. MSNBC: Some people in the art world are outraged that Hillary Rodham Clinton solicited some artists work for permanent display in the White House and now plans to turn the pieces over to the Clinton Library. In 1993, Hillary Clintonsup1s social secretary, Ann Stock, approached more than 70 of the countrysup1s top artisans, asking them to donate a specific piece or series of pieces for a collection that would become the first permanent White House Crafts Collection. The pieces would form part of a traveling exhibit, Stock told the artisans, and then, unless the artists wanted them back, they would be displayed in a prominent location in the White House at various events throughout the years. After the pieces were in hand, however, the first lady was informed that the White House has a policy that prohibits it from accepting works by living artists (except for those who paint the portraits of the presidents and first ladies). Faced with this dilemma, the Clintons decided a perfect home for the pricey art would be the Clinton Library. WASHINGTON TIMES . Maybe its no big deal elsewhere, but its all the buzz in Albion. Hillary Rodham Clinton dropped into the Village House, a favorite diner in this upstate farming town, and ordered two orders of scrambled eggs, home fries and rye toast. So far, so good. Her breakfast was on the house, and when she left the waitress, a single mom, found not a penny at her plate. The locals have been talking about little else since Tuesday, when she stopped for breakfast after making a speech about how New Yorks farmers quotare really hurting these days. quot. Mrs. Clinton, who once declared a 15-cent income-tax deduction for a pair of her husbands under-shorts that she had donated to charity, had dropped into the diner, halfway between Buffalo and Rochester, along with a dozen reporters in her motorcade. quotShe had two servings of eggs, quot said restaurant owner Alex Mitrousis. At first, she just ordered oatmeal to go but then she ordered scrambled eggs, home fries and rye toast. After she ate that, she ordered quottwo scrambled eggs with cheese, quot he said. The savings bond that HRCs staff bought to cover for their boss failure to tip an Albion, NY. waitress will only be worth 100 in thirteen years. John McCaslin of the Washington Times notes that the bond was given to Tricia Trupos son for his education, but by that time Joshua Trupo will be 24, and hell probably have to use it for grad school. Further developments on Hillary Clintons stiffing of a waitress in Albion, NY. The conservative web site, Free Republic, has raised over 250 in pledges for the waitress, Trish, through a quotIt Takes a Village To Tip a Waitress Fund. quot HRCs post-crisis spin: quotI was not permitted to pay. I was told, You are our guest. I am a big believer in tipping. quot And she offered this piece of royal wisdom: quotWe should support working people. quot But according to restaurant owner Alex Mitrousis, quotI did not tell her not to tip the waitress - it was up to her. quot Taking advantage of it all, Rudolph Giuliani went to the Golden Dolphin diner on Long Island and left a 60 tip on a 35 bill, bragging afterwards: quotI have an understanding of how you depend on tips. Its something that comes naturally in Brooklyn. quot TRISH Village House Restaurant 16 East Ave. Albion, NY 14411-1613 FREE REPUBLIC Turns out Hillary Clinton not only stiffed that waitress, she flat out lied about it. Reports the Washington Times, quotThe next day, when Mrs. Clinton was asked about the tipping incident by a reporter in New York, she said, Thats just another wild story. quot Meanwhile, Tricia Trupo, 31, the single mom waitress trying to raise her son on 5,000 a year before tips, got a call from HRCs quotpersonal plannerquot to apologize for her boss for not having left a tip. Shortly after that Mrs. Clinton herself called quotShe said I was a sweetheart, quot reports Trupo. But she didnt say anything about sending a tip. Trupo, who has no health insurance and gets no child support, plans to use the over 600 raised by the quotIt Takes a Village to Give a Tip Fundquot for her sons education. WASHINGTON TIMES, 2000 . Hillary Rodham Clinton and her Senate campaign staff are trying to make amends with the waitress she stiffed early last week and stop the headlines caused by her faux pas. The first lady mailed Tricia quotTrishquot Trupo a 100 US savings bond Thursday, six days after her failure to tip became news from coast to coast and across the ocean. quotWe all felt so bad about the mix-up that we sent a 100 bond to Ms. Trupos son, Joshua, quot said Howard Wolfson, her campaign spokesman. What Clinton did not mention in the debate was that her bond with Kissinger was personal as well as professional, as she and her husband have for years regularly spent their winter holidays with Kissinger and his wife, Nancy, at the beachfront villa of fashion designer Oscar de la Renta, who died in 2014, and his wife, Annette, in the Dominican Republic. In 1983, the then governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton, appointed Hillary to head a task force on education. She teamed up with Sam Walton, founder of Walmart, and other elites in Arkansas to get an education bill passed that instituted a punitive regime of standardized testing for students and skills tests for teachers. This was, if not the first, one of the first salvos in the reactionary war on public education. How Kasich and the Clintons joined to hurt the poor How the Clinton camp bullied a reporter The real Clinton past on class and ethnicity Clinton made nearly 3 million for 12 speeches to banks HRC pushed trade deal numerous times in past Here are 45 instances when she approvingly invoked the trade bill about which she is now expressing concerns HRC used foundation as slush fund even when she was senator HilClin talked about invading Mexico in 2010 A guide to the many accents of Hillary Clinton The real history of Hillary Clinton Part One - Hillary embarked on her yearlong senior thesis, on the topic of the Chicago community organizer Saul Alinsky. She has successfully persuaded Wellesley to keep this under lock and key, but Gerth and Van Natta got hold of a copy. So far from being an exaltation of radical organizing, Hillary146s assessment of Alinsky was hostile, charging him with excessive radicalism. Her preferential option was to seek minor advances within the terms of the system. She did not share these conclusions with Alinsky who had given her generous access during the preparation of her thesis and a job offer thereafter, which she declined. Part 2 - In the mid-1990s, federal special prosecutor Kenneth Starr146s investigative team in Little Rock was headed by a veteran of the courtroom, Hickman Ewing Jr. Grilled by Ewing before a grand jury on July 22, l995, Mrs. Clinton used the words quotI can146t recallquot in answer to 50 questions. Later, Ewing told Starr that he rated Mrs. Clinton146s testimony as deserving an F Minus, and he wanted to indict the nation146s first lady. He was contemplating a number of counts, headed by two major lines of enquiry. First came her handling of the commodity trades and her failure to report her profits to the IRS. Second came her conduct amid the collapse of Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan, owned by Jim McDougal. Relevant to this affair were Hillary Clinton146s billings as a legal counsel to Madison Guaranty. These were germane to the question of whether Hillary was being truthful in denying she146d done any legal work for the bank. After many adventures, the records finally came into the hands of Starr146s team and showed that Hillary Clinton had billed Madison Guaranty at the rate of 150 an hour, with a total of 60 hours of supposed work on the Castle Grande deal. The prosecutors had the billings but were never able to look at Hillary146s time sheets. Her secretary removed them from the Rose Law Firm in 1992, and it146s generally assumed the first lady destroyed them. Tip to Democratic Party operatives Ask yourself this: when in your experience has a Democratic candidate for president with a clear lead gotten such poor press so far in advance of the nomination And when have even many of those supporting the candidate not consider her trustworthy Fair or unfair, as a purely tactical matter, how safe is it to go with this candidate The Benghazi stuff The email business Over half of voters think H Clinton, as secretary of state, may have helped foreign countries in return for their donations to the Clinton Foundation. A poll that shows even 47 of women say she hasnt been honest and trustworthy, plus 61 of the men. Her inaccessibility to the press which has even been noted by the Washington Post Add to that the fact that in supermarkets all over America, the latest National Enquirer has brought up the Vince Foster matter again in a particularly nasty manner. We have never seen a leading presidential candidate be in such troubled waters this early in a campaign. Dont know what to do about it, but you shouldnt ignore it. Hillary Clintons glass ceiling Hillary Clinton: Thriving in the gap between criminal law and political integrity Foreign countries gave millions to Clinton Foundation while HRC was Secretary of State Hillary Clinton - quotI can never condone what Edward Snowden did. He stole millions of documents. quot What it takes to get Hillary Clinton to speak Enquirer says HRC has booze problem Hillary Clinton has yet to say where she stands on the pipeline. More on the HRC-Kissinger affair Kissinger almost endorses Clinton HRC admits she and Obama share Kissingers imperial view of the America When the Hill spills Sam Smith - A couple of decades of reporting on the real Clintons has taught me that Democrats and liberals are deeply indifferent to how they have been misled. Like victims of abuse, they have been trained to accept the word of their abusers. The Clintons, who are about the most effective political con artists I146ve ever run across, have been major players in transforming their party into something far removed from what made it successful from the New Deal to the Great Society. In fact, on domestic issues, even Nixon was more liberal than Bill Clinton. Clinton was a successful tool of a deliberate effort by conservative Democrats to dismantle the party146s past, for which we are still playing the price, symbolized by the repeal of Glass Stiegel and the assault on social welfare. Hillary Clinton follows in his footsteps, creating a impressive illusion that she represents something far from her reality. Her skill is not in governing, not in policy, not in principle, but rather in fooling people. Her early and soon classic technique was that you don146t need to challenge any facts in criticism, you just have to label the critics as 147haters.148 Sort of like being anti-Semitic if you don146t agree with Benjamin Netanyahu You can read some of the facts here. But it is clear that facts probably won146t become important until it146s too late to do anything about them, which is to say when Hillary Clinton is nominated. At that point the game will dramatically change. Hill Clin146s past, which the corporate media has been obediently hiding, will likely suddenly become so prominent that it may become the major focus of the campaign. This is not to say there will be anything noble driving the criticism. The current crop of Republican candidates is the biggest bunch of ignorant losers and liars we will ever have seen at a political convention. But that doesn146t mean they can146t win, especially against a candidate whose previously hidden problems become the talk of the day. According to our moving average of polls, there are four GOP candidates who are only 8-10 points behind Hill Clin. This mean there need only be a 5-6 point shift in the electorate to turn the count around. Is this possible or likely Well, hidden from public view by a media and Democrats wanting to bash Nader in 2000 was the fact that during the campaign, Nader146s poll count hardly changed at all, while Gore146s did dramatically. Between September and October about 7 of the electorate changed its minds and became pro-Bush. And where did these votes come from Well, Michael Eisencher reported in Z Magazine that 20 of all Democratic voters, 12 of all self - identified liberal voters, 39 of all women voters, 44 of all seniors, one-third of all voters earning under 20,000 per year and 42 of those earning 20-30,000 annually, and 31 of all voting union members cast their ballots for Bush. You kill a brand and you pay the price. Another factor in the outcome was the impact of the Clinton scandals. 68 of voters thought Clinton would go down in history more for his scandals than for his leadership. 44 said that the scandals were somewhat to very important and 57 thought the country to be on the wrong moral track. In short, the individual who did the most harm to Gore was Bill Clinton. In one poll, 80 of the voters who considered honesty mattered most, voted for Bush, the largest dichotomy of personality found. If Gore had simply distanced himself from the Clinton moral miasma he would probably have won. An explosion of Hill Clin scandals could have a similar effect. Of course, one can146t predict how this will play out, but, all ideology aside, as a simple practical matter the Democrats are playing with possible electoral disaster by deluding themselves that the Clinton scandals won146t come back to the fore and won146t make a difference. As one small indicator consider this. A recent poll found Hill Clin only four points ahead of Christie and 5 points ahead of Paul among independents. If this doesn146t concern at least some Democrats, their remarkable abuse by the Clintons has been even more mind-warping than one might have imagined. They don146t need political consultants, they need psychotherapists. Great moments with Hillary Clinton Laura Myers, Las Vegas Review-Journal - Hillary Rodham Clinton likes to travel in style. She insists on staying in the 147presidential suite148 of luxury hotels that she chooses anywhere in the world, including Las Vegas. She usually requires those who pay her six-figure fees for speeches to also provide a private jet for transportation 151 only a 39 million, 16-passenger Gulfstream G450 or larger will do. Hillary Clintons real problem: Honduras not Benghazi Hillary in top one hundredth of one percent Hill Clin says Snowden should come home and surrender to the perps Word: Hillary the hawk Hil Clin acted as Boeing marketer while Secretary of State Study State Department misplaced 6 billion under Hil Clin The real Hillary Clinton on dealing with the public More illegal fundraising for Hillary Clinton uncovered It takes a whole village to raise enough for Hillary Clinton Hillary Clinton documentary killed after pressure from Clintonistas Dubious Clinton foundation behavior isnt helping HC any Clinton foundations spent 50 million on travel HC kicks off campaign by having security take mans camera Hillary Clinton to get big bucks speaking at conference of NSAs pal Hillary Clinton gets around campaign spending laws by huge fees for speeches How Hillary Clinton grew the empire Morning Line: Hyping for Hil Why, to Hillary Clinton, breaking international law is no big deal DESPITE HILLCLIN146S PROMISE, BLACKWATER GETS HUGE STATE DEPARTMENT CONTRACTS TOP CLINTON ADVISOR SAID OBAMA LACKED AMERICAN ROOTS HIDING HILLARY CLINTONS THESIS BILL DEDMAN, MSNBC, MAR 2007 - It was early 1993, in the first days of the Clinton administration, when Hillary Clintons friend and former thesis adviser at Wellesley College took the phone call that would land him in the middle of a political intrigue. quotI got a call from someone at the White House --- I dont remember who --- shortly after the inauguration, saying the Clintons had decided not to release her thesis, quot professor Alan H. Schechter told MSNBC. After the call from the White House, Wellesleys president, Nannerl Overholser Keohane, consulted with lawyers and closed access to any thesis written by a U. S. president or first lady, a rule affecting only Hillary D. Rodhams thesis. When MSNBC called Keohane last week at Princeton to ask about the thesis, she replied, quotI have no memory of this, quot and hung up the phone. To give her time to gather her thoughts, MSNBC e-mailed questions to her, and she replied, quotI do not recall this situation, and cannot help you with this issue. You will need to rely on the people at Wellesley who are more current on this issue than I am. quot. USA Today - A Washington businessman pleaded guilty Monday to funding shadow campaign activity for several candidates, including Hillary Rodham Clintons 2008 presidential campaign and the 2010 election of Washingtons current mayor. Jeffrey Thompson, 58, pleaded guilty to two conspiracy charges tied to allegations that he secretly funneled more than 3.3 million in illegal donations to political candidates and their campaigns. Wash Times - In 2007, when Mrs. Clinton was considered the front-runner for the Democratic nomination, she took the unprecedented step of returning 850,000 in contributions raised by Norman Hsu, a top campaign bundler who was wanted on criminal charges in a multimillion-dollar Ponzi scheme. At the time, Clinton campaign officials said they would undertake 147vigorous148 extra vetting procedures to make sure her sources of campaign funds were legitimate. In 2009, a federal judge sentenced Hsu to more than 24 years in prison for violating campaign finance laws and defrauding investors. ST PETERSBURG TIMES EDITORIAL, 2005 - Sen. Hillary Clintons decision to co-sponsor a bill to make it a crime to burn the American flag amounts to political pandering of the worst kind. She was against outlawing flag-burning before she was for it. The New York Democrat says she opposes a constitutional amendment to ban flag-burning but has signed on to a bill that would ostensibly accomplish the same thing by federal statute. Her position is unprincipled. Clinton may think this is a middle-ground position with broad political appeal, but most people will see it for what it is. BEN SMITH, NY DAILY NEWS - Despite her apparent opposition to torture, Hillary Clinton said in a Daily News editorial board meeting yesterday that the practice is acceptable in some circumstances. At yesterdays Daily News editorial board meeting, it emerged that shes not actually against torture in all instances, and that her dispute with McCain and Bush is largely procedural. She was asked about the quotticking time bombquot scenario, in which youve captured the terrorist and dont have time for a normal interrogation, and said that there is a place for what she called quotseverity, quot in a conversation that included mentioning water-boarding, hypothermia, and other techniques commonly described as torture. quotI have said that those are very rare but if they occur there has to be some lawful authority for pursuing that, quot she responded. quotAgain, I think the President has to take responsibility. There has to be some check and balance, some reporting. I dont mind if its reporting in a top secret context. But that shouldnt be the tail that wags the dog, that should be the exception to the rule. quot Three days after telling the Washington Post that Peter Paul made no contribution to her August 12, 2000 gala and that her campaign would not accept contributions from him, Hillary sent the letter above. The story about Paul has many contradictions and loose ends, but one thing is certain, and eerily typical of the Clinton saga: the extraordinary number of criminals, con artists and other low life the Clintons have had as friends, employees, business partners, and supporters. This story involves just one fundraising event yet the cast of Clinton connected criminals include Peter Paul, Aaron Tonkin, Jim Levin, and Raymond Reggie. Add the McDougals, Web Hubbell, Dan Lasater, Jorge Cabrera, and the more than 40 other convicted individuals and companies connected to the Clinton machine and you have to start wondering. In August 2000 Hillary Clinton held a huge Hollywood fundraiser for her Senate campaign. It was very successful. The only problem was that, by a long shot, she didnt report all the money contributed: 800K by the US governments ultimate count in a settlement and 2 million according to the key contributor and convicted con Peter Paul. The initial reaction was reported by Lloyd Grove of the Washington Post on August 15 2000: quotIs Hillary Clinton soft on crime We certainly hope not, even though convicted felon Peter Paul--who served three years in prison two decades ago after pleading guilty to cocaine possession and trying to swindle 8.7 million out of the Cuban government-- helped organize Saturdays star-glutted 1 million fundraising gala for Clintons Senate race at businessman Ken Robertss Brentwood estate. Paul added that he only produced the gala and hasnt given or raised money for the first ladys New York campaign. quotAnd we will not be accepting any contributions from him, quot Clinton campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson vowed. Later, Paul would change his story claiming that his involvement stemmed from his desire to hire ex-president Bill Clinton, a deal he claimed became contingent on his not only producing but funding the HRC gala, costing him 2 million in kind and in cash. The Clinton campaign would also have to change its story: by September, Pauls Stan Lee Media had contributed 100,000 to HRCs campaign. According to Salon, quotBill Clinton was reportedly promised an additional 15 million in Stan Lee stock to join the board. Paul also says then-DNC Chairman Ed Rendell said it would be nice if Paul gave 150,000 to the DNC after Paul sought a presidential pardon for his two prior convictions. quot The man with whom Clinton was allegedly going into business had a known criminal past. According to Worldnet Daily, quotPaul has pleaded guilty to a 10(b)5 violation of the Securities and Exchange Commission for not publicly disclosing control of Merrill Lynch margin accounts that held stocks in his company, Stan Lee Media. Under the Carter administration, he was convicted for cocaine possession and an attempt to confiscate more than 8 million from Fidel Castro in a black market coffee transaction the Cuban dictator was using to defraud the Soviet Union. quot The Washington Post reported that quotIn 1983, Paul violated parole by traveling to Canada under a false identity and ended up pleading guilty in federal court to making false statements to customs inspectors. Paul went to prison in California. When paroled, he stayed in California. quot The Post also noted that, quotIn 1998, Paul co-founded Stan Lee Media, a Hollywood-based Internet animation studio. The company was named for Pauls business partner, Stan Lee, creator of Spider-Man and the Incredible Hulk. Almost from the start, prosecutors alleged, Paul and a few co-conspirators manipulated the market for the stock of Stan Lee Media: They artificially inflated the stock to a peak value of 350 million, creating a false appearance of demand by making transactions through and between accounts that Paul controlled but maintained in the names of others. Paul and his co-conspirators misused the brokerage account to borrow more than 4 million from Merrill Lynch, money prosecutors say they used to buy real estate, travel and make political contributions. Stan Lee was never implicated in the scheme. quot After the indictment and the collapse of his firm Paul filed suit arguing that Hillary Clinton had never properly reported his 2 million contribution to the campaign. The suit was thrown out because Paul had become a fugitive under arrest in Brazil. Reuters, 2003 Federal authorities in New York on Monday said they have completed the extradition of Peter Paul, the co-founder of defunct online entertainment company Stan Lee Media, from Brazil to the United States to face conspiracy and securities fraud charges. Paul left the United States in late 2000 or early 2001 and was arrested in Brazil in August 2001. He has been held in a Brazilian prison. In July the Brazilian Supreme Court ordered his return to the United States to face charges. He is represented by Judicial Watch, an organization well known for pursuing claims of government corruption. They have claimed Paul has detailed information about donations made to the 2000 U. S. Senate campaign of former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, who was eventually elected to represent the state of New York. WORLDNET DAILY, 2006 - A judge in Los Angeles yesterday dismissed Sen. Hillary Clinton from a lawsuit by business mogul Peter Franklin Paul that alleges her husband, former President Bill Clinton, reneged on a 17 million business deal. KATHRYN JOYCE AND JEFF SHARLET, MOTHER JONES - Through all of her years in Washington, Clinton has been an active participant in conservative Bible study and prayer circles that are part of a secretive Capitol Hill group known as the Fellowship. Her collaborations with right-wingers such as Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) and former Senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) grow in part from that connection. Clintons prayer group was part of the Fellowship (or quotthe Familyquot), a network of sex-segregated cells of political, business, and military leaders dedicated to quotspiritual warquot on behalf of Christ. the leaders friends include former Attorney General John Ashcroft, Reaganite Edwin Meese III, and ultraconservative Rep. Joe Pitts (R-Pa.). The Fellowships God-led men have also included General Suharto of Indonesia Honduran general and death squad organizer Gustavo Alvarez Martinez a Deutsche Bank official disgraced by financial ties to Hitler and dictator Siad Barre of Somalia, plus a list of other generals and dictators. Clinton, says Schenck, has become a regular visitor to Coes Arlington, Virginia, headquarters, a former convent where Coe provides members of Congress with sex-segregated housing and spiritual guidance. JOSHUA GREEN, THE ATLANTIC, 2006 - Clintons proficiency in this innermost sanctum has unnerved some of the capitals most exalted religious conservatives. quotYoure not talking about some tree-hugging, Jesus-is-my-Buddha sort of stuff, quot says David Kuo, a former Bush official in the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, who worked with Clinton to promote joint legislation and who, like Brownback, has apologized to her for past misdeeds. quotThese are powerful evangelicals shes meeting with. quot Less than three hours after Fosters body was found, his office was secretly searched by Clinton operatives, including Mrs. Clintons chief of staff. Another search occurred two days later. Meanwhile, US Park Police and FBI agents are not allowed to search the office on grounds of quotexecutive privilege. quot Progressive Review 2005 - The acquittal of Hillary Clintons former fundraiser David Rosen follows a bizarre trial in which a Clinton-appointed judge announced Mrs. Clinton not culpable before any evidence had been presented and a prosecutor concealed from the jury a damaging tape astounding even the judge. As Newsmax reported on May 18: Prosecutor Peter Zeidenberg announced yesterday that he would not introduce the governments strongest evidence that Rosen is guilty. The government does not intend to introduce the tape or elicit any testimony from the witness about that conversation, Zeidenberg told Judge A. Howard Matz. Judge Matz was stunned by Zeidenbergs announcement, and hinted that the Bush prosecutor was throwing away his case. You couldnt keep the tape out, an incredulous Matz protested. I wouldnt let you keep it out. quot But eventually the Clinton appointed judge relented, saying he said he would allow Zeidenberg to file a real pithy argument in lieu of introducing the Rosen tape. The Bush prosecutor went so far as to trash the Rosen audiotape, arguing that it was hearsay, and requesting that Judge Matz bar even the defense from referencing it. The recording, made by Kennedy in-law Raymond Reggie during a September 2002 meeting with Rosen at a Chicago steakhouse, was believed to offer evidence supportive of the prosecutions argument that Rosen had deliberately understated the costs of an August 2000 gala fund-raiser for Mrs. Clinton. On May 20, Martha Carr in the New Orleans Times Picayune - the only major paper to give the story serious coverage - reported: A transcript of the tape obtained by The Times-Picayune shows that while some parts could have helped bolster the governments case, others contained potentially embarrassing details about the fast-and-loose practices of top Democratic fund raisers and party officials. The judge ultimately agreed to exclude its contents. While Reggie agreed to help the feds almost three years ago, his role as government informant was kept secret until recently in an effort to conceal his cooperation in at least two other unrelated investigations, one involving a state senator, and the other, a prominent political figure who may have been illegally soliciting national campaign donations from foreign nationals, according to an FBI affidavit. The government has agreed to recommend that Reggies sentence not exceed five years in return for his cooperation, he testified Thursday. Like several other actors in the political drama being played out in the Los Angeles courtroom, Reggie, who was invited to state dinners and even slept at the White House, watched his high-powered world come crashing down after his wheeling and dealing got out of control. The underwriter of the Hollywood gala, Peter Paul, is a three-time convicted felon who built an Internet company with Spider-man creator Stan Lee. He awaits sentencing for bilking investors out of 25 million. His former company, Stan Lee Media, is now defunct. Aaron Tonken, who organized the gala, is serving five years in prison for defrauding charities out of hundreds of thousands of dollars, after years of consorting with the rich and famous in Los Angeles, driving luxury vehicles and living off borrowed money. Lastly, there is Jim Levin, a Chicago businessman and Clinton confidant who has pleaded guilty to federal bribery, fraud and conspiracy charges in connection with the awarding of public contracts to his familys fencing company. The judge - a Clinton patronage pick pushed by Barbara Boxer - not only didnt recuse himself as a more cautious jurist might have under the circumstances, he was unusually loquacious. In a NY Sun story he was quoted as saying that Paul was quota thoroughly discredited, corrupt individualquot and quota con artist. quot Metz also said, quotThis isnt a trial about Senator Clinton. Senator Clinton has no stake in this trial as a party or a principal. Shes not in the loop in any direct way, and thats something the jury will be told. quot Whats curious about this is that at least two witnesses had told investigators that they had informed Mrs. Clinton about the hidden campaign cash. Prsecutor Zeidenberg was equally anxious to exonerate Hillary Clinton, telling Matz, quotYou will hear no evidence that Hillary Clinton was involved in any way, shape or form. In fact, its just the opposite. The evidence will show that David Rosen was trying to keep this evidence from the campaign. quot. I t helps to remember that the Clinton-Bush coziness goes back to the days of Iran-Contra, when Papa Bush was supervising covert arms shipments to Latin America out of Arkansas (with drugs making the return trip) and Governor Clinton was busy looking the other way. Further, as was clear during abortive Republican investigations into various Clinton scandals, in the culture of impunity of Washington, politics stops at corruptions edge. Almost all major corruption is either bipartisan or common enough that one side can effectively blackmail the other. Jorge Cabrera was the drug dealer who gave enough to the Democrats to have his picture taken with both Hillary Clinton and Al Gore. In a 1997 story, Don Van Natta Jr. of the NY Times reported, quotJorge Cabrera, a drug smuggler who has emerged as one of the most notorious supporters of President Clintons re-election campaign, was asked for a campaign contribution in the unlikely locale of a hotel in Havana by a prominent Democratic fund-raiser, congressional investigators have learned. On his return to the United States several days after that meeting, in November 1995, Cabrera wrote a check for 20,000 to the Democratic National Committee from an account that included the proceeds from smuggling cocaine from Colombia to the United States, said the investigators, who spoke on condition of anonymity. quotWithin two weeks of the contribution, Cabrera met Gore at the dinner in Miami. Ten days later, Cabrera attended a Christmas reception at the White House hosted by Hillary Rodham Clinton. At the events, Gore and Mrs. Clinton posed for photographs with Cabrera, who has two felony convictions dating from the 1980s and is now in a prison here on a drug-smuggling conviction. quotA Cuban-born American, Cabrera was arrested two times on serious drug charges in the 1980s. Both times he pleaded guilty to nondrug felony charges. In 1983, he pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice for conspiring to bribe a grand jury witness and served 42 months in prison. In 1988, he pleaded guilty to filing a false income-tax return and served one year in prison. After his brief brush with presidential politics, Cabrera was arrested in January 1996 inside a cigar warehouse near here in Dade County, where more than 500 pounds of cocaine had been hidden. He and several accomplices were charged with having smuggled 3,000 pounds of cocaine into the United States through the Keys. In January, Cabrera received an invitation to Clintons inauguration. In 1994 John Huang quits the Lippo Group -- with a golden parachute of around 800,000 -- and goes to work for the Commerce Department. Some believe the move is instigated by his friend, Hillary Clinton. The Indonesia-based Lippo Group was headed by Mochtar Riady, a central character in the Clinton scandals. Commerce Secretary Ron Brown ordered a top secret clearance for Huang. While at Commerce, Huang visits the White House about 70 times, is briefed 37 times by the CIA, views about 500 intelligence reports, and makes 281 calls to Lippo banks. In 1999 Huang was sentenced for campaign finance violations. LA TIMES - A Pakistani immigrant who hosted fundraisers for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is being sought by the FBI on allegations that he funneled illegal contributions to Clintons political action committee and to Sen. Barbara Boxers 2004 re-election campaign. Authorities say Northridge, Calif. businessman Abdul Rehman Jinnah, 56, fled the country shortly after being indicted on charges of engineering more than 50,000 in illegal donations to the Democratic committees. A business associate charged as Jinnahs co-conspirator has entered a guilty plea and is scheduled to be sentenced in Los Angeles next week. A federal law enforcement source said prosecutors had not dealt with the political committees in conducting their investigation and had no evidence that the committees knew the contributions were illegal. Washington Times, 1999 - First lady Hillary Rodham Clinton has made 66 solo trips to New York state at taxpayer expense since 1993, 10 of them in the first 5 and a half months of this year. Over the previous six years, Mrs. Clinton averaged nine solo trips a year to New York. Neither the White House nor the Democratic National Committee will disclose how much the first ladys trips cost. Nor will they say exactly how much the government has been reimbursed for the political portions of her travel as she stumps for other candidates and promotes herself. The law requires that campaign committees cover only the price of a first-class airline ticket, although the taxpayers tab is thousands of dollars each time an Air Force jet flies Mrs. Clinton somewhere. It costs 2,179 an hour to fly the C-9A jet -- similar to a DC-9 -- that she frequently uses, said Master Sgt. Rick Corral, a spokesman for Andrews Air Force Base. It costs 3,615 an hour to fly the newer, smaller C-20, which sometimes is used by the first lady and resembles a Gulfstream corporate jet. New York Daily News . Hillary Rodham Clinton told a top White House aide that she endorsed efforts to discredit Kathleen Willey after Willey accused the President of making an unwanted pass at her, according to court documents. The revelation was found in responses White House spinmeister Sidney Blumenthal gave in a lawsuit filed by conservative lawyer Larry Klayman of Judicial Watch. Open letter to HRC from Juanita Broderick . I remember it as though it was yesterday. I only wish that it were yesterday and maybe there would still be time to do something about what your husband, Bill Clinton, did to me. There was a political rally for Mr. Clintons bid for governor of Arkansas. I had obligated myself to be at this rally prior to my being assaulted by your husband in April, 1978. I had made up my mind to make an appearance and then leave as soon as the two of you arrived. This was a big mistake, but I was still in a state of shock and denial. As soon as you entered the room, you came directly to me and grabbed my hand. Do you remember how you thanked me, saying quotwe want to thank you for everything that you do for Billquot. At that point, I was pretty shaken and started to walk off. Remember how you kept a tight grip on my hand and drew closer to me You repeated your statement, but this time with a coldness and look that I have seen many times on television in the last eight years. You said, quotEverything you do for Billquot. You then released your grip and I said nothing and left the gathering. What did you mean, Hillary Were you referring to my keeping quiet about the assault I had suffered at the hands of your husband only two weeks before Were you warning me to continue to keep quiet We both know the answer to that question. 1999 quotTheres something so rootless and chaotic about the Clintons. They seem like a virus or alien that needs a host body to survive. Theyve invaded our national psyche and were going to have to keep living with their weird marital problems and tangle ambitions forever and ever. Their business will never be finished. They are never going to go away because they have not any place else to go. quot -- Maureen Dowd, New York Times HRC fostered the myth that she was the first professional woman in the White House when, in fact, Lady Bird Johnson was an accomplished businesswoman: quotWell, I think that theres a lot of debate about the issues that I present - not only the ones youre referring to, but certainly to being the first professional woman to be in the position of first lady. quot The American Spectator reported in 1996 that on her Asian tour, Hillary Clinton told New Zealand television that she had been named after Sir Edmund Hillary. Sir Edmund, however, was an unknown beekeeper the year of Mrs. Clintons birth. Hillary Clinton, in the 1980s, lobbied on behalf of the Contras and against those who oppose them. quotCommunist Party cadres should study the speeches of Hillary Clinton because she offers a very good example of the skills of propaganda. Her sentences are short and stimulating. Thats why she gets a lot of applause. But Chinese people have a habit of giving long speeches in which the sentences are long and tedious. quot -- Yu Quanyu, director of the Chinese Academy of Social Studies, in Ideological and Political Work Studies Former White House FBI agent Gary Aldrich reported that Hillary Clinton told the Secret Service agents in public to quotstay the fuck back, stay the fuck away from me Dont come within ten yards of me or elsequot When her guards have argued with her, she had said, quotJust fucking do as I say, okayquot White House-assigned FBI agent Gary Aldrich agreed to help trim the Christmas tree in the Blue Room. Aldrich is surprised to find a small clay ornament of 12-lords-aleaping. Among the things that were aleaping on the 12 lords are their erections. Also provided by Hillary Clinton and her staff: ornaments made of drug paraphernalia such as syringes and roach clips, three French hens in a menage aacute trois, two turtle doves fornicating, five golden rings attached to a gingerbread mans ear, nipple, belly button, nose, and penis. Morning Call, 2004 - The Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission, urged to reform its relationship with the public in the wake of deception and possible ethical lapses last year, has defied its critics by pulling an even thicker veil of secrecy over itself. More business has moved out of public meetings to behind closed doors, including presentations and deliberations related to lucrative contracts for engineering and public affairs work. The communications strategy has also helped to obfuscate the commissions affairs with the hiring of two media consultants who trained nine senior staffers how to duck tough questions, in part by gathering them around a videotape monitor twice to study Hillary Clintons quotblockingquot techniques during the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Bridge commission staffers also were ordered to use vague language in any writing they prepare in case those documents are seen by outsiders. That order, obtained by The Morning Call, advises staffers and frequent bridge commission contractors against using about 60 common words and phrases, including quotmust, quot quotthorough, quot quotfinalquot and quotsafe. quot Why Hillary Clinton doesnt keep a diary From the Jim Lehrer News Hour in 1996 JIM LEHRER: Are you keeping a diary Are you keeping good notes on whats happened to you HILLARY CLINTON: Heavens no It would get subpoenaed. I cant write anything down. (laughing) JIM LEHRER: So well, when it comes time to write this book, youre just going to sit down and try to remember all this HILLARY CLINTON: I have tons of, you know, schedules and information and all that stuff, but you know, theres been a real crimp put in history by these absurd investigations that have gone on where people, you know, dont even want to, you know, say I had dinner last night with--because if you say that, the person you had dinner with is likely to get called before some committee somewhere. She added that her comments would be used to quotgo after and persecute every friend of mine, everybody Ive ever talked with, everyone Ive had a conversation with. Its very sad. quot After becoming nvolved in politics, Wellesley graduate Hillary Rodham ordered her senior thesis sealed from public view. HILLARY CLINTON claims she played pickup basketball when she was young, presumably to get ready for her race against Obama. Newsmax has compiled a list of other little known facts about HRC, an obscurity some feel is due to their non-existence: - She was named after Sir Edmund Hillary. who climbed Mount Everest. - She was a Yankees fan when she lived in Chicago. - She told upstate New Yorkers she had been a quotduck hunter. quot - She claimed on Sept. 11 daughter Chelsea was jogging around the World Trade Center. Conventional liberals still refuse to delve into Hillary Clintons ties to The Fellowship, a secret rightwing religious group involving a number of Washington big names like herself. The story has been well documented by such publications as Harpers. the Los Angeles Times and Mother Jones. And its not a new tale, but its one the Washington media runs away from, in part because it might wreck the journalists comfortably servile relationship with some of their sources - with the Clintons near the top of the list. Its Washington journalism at its worst, the sort of politician-pet relationship that led the media to so badly mislead the public about the Iraq war and, for that matter, many other crucial facts about the Clintons. To this day, for example, the media is tough on Barack Obamas Tony Resko relationship but doesnt mention Hillary Clintons much deeper relationship with Webster Hubbell. As we noted about a week ago, the two big exceptions to the media cover up of The Fellowship are Andrea Mitchell and Jim Popkin of NBC, who reported: quotIn his preaching, Fellowship leader Douglas Coe repeatedly urges a personal commitment to Jesus Christ. Its a commitment Coe compares to the blind devotion that Adolph Hitler demanded from his followers -- a rhetorical technique that now is drawing sharp criticism. quotHitler, Goebbels and Himmler were three men. Think of the immense power these three men had, these nobodies from nowhere, quot Coe said. quotLater in the sermon, Coe said: quotJesus said, You have to put me before other people. And you have to put me before yourself. Hitler, that was the demand to be in the Nazi party. You have to put the Nazi party and its objectives ahead of your own life and ahead of other people. quot Coe also quoted Jesus and said: quotOne of the things Jesus said is If any man comes to me and does not hate his father, mother, brother, sister, his own life, he cant be a disciple. So I dont care what other qualifications you have, if you dont do that you cant be a disciple of Christ. quot The sermons are little surprise to writer Jeff Sharlet. He lived among Coes followers six years ago, and came out troubled by their secrecy and rhetoric. quotWe were being taught the leadership lessons of Hitler, Lenin and Mao. And I would say, Isnt there a problem with that And they seemed perplexed by the question. Hitlers genocide wasnt really an issue for them. It was the strength that he emulated, quot said Sharlet. Theyre notoriously secretive, Sharlet said. In fact, they jokingly call themselves the Christian Mafia. Which becomes less of a joke when you realize that they really are dedicated to being what they call an invisible organization. quot Source Watch - The Fellowship, headquartered in Washington D. C. is a humanitarian religious-right Christian organization about which very little is known. Their signature event is the annual National Prayer Breakfast but that is only a small part of their activities. They are heavily involved in the political culture of Washington, counting at least a dozen Senators and Congressman as known members. The group has also gone by the names Family, Foundation, C Street Center, and International Christian Leadership. An article published in the March 2003 issue of Harpers entitled quotJesus Plus Nothingquot by Jeffrey Sharlet provides an excellent exposition however, Sharlet infiltrated only at the lowest level and so his article is woefully short of details concerning the organization, its mission, or who runs it. In a June 12, 2003, followup interview by Anthony Lappeacute for Guerrilla News Network, Jeffrey Sharlet declares that the groups goal and aspiration are quotan invisible world organization led by Christquot and that in his view, their quotcore issue is capitalism and power. quot In 1972, The Fellowship was reorganized to be even more clandestine, shedding the overhead of a typical high-profile nonprofit so that it was essentially little more than a holding company disbursing cash to dozens of ministries beneath it. By 1985, The Fellowship had 150 individual ministries beneath it. This model continues to this day with countless ministries coming into and going out of existence depending upon the current needs of the organization and the initiatives it wishes to fund. As Sharlet writes in his Harpers piece, The Foundation believes that its mobile quotcellquot structure, which it likens to those organized by Lenin, Bin Laden, and Hitler, makes it far more efficient than a hierarchical organization. And just like Enrons many shell corporations, their cell structure has the additional advantage of being able to move money around very quickly and in a way that makes it difficult to track or audit. Those in the Fellowship who are asked about their role either deny its existence or politely refuse to answer questions about it. All have taken a vow of silence not to speak about The Fellowship. KATHRYN JOYCE AND JEFF SHARLET, MOTHER JONES - Through all of her years in Washington, Clinton has been an active participant in conservative Bible study and prayer circles that are part of a secretive Capitol Hill group known as the Fellowship. Her collaborations with right-wingers such as Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) and former Senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) grow in part from that connection. When Clinton first came to Washington in 1993, one of her first steps was to join a Bible study group. For the next eight years, she regularly met with a Christian quotcellquot whose members included Susan Baker, wife of Bush consigliere James Baker Joanne Kemp, wife of conservative icon Jack Kemp Eileen Bakke, wife of Dennis Bakke, a leader in the anti-union Christian management movement and Grace Nelson, the wife of Senator Bill Nelson, a conservative Florida Democrat. Clintons prayer group was part of the Fellowship (or quotthe Familyquot), a network of sex-segregated cells of political, business, and military leaders dedicated to quotspiritual warquot on behalf of Christ, many of them recruited at the Fellowships only public event, the annual National Prayer Breakfast. (Aside from the breakfast, the group has quotmade a fetish of being invisible, quot former Republican Senator William Armstrong has said.) The Fellowship believes that the elite win power by the will of God, who uses them for his purposes. Its mission is to help the powerful understand their role in Gods plan. The Fellowships ideas are essentially a blend of Calvinism and Norman Vincent Peale, the 1960s preacher of positive thinking. Its a cheery faith in the quotelectquot chosen by a single voter - God. When Time put together a list of the nations 25 most powerful evangelicals in 2005, the heading for Coes entry was quotThe Stealth Persuader. quot. Coes friends include former Attorney General John Ashcroft, Reaganite Edwin Meese III, and ultraconservative Rep. Joe Pitts (R-Pa.). Under Coes guidance, Meese has hosted weekly prayer breakfasts for politicians, businesspeople, and diplomats, and Pitts rose from obscurity to head the House Values Action Team, an off-the-record network of religious right groups and members of Congress created by Tom DeLay. The corresponding Senate Values Action Team is guided by another Coe protege, Brownback, who also claims to have recruited King Abdullah of Jordan into a regular study of Jesus teachings. The Fellowships God-led men have also included General Suharto of Indonesia Honduran general and death squad organizer Gustavo Alvarez Martinez a Deutsche Bank official disgraced by financial ties to Hitler and dictator Siad Barre of Somalia, plus a list of other generals and dictators. Clinton, says Schenck, has become a regular visitor to Coes Arlington, Virginia, headquarters, a former convent where Coe provides members of Congress with sex-segregated housing and spiritual guidance. JOSHUA GREEN, THE ATLANTIC, 2006 - Clintons proficiency in this innermost sanctum has unnerved some of the capitals most exalted religious conservatives. quotYoure not talking about some tree-hugging, Jesus-is-my-Buddha sort of stuff, quot says David Kuo, a former Bush official in the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, who worked with Clinton to promote joint legislation and who, like Brownback, has apologized to her for past misdeeds. quotThese are powerful evangelicals shes meeting with. quot MORE DETAILS ON HILLARY CLINTONS STRANGE RELIGIOUS CULT JOSEPH FARRAH, WORLDNET DAILY, JULY 2005 - A significant portion of the Clintons Shadow Teams operations were carried out by private investigators, among them: Terry Lenzner, founder and chairman of the powerful Washington, D. C. detective firm Investigative Group International high-ticket San Francisco private eye Jack Palladino and his wife Sandra Sutherland and Hollywood sleuth Anthony J. Pellicano. Hillarys detectives engaged in quota systematic campaign to intimidate, frighten, threaten, discredit and punish innocent Americans whose only misdeed is their desire to tell the truth in public, quot former Clinton adviser Dick Morris charged in the New York Post of Oct. 1, 1998. Hillarys secret police tend to be a tight-lipped bunch, professionally skilled at keeping a low profile. However, we know more about Anthony quotThe Pelicanquot Pellicano than about most Hillary operatives, thanks to his boastfulness and taste for the limelight. Pellicanos violent career as a private investigator reveals much about the sorts of qualifications Hillary sought in her Shadow Team. In the January 1992 issue of GQ magazine, Pellicano boasted of the dirty work he had performed for his clients, including blackmail and physical assault. He claimed to have beaten one of his clients enemies with a baseball bat. quotIm an expert with a knife, quot said Pellicano. quotI can shred your face with a knife. quot FBI agents raided Pellicanos West Hollywood office on Nov. 22, 2002, and arrested him on federal weapons charges. In his office, they found gold, jewelry, and about 200,000 in cash - most of it bundled in 10,000 wrappers - thousands of pages of transcripts of illegal wiretaps two handguns and various explosive devices stored in safes, including two live hand grenades and a pile of C4 plastic explosive, complete with blasting cap and detonation cord. C4 is a military explosive that cannot be sold legally to civilians. Pellicano had a surprisingly large quantity in his safe. quotThe explosive could easily be used to blow up a car, and was in fact strong enough to bring down an airplane, quot noted Special Agent Stanley Ornellas in a sworn affidavit. The FBI raided Pellicanos office after an accomplice ratted him out. Ex-convict Alexander Proctor told the FBI that Pellicano had hired him to threaten and intimidate Los Angeles Times reporter Anita Busch, who had been poking her nose a little too deeply into a feud between Mafia kingpins and actor Steven Seagal. It seems that Seagals former friend and production partner, Julius R. Nasso, was tied to the Gambino crime family. When Seagal and Nasso quarreled, the dispute got ugly. On the morning of June 20, 2002, reporter Anita Busch approached her car, which was parked near her home. To her horror, she saw a bullet-hole in her windshield. A cardboard sign taped to the glass bore one word: quotStop. quot A dead fish with a long-stemmed rose in its mouth lay on the hood. Busch took the hint. She immediately went into hiding, staying in a series of hotels at her papers expense, while the FBI and the Los Angeles Police Deprtments organized-crime division investigated. A break in the case seemed to come when ex-convict Alexander Proctor spilled the beans to an undercover FBI informant. Proctor reportedly told the informant, on tape, that it was not the Mafia who were harassing Anita Busch - it was Steven Seagal Proctor said that Seagal hired detective Anthony Pellicano to intimidate the woman into silence. Pellicano, in turn, had subcontracted Proctor to do the dirty work. quotHe wanted to make it look like the Italians were putting the hit on her, so it wouldnt reflect on Seagal, quot Proctor told the informant. Proctor accused Pellicano of ordering him to quotblow upquot or set fire to Buschs car to frighten her. However, Proctor said he got cold feet and merely damaged the car, leaving the dead fish and quotStopquot sign as calling cards. A federal judge sentenced Pellicano to 30 months in prison for possession of the hand grenades and C4. Later, on June 17, 2005, Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley charged him with conspiracy and making threats against former Los Angeles Times reporter Anita Busch. He will likely face prosecution for illegal wiretapping. Pellicanos 2002 arrest was big news in Hollywood. Article after article touted Pellicano as a quotcelebrity sleuthquot and a quotprivate detective to the stars, quot whose client list had included the likes of Elizabeth Taylor, Kevin Costner, Sylvester Stallone, Roseanne Barr, O. J. Simpson and Michael Jackson (whose chronic problem with child molestation charges provided Pellicano with plenty of damage-control work). Despite the sensational coverage, few mainstream news organizations uttered the name of Pellicanos most famous client: Hillary Rodham Clinton. quotOf the more than two dozen media reports on Pellicanos Thursday arrest so far, none have mentioned his ties to the Clinton attack machine, quot reported NewsMax on Nov. 23, 2002.quot A detailed, 1,680-word round-up of the Pellicano case published in the New York Times on Nov. 11, 2003 - a full year after his arrest - made no mention of Hillarys name, nor even hinted at Pellicanos White House connection. Only Internet media such as NewsMax focused relentlessly on his Clinton ties. The omission was deliberate. Pellicanos involvement in Clinton damage-control operations - including his well-known efforts to discredit former Clinton lovers Gennifer Flowers and Monica Lewinsky - has been public knowledge for years, the details available to any journalist with a Nexis account. CARL LIMBACHER NEWSMAX - New York Sen. Hillary Clintons Washington scandal attorney David Kendall is denying that recently jailed tough guy-investigator Anthony Pellicano ever worked for the Clintons, a claim directly contradicted by senior Bush White House advisor Mary Matalin - and not even denied by Pellicano himself. Kendall told the New York Daily News on Friday that reports linking the former first lady with the controversial gumshoe, who was jailed last Monday on weapons and explosives charges, are quotpolitically motivated and utterly false. quot. When Newsweek asked Pellicano directly whether he was working for the Clinton White House, his denial was significantly less forceful than Mr. Kendalls. quotI have no comment, quot he told the newsmagazine. CARL LIMBACHER, NEWSMAX - Mary Matalin, now a senior White House advisor, discussed the episode in 1997 during a stint as a talk radio host on CBSs Washington, D. C. affiliate. quotI got the letters from Pellicano to these women intimidating them, quot Matalin told her audience. quotI had tapes of conversations from Pellicano to the women. I got handwritten letters from the women. quot. quotI controlled the money in the 1992 Bush campaign, quot Matalin explained. quotAnd Clinton damage controller Betsy Wright announced that she was putting 28,000 on the bimbo patrol and on Jack Palladino and Pellicano, the other guy. quotAnd 28,000 to me, the political director, was four states in the Rocky Mountains. You had a limited budget. I said, how could they spend this much money How could they basically give up four states to track down bimbos quotThats why it was kind of shocking to me that it must have been a bigger priority than putting money into states for the purpose of winning and thats why I flagged it at the time. quot NY POST - Court TV anchor Diane Dimond, who reported on the first days of the Michael Jackson sex case a decade ago, is the latest to be caught up in a Hollywood phone-bugging scandal. Dimond said yesterday that authorities have informed her that wiretaps on her phone from 1994 are part of evidence seized by the FBI last year from the computer of Hollywood private eye Anthony Pellicano. Dimond was a reporter for quotHard Copyquot in 1993 in the first days after the story broke of a youngster accusing Jackson of sexually molesting him. Pellicano worked for Jacksons attorney, Harold Weitzman. quotI was positive my phones were tapped - I heard lots of clicking and crackling noises on the line and then my words started coming back to me through others, quot Dimond told The Post. quotI would call new sources and they would tell me, We understand youve heard X, Y and Z so I knew my phone had to be tapped. quotMy house was vandalized. My car was broken into on the Paramount lot where Hard Copy was taped. quotI had documents underneath an expensive leather coat - the coat wasnt taken, but the documents were stolen from my car, quot Dimond said. quotMy mailbox was mowed over. They gave me armed guards to go to and from work - nothing was safe, quot she says. CARL LIMBACHER, NEWSMAX - Though the American press insists on not reporting this inconvenient detail, Anthony Pellicano was first hired by Bill and Hillary Clinton in 1992 in a bid to discredit Gennifer Flowers steamy tape recordings of conversations with Mr. Clinton. In 1999 Flowers filed a defamation suit against Clinton campaign officials James Carville and George Stephanopoulos - along with then-first lady Hillary Clinton - based on their attempts to use Pellicanos analysis to discredit her. Arguing before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, Flowers Judicial Watch attorneys tied Pellicano directly to the first lady-turned-New York senator, telling the court: quotAnthony Pellicano was a private investigator hired by Mrs. Clinton herself. And hes the one who did the analysis of the tapes. quot The court ruled in Flowers favor, allowing the lawsuit to proceed. But that isnt the only time Pellicano has been linked to the Clintons. Four days after the Monica Lewinsky story broke in January 1998, ex-Lewinsky boyfriend Andy Bleiler came forward with the claim that she had stalked him. The Washington state school teacher also contended that Lewinsky wanted to become a White House intern so she could perform oral sex on then-President Clinton. quotIm going to Washington to get my presidential knee pads, quot Bleilers lawyer, Terry Giles, quoted Lewinsky as saying. quotAnthony Pellicano, the L. A.-based private investigator and O. J. defense team veteran was responsible for digging up Andy Bleiler, quot the New York Posts Andrea Peyser reported at the time. Sexgate provocateur Lucianne Goldberg told Peyser that Pellicanos services were bought and paid for by the Clinton White House. When Peyser confronted the quotinvestigator to the starsquot with Goldbergs claim, he didnt deny it. quotYoure a smart girl. No comment, quot Pellicano told the Post reporter. Interestingly enough, some of Pellicanos targets, like former Los Angeles Times reporter Anita Busch and one-time quotHard Copyquot correspondent Dina Dimond, report break-ins and property vandalism, the kind of problems encountered by Clinton accusers like Flowers, Sally Perdue, Kathleen Willey and Juanita Broaddrick. Marc Rich has died. He was one of the reasons a wise person would have little to do politically with the Clintons and a major example of the sort of thing Hillary Clinton146s supporters are just ignoring. The story also tells much about the role of Eric Holder and how Washington really operates. Don146t miss Jeffrey St. Clair146s summation of how the pardon came about at the end of this account. New York Times 150 Marc Rich, a shrewd, swashbuckling oil trader who fled to Switzerland after being indicted on charges of widespread tax evasion, illegal dealings with Iran and other crimes, and who was later pardoned by President Bill Clinton in his last hours in office, setting off a whirlwind of criticism, died on Wednesday in Lucerne, Switzerland. He was 78. 133 Nicknamed El Matador for his steel nerves and razor-sharp acumen, Mr. Rich pushed the limits of legality and, the government said, broke them. In 1983 he was indicted on 65 criminal counts that included tax fraud and trading with Iran when it was holding American hostages. One of the most serious allegations was that Mr. Rich had misrepresented the provenance of crude oil he sold in 1980 and 1981. Under complicated regulations then in place, newly found oil fetched a higher price than older oil. By illegally marking up the price of old oil and passing it through a bewildering chain of transactions, Mr. Rich sold oil at a markup of up to 400 percent. He was accused of making more than 100 million from the scheme, avoiding paying 48 million in United States taxes. Mr. Rich paid the government about 200 million in civil penalties but fled to Switzerland to escape criminal prosecution. The Internal Revenue Service offered a 500,000 reward for his capture, and the F. B.I. put him on its 147most wanted148 list, along with Osama bin Laden. Even as he remained the world146s biggest trader of metals and minerals and lived in opulence, he was called the world146s most famous fugitive. Then, on Jan. 20, 2001 150 Mr. Clinton146s last day in office 150 Mr. Rich146s name appeared on the presidential pardon 133 It was soon learned that Mr. Rich146s former wife, Denise Rich, had made large donations to the Democratic Party and the Clinton library, and that Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Ehud Barak, had lobbied Mr. Clinton for the pardon. Rabbi Irving Greenberg, chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, also pressed Mr. Rich146s case, on museum stationery. 133 Eric H. Holder Jr. then the deputy attorney general and now the attorney general, advised the White House that he was 147neutral leaning favorable148 to the pardon. Only weeks later, however, Mr. Holder said he regretted the recommendation. Mr. Clinton later quoted respected tax experts he had recruited who concluded that no crime had been committed and that the tax-reporting tactics of Mr. Rich and his corporation had been reasonable. But Mr. Clinton, too, came to have regrets, calling the pardon 147terrible politics.148 Mr. Rich never returned to the United States, nor did American agents succeed in several attempts to seize him and bring him back. Mr. Rich traded with Libya under Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, South Africa under apartheid (in violation of an international embargo), the Communist dictatorships of Cuba and Romania, and undemocratic Latin American countries. He often did business with countries at war. A congressional report on the BCCI scandal, from a committee chaired by Senator John Kerry, included this as among issues that still needed to be studied: 147BCCI146s financing of commodities and other business d lingsof international criminal financier Marc Rich. STEWART TENDLER, TIMES, LONDON: Customs officers have seized nearly 2 million in cash after it was flown into Britain on behalf of Marc Rich, the fugitive billionaire pardoned by Bill Clinton. Mr Rich, whose presidential pardon is under investigation by the FBI, now has to prove that the cash was honestly acquired, or he could lose it. Investigators are holding the cash under powers aimed at preventing drug traffickers moving their profits from country to country. MICHAEL ISIKOFF, NEWSWEEK - On Jan. 8, with less than two weeks to go in his presidency, Clinton was speaking on the phone with the then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. The subject: a possible pardon for fugitive financier Marc Rich. 147I know quite a few things about that,148 Clinton interjected as soon as Barak raised the matter. He had already gotten a long memo on it, Clinton explained, and he was 147working on it.148 But Clinton also understood there were risks, possibly big ones. 147It146s best that we not say much about that,148 Clinton advised Barak on the subject of Rich. The Israeli leader understood. 147OK, I146m not mentioning it any place,148 he replied. The two leaders had no reason to believe their confidential chat would ever become public. Yet the Clinton-Barak telephone call that evening, like all conversations between U. S. presidents and foreign heads of state, was monitored by a team of note takers sitting at computers in the White House Situation Room. Last week congressional investigators probing the Rich pardon received access to National Security Council-prepared transcripts of three Clinton-Barak conversations that dealt with the Rich pardon. The transcripts offer no 147smoking gun148 showing that the former president was motivated by large donations to his presidential library or by generous campaign contributions. But the conversations do show that, in sharp contrast to the picture painted by some of his former aides, Clinton was keenly aware of details of the Rich case, and appeared determined to grant the highly questionable pardon even though, as he admitted to Barak, there was 147almost no precedent in American history.148 BRIAN BLOMQUIST, NY POST: Anti-Defamation League Director Abraham Foxman admitted he sought a presidential pardon for Marc Rich a month after his group accepted a 100,000 donation from the billionaire financier. Foxman, leader of one of the nation146s largest Jewish groups, wrote a letter to then-President Bill Clinton on Dec. 7, urging a pardon for Rich. Foxman said last Monday that he regretted writing to Clinton, saying he had a change of heart after learning the feds had offered to let Rich return to the United States on bail to face his legal troubles. The ADL acknowledged that Foxman and Rich146s Israeli representative, former Mossad agent Avner Azulay, met in Paris last February to discuss ways to resolve Rich146s legal problems. Foxman recommended to Azulay that Rich seek a pardon by using his ex-wife Denise Rich 150 a major contributor to the Clintons146 campaigns and to Bill Clinton146s library 150 as an intermediary. JAMES RIDGEWAY, VILLAGE VOICE: Investigators from the US Attorney146s office have been poring through dusty records stashed in a New York court storeroom, looking for clues as to whether Marc Rich, the onetime fugitive financier, used his former wife, the songwriter Denise Rich, to pass political contributions to Bill and Hillary Clinton in exchange for a January pardon. All sides deny any wrongdoing. At the heart of the investigators146 search is a 1993 New York lawsuit, filed by Denise Rich against her ex-husband, whom she accused of defrauding her, as well as the children146s trusts. As confusing as the case is, it raises the question of Denise146s role in Marc146s business: CHARLES THOMPSON II amp TONY HAYS, WORLD NET DAILY: In his frenetic last day in office, Bill Clinton issued 177 pardons and commutations. More than 30 of these didn146t go through the rigorous screening process that typically takes 18 to 24 months and is designed to weed out people who continued to break the law. And more than six weeks after Clinton departed the White House, Justice Department officials are still at a loss as to who many of these people are or how they received presidential pardons and commutations133. Bill flirted outrageously with Denise, reveals a source, 147and when Hillary caught wind of the untold number of visits Denise made to the White House when Hillary was away, she went ballistic.148 Forced to explain her involvement in the presidential pardons, Hillary called a press conference and used it to distance herself from her husband. She never mentioned him by name and referred to Bill as 145the president148 or 147him.148 ROBERT WINDREM, NBC NEWS Newly available financial data shows that Denise Rich146s giving to the Democratic Party and the Clintons intensified dramatically over the past two years, ending in a final rush as the Clintons neared their White House exit. An NBC News analysis of documents on file with various federal agencies, including the Federal Election Commission, the Internal Revenue Service and government ethics office shows that while Rich gave at least 1.5 million to Clinton-related political, legal and charitable organizations during the last decade, the majority of the giving 150 more than 900,000 150 came over the final two years of the Clinton era 150 just before her ex-husband, Marc Rich, was pardoned. More than 200,000 came in a spurt during the final six months, 140,000 of that in September, October and November, as her ex-husband146s team of lawyers, led by former White House counsel Jack Quinn, began pressing Clinton for a pardon. NILES LATHEM, NY POST: Billionaire Marc Rich lived a double life during his 20 years as a fugitive, funneling secret data to Israeli and other intelligence services about some unsavory governments. Sensational details about Rich146s ultimate high-wire act as a spy for Israel and other countries were provided to The Post as congressional committees prepare to hold hearings into former President Bill Clinton146s controversial decision to pardon the fugitive commodities trader. Among the issues that will be explored by the House Oversight Committee in its probe of the hotly disputed Rich pardon, according to congressional sources, are: Rich146s lengthy relationship with the Israeli Mossad. His numerous contacts with federal prosecutors in New York, during which his lawyers offered to provide intelligence to the CIA in return for leniency. A CIA spokesman denied any relationship with Rich and said no one from the agency participated in behind-the-scenes White House discussions about his pardon. But Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak repeatedly cited Rich146s contributions to Israel146s 147national security148 in phone calls to President Clinton last month in which he lobbied for Rich146s pardon, according to Barak spokesman Gadi Baltiansky. And a letter from former Mossad chief Shabtai Shavit to Clinton confirming that Rich provided 147assistance148 to the Israeli spy agency that produced results 147beyond the expected148 was among the documents released last week by Rich146s lawyer Jack Quinn to support the Rich pardon. AMERICAN SPECTATOR: Hillary Clinton may be down in the dumps fashion-wise, but it doesn146t necessarily mean her closet isn146t filled with goodies. While New York is abuzz with talk about the gifts Denise Rich gave the Clintons, such as furniture for the new homes and a saxophone for Bill, the hottest items are said to be the four fur coats that Hillary received in the waning days of the Clinton presidency 151 and that Denise Rich is said to have paid for. NEWSMAX: Ex-President Clinton said that the William J. Clinton Presidential Foundation would pay half the 650,000 annual rent on his tony Manhattan post-presidential office space. But what he didn146t tell reporters was that one of the high rolling donors who has apparently pledged at least 1 million to the cause is none other than Denise Rich, the New York City songwriter-socialite whose 1 million in Democratic party campaign contributions is believed to have influenced Clinton146s decision to pardon her ex-husband, fugitive billionaire Marc Rich. The Clintons refuse to release a full list of the donors who have agreed to underwrite the ex-president146s foundation, which is expected to consist mainly of a luxurious library complete with presidential apartment complex. JACK NEWFIELD, NY POST - 147We are just lucky that those seven escaped killer convicts from Texas didn146t have time to hire Clinton146s former counsel, Jack Quinn, the way Marc Rich did. Otherwise, Clinton might have pardoned them mid-flight.148 NY TIMES EDITORIAL: Bill Clinton146s last-minute pardon of Marc Rich, the shadowy commodities trader who fled to Switzerland in 1983 to avoid American justice, was a shocking abuse of presidential power and a reminder of why George W. Bush146s vow to restore integrity to the Oval Office resonates with millions of Americans who otherwise disagree with the new president146s politics. Unchecked by any other branch of government, the president146s authority under the Constitution to pardon anyone charged with federal crimes is meant to be exercised with great restraint to correct an injustice or to further some societal good. Bestowing undeserved beneficence on a fugitive accused of evading 48 million in taxes and illegally trading with Iran in oil during the hostage crisis is hardly what the Constitution146s framers had in mind. WALL STREET JOURNAL - Though the main charges pending against Mr. Rich when Bill Clinton pardoned him involved a complex tax-evasion scheme, Mr. Rich faced another serious allegation: He illegally traded with the enemy, prosecutors charged, by buying about 200 million worth of oil from Iran while revolutionaries allied with the Ayatollah Khomeini held 53 Americans hostage there in 1979-81. Mr. Rich was never tried because he fled to Switzerland and renounced his American citizenship before being indicted in 1983. An examination of Mr. Rich146s trading activities from Switzerland reveals that his multibillion-dollar commodities operation continued doing business with countries that the U. S. deemed unworthy trading partners for supporting terrorism or abusing human rights. Considering itself unfettered by American restrictions, Mr. Rich146s business not only conducted additional deals in Iran, it also traded with Libya, Cuba and South Africa, all at times when U. S. citizens and companies were barred from doing so. The Wall Street Journal confirmed the deals 151 involving oil, aluminum and other commodities 151 in interviews with more than a dozen former Rich traders and executives as well as with competitors, industry analysts and government officials. RAYMOND HERNANDEZ, NY TIMES 150 Denise Rich, Malcolm S. Forbes, Nelson Mandela and other friends and supporters of the Clintons showered the couple with roughly 1 million in previously unreported gifts during the Clinton presidency, according to documents released by Republican Congressional investigators. The gifts vary from tens of thousands of dollars in jewelry, rugs and furnishings to a 90,000 framed handwritten letter by President Harry S. Truman, a 10,000 Mickey Mantle trading card from 1952 and nine rare books, according to the documents. The gifts were not disclosed by the Clintons because the couple turned them over to Bill Clinton146s presidential library, the investigators said. Under federal law, gifts that the first family do not keep for themselves are exempt from the public disclosure requirement on presidential gifts, the investigators said. The report contains a new round of potentially embarrassing information. It documents an array of gifts that the Clintons received and the names of the people who gave those gifts. There was a 2,000 bronze statue of an angel from Denise Rich a 9,000 hand-woven Navajo chief146s blanket (circa 1885) from Larry Rockefeller and an oil painted in a gilt frame, a cheese plate, a porcelain teapot, a gold cross and other items totaling 6,000 from Nelson Mandela. The report also shows that the former first family received gifts from individuals who were at the center of the Clinton White House campaign finance scandals. To investigators and others, that suggests that the gifts became another avenue for influencing the administration. There was a 2,100 sculpture of a goddess on a wooden base given by James Riady, an Indonesian businessman who pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations last year and agreed to pay 8.6 million in fines for using foreign corporate money to back Mr. Clinton146s 1992 presidential campaign. The Clintons also received two sculptures worth 1,550 from Johnny Chung, who was at the center of a 1996 campaign fund-raising investigation. Marc Rich has died. He was one of the reasons a wise person would have little to do politically with the Clintons and a major example of the sort of thing Hillary Clinton146s supporters are just ignoring. The story also tells much about the role of Eric Holder and how Washington really operates. Don146t miss Jeffrey St. Clair146s summation of how the pardon came about at the end of this account. New York Times - Marc Rich, a shrewd, swashbuckling oil trader who fled to Switzerland after being indicted on charges of widespread tax evasion, illegal dealings with Iran and other crimes, and who was later pardoned by President Bill Clinton in his last hours in office, setting off a whirlwind of criticism, died on Wednesday in Lucerne, Switzerland. He was 78. 133 Nicknamed El Matador for his steel nerves and razor-sharp acumen, Mr. Rich pushed the limits of legality and, the government said, broke them. In 1983 he was indicted on 65 criminal counts that included tax fraud and trading with Iran when it was holding American hostages. One of the most serious allegations was that Mr. Rich had misrepresented the provenance of crude oil he sold in 1980 and 1981. Under complicated regulations then in place, newly found oil fetched a higher price than older oil. By illegally marking up the price of old oil and passing it through a bewildering chain of transactions, Mr. Rich sold oil at a markup of up to 400 percent. He was accused of making more than 100 million from the scheme, avoiding paying 48 million in United States taxes. Mr. Rich paid the government about 200 million in civil penalties but fled to Switzerland to escape criminal prosecution. The Internal Revenue Service offered a 500,000 reward for his capture, and the F. B.I. put him on its 147most wanted148 list, along with Osama bin Laden. Even as he remained the world146s biggest trader of metals and minerals and lived in opulence, he was called the world146s most famous fugitive. Then, on Jan. 20, 2001 150 Mr. Clinton146s last day in office 150 Mr. Rich146s name appeared on the presidential pardon 133 It was soon learned that Mr. Rich146s former wife, Denise Rich, had made large donations to the Democratic Party and the Clinton library, and that Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Ehud Barak, had lobbied Mr. Clinton for the pardon. Rabbi Irving Greenberg, chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, also pressed Mr. Rich146s case, on museum stationery. 133 Eric H. Holder Jr. then the deputy attorney general and now the attorney general, advised the White House that he was 147neutral leaning favorable148 to the pardon. Only weeks later, however, Mr. Holder said he regretted the recommendation. Mr. Clinton later quoted respected tax experts he had recruited who concluded that no crime had been committed and that the tax-reporting tactics of Mr. Rich and his corporation had been reasonable. But Mr. Clinton, too, came to have regrets, calling the pardon 147terrible politics.148 Mr. Rich never returned to the United States, nor did American agents succeed in several attempts to seize him and bring him back. Mr. Rich traded with Libya under Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, South Africa under apartheid (in violation of an international embargo), the Communist dictatorships of Cuba and Romania, and undemocratic Latin American countries. He often did business with countries at war. ABC NEWS - Former American fugitive Marc Rich was a middleman for several of Iraq146s suspect oil deals in February 2001, just one month after his pardon from President Clinton, according to oil industry shipping records obtained by ABC News. And a U. S. criminal investigation is looking into whether Rich, as well as several other prominent oil traders, made illegal payments to Iraq in order to obtain the lucrative oil contracts. Rich is still living in Switzerland and unavailable for comment. WASHINGTON POST EDITORIAL, NOVEMBER 2004 - the last thing we want to do is dampen the festivities in Little Rock, where the Clinton Presidential Center is opening today, but does anybody remember Marc Rich He146s the fugitive financier who was pardoned by President Bill Clinton on his way out of office 151 after Mr. Rich146s ex-wife, songwriter Denise Rich, gave 450,000 to the foundation raising money for this very same library. The pardon scandal spotlighted a dangerous gap in financial disclosure rules: Sitting presidents are free to raise millions for their future presidential libraries without having to reveal who is writing the checks. This lack of disclosure was outrageous even before the pardon scandal erupted: Mr. Clinton was vacuuming up six - and seven-figure pledges from his White House perch, and there was no way for the public to know what interests these donors had before the government or what favors they might be receiving. It146s even more outrageous that this practice remains legal after the revelations of Mr. Clinton146s final-days pardons. The House passed a measure two years ago that would have required disclosure, but the Senate failed to act with the topic out of the headlines, lawmakers seem to have lost interest. JEFFREY ST. CLAIR, COUNTERPUNCH - Hillary has never addressed her role in the Rich pardon. In fact, she146s rarely been asked her opinion on the free pass given to one of the world146s most wanted fugitives, a man who violated embargoes against Iran and South Africa and fled the country rather than face trial in what was billed as 147the biggest tax evasion case in history.148 The senator has variously said that she was 147unaware148 of the decision and 147surprised148 by it. When pressed, she merely cackles. Even though 300 pages of core documents relating to the pardon decision remain under seal at the Clinton Library, a review of the available record tells a much different story. In fact, the Rich legal team viewed Hillary as a secret weapon, and as one door after another closed on their search for a pardon they focused more and more on invoking what Rich lawyer Robert Fink called the 147HRC option.148133 The machinations to secure a pardon from Bill Clinton for Marc Rich began in earnest in the fall of 1998, when Rich146s public relations flack in the U. S. Gershon Kekst, squirmed his way into a seat next to Eric Holder, the number two in the Clinton Justice Department, at big D. C. party thrown by DaimlerChrysler. Without mentioning Rich by name, Kekst asked Holder how a man of considerable resources might be relieved of the burden of being 147unproperly indicted by an overzealous prosecutor.148 Holder took a sip of wine and told Kekst that such a man would need to hire a D. C. lawyer who knows the ropes and has deep connections inside the Clinton administration. 147He comes to me and we work it out,148 confided Holder. 147Can you recommend such a person148 Kekst inquired. Holder pointed to a man sitting at a nearby table. 147There146s Jack Quinn,148 Holder whispered. 147He146s a perfect example.148 Kekst dutifully wrote down Quinn146s name, did some research on the former lawyer for the Clintons, and transmitted the joyful news to the Rich camp. There is every indication that Holder was trying to drum up business for Quinn, a partner at the powerhouse firm of Arnold and Porter, as well as a top advisor for Al Gore146s presidential campaign. Holder was desperate to have Quinn146s backing in his doomed bid to become attorney general133 The scene shifts to a crowded restaurant in Paris. It146s Valentine146s Day. Two men are having dinner and drinking wine. They know each other well. One man has just received a 100,000 contribution from the other man146s boss. The man on the receiving end of the money is Abe Foxman, and the financial gift was for his group the Anti-Defamation League. The man picking up the hefty dinner tab is Avner Azulay 150 though Marc Rich will soon reimburse him. Rich has one last shot, Foxman advises. They need to get directly to Bill and Hillary. And the key to unlocking the inner doors of the White House, Foxman told Azulay, is Denise Rich. Foxman confided that he and Denise had flown together on Air Force II to the funeral of Yitzak Rabin. There was just one problem. Denise Rich still loathed her husband. Entreaties are made to Denise, now a New York socialite and successful songwriter, by Quinn and others on the Rich teams. Three times 147Denise Rich declines to come to the rescue of her former husband. Then suddenly, in November 2000, she agrees to help. What made her change her mind That remains open to speculation, but given Marc Rich146s history and Denise146s view that she was shortchanged in the divorce, it may well have involved a financial offering. This much is known. On November 16, Avner Azulay flies to New York and takes Denise to dinner. He pleads for her to back Rich146s pardon to her friends Bill and Hillary. Two days later Denise consents. Denise calls her close friend Beth Dozoretz for help in the best way to handle the matter. Another rich Manhattan socialite, Dozoretz had been the finance chair of the Democratic National Committee. Dozoretz had contributed more than 1 million to Democratic coffers. Bill Clinton was the godfather of her daughter. Dozoretz who, like Denise Rich, would later plead the Fifth at a Senate hearing in the matter, helped Rich craft her strategy. Almost immediately, a check for 25,000 was sent from Denise Rich146s account to the DNC. This was soon followed by Denise Rich146s first letter to the Clintons, imploring them to pardon her ex-husband. Dozoretz also helped Rich bundle a 450,000 contribution to the Clinton library fund. (A Democratic fundraiser told the New York Times in 2001 that Denise had also pledged another million in four installments over the next two years. This figure was disputed by Denise Rich. But the donor lists to the Clinton Foundation are kept secret.) In all, Denise Rich made at least 1.1 million in contributions to Democratic causes, including 70,000 to Hillary146s Senate campaign and PACs, and at least 450,000 to the Clinton foundation. For her part, Dozoretz kicked in another million of her own money to the fund. This is the same library that now refuses to release more than 300 pages of Clinton146s records relating to the pardon. She later lavished gifts on the Clintons as they left the White House, including antique furniture for the new home and golf clubs for Bill. As Dozoretz and Denise Rich plotted their strategy, Quinn and Azulay sought another opening. In a December 19, 2000, email to Quinn, Azulay emphasizes the importance of Hillary146s role in the affair. She has just been elected senator from New York, where Rich was indicted. If there was to be fallout, it might backfire on Hillary. She would need reassurance. Dozoretz and Denise would provide financial aid, but she might also need political cover. Azulay recommends Abraham Burg, former speaker of the Knesset. 147Burg is on very friendly terms with Hilary (sic) and knows POTUS from previous contacts.148 The next night there146s a party at the White House honoring Barbra Streisand, Quincy Jones and Maya Angelou. Dozoretz and Denise are invited, and Denise lands a plum seat at the presidential table. Denise is wearing a burgundy ball gown trimmed in fox fur. She eats little and talks less. After dinner, Denise espies Bill having an intimate conversation with Streisand. She rushes across the room, cuts in on Babs and whisks Bill away. She makes an impassioned plea for the ex-husband. who had humiliated her, stuffs a letter into Bill146s hand and whispers, 147I could not bear it were I to learn you did not see my letter.148 When Denise arrives home, she makes a call to Lucerne. It146s the first time she has talked to Marc Rich since the divorce. She describes her meeting with Clinton. Her friends say she ended the conversation by telling Rich: 147You owe me.148 A week later the Rich team is getting antsy. There146s still been no word on how Hillary feels. Rich146s New York attorney Robert Fink sends an email to Quinn: 147Of all the options we discussed, the only one that seems to have real potential for making a difference is the Hillary option.148 Quinn, Dozoretz, Burg and, perhaps, Denise call Hillary146s people. They are told that the senator needs cover. According to a December 26 email from Azulay titled 147Chuck Schumer148: 147Hillary shall feel more at ease if she is joined by her elder sen. of NY, who also represents the Jewish population.148 Gershon Kekst leaps at the opportunity, firing an email to Fink looking for Schumer146s pressure points: 147Can Quinn tell us who is close enough to lean on Schumer. I am willing to call him but have no real clout. Jack might be able to tell us who the top contributors are 133 maybe Bernard Schwartz148 Bernard Schwartz was a good guess. The former CEO of Loral (a Friend of Bill and Marc Rich) was a top DNC contributor and had lavished money on both Schumer and Hillary. Schwartz also donated 1 million to the Clinton library fund. But Quinn had been around Washington a long time. He knew enough not to trust Schumer, a famous media hog who was already showing signs of being jealous of the attention Hillary was getting. Quinn notes: 147I have to believe that the contact with HRC can happen wo him after all, we are not looking for a public show of support from her.148. It146s now January 19, 2001. Jack Quinn is sitting at a board meeting of Fanny Mae. He quietly types a message to Denise on his Blackberry. (It146s not known if he bills both clients for this hour of his time.) The text message urges Denise to make one last call to Bill. Quinn tells her not to 147argue merits148 but merely to explain to Clinton that 147it is important to me personally.148 Though both women will later dispute it, the Secret Service logs show that the next afternoon at 5:30, Beth and Denise were admitted to the private quarters of the White House. This was Denise146s nineteenth visit to the White House. Beth had visited the White House 76 times in merely the last two years. The logs do not record when the women departed. This is the encounter that appears to have consummated the pardon. At 2:30 in the morning on January 20, Clinton gets a call from his National Security Advisor. Marc Rich146s name has surfaced in an intelligence file in connection with an international arms smuggling network. Clinton calls Quinn. Quinn says the allegations are bogus. Bill turns to his staff, all of whom oppose the pardon that is now being signed. 147Take Jack146s word,148 Clinton snapped. Later Clinton will claim to have been 147sleep deprived148 when he signed the pardon, an excuse that his wife would resurrect to explain her fabulation of her landing under sniper fire in Bosnia. Marc Rich bought his pardon and now flies freely in his private jet, while Leonard Peltier languishes in prison with no hope of release. That sums up Clintonism. - Former White House Counsel Jack Quinn and former Deputy Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. sought to cut the Justice Department out of a decision by President Clinton to pardon fugitive financier Marc Rich, according to a congressional report. The 467-page report, to be released by the House Government Reform Committee, said Mr. Quinn and Mr. Holder 147worked together148 to ensure that department officials 150 particularly federal prosecutors in New York who handled the Rich case 150 147did not have the opportunity to express an opinion on the Rich pardon before it was granted. The evidence amassed by the committee indicates that Holder advised Quinn to file the Rich pardon petition with the White House, and leave the Justice Department out of the process,148 the report said.148FLYING IN The Hilton Long Beach is located at 701 West Ocean Blvd. Long Beach, CA 90831. This hotel, like most downtown Long Beach hotels, does not have an airport shuttle. Long Beach has a local airport which is called Long Beach International (LGB). Below you will find some transportation information for nearby airports. Long Beach International (LGB): The Hilton does not offer its own direct shuttle service to from LGB but there are other options: Taxi: Approximately 15 from LGB to the Hilton Long Beach Shuttles: Commercial shuttles are available but tend to be more than cab fare Car Rentals: LGB offers most rental companies, including Budget, Enterprise, Alamo, Avis, National, and Hertz Airline Services: The main airline is Jet Blue, but Delta, AlaskaHorizon and US Air offer flights too. Los Angeles International (LAX): LAX is relatively close to the Hilton Long Beach. Shuttles: . The Hilton has an agreement with Super Shuttle for a 19 one way fare. All you need to do is mention the Hilton Long Beach. Car Rentals: LAX has a large selection of car rental companies available Airline Services: A huge selection of airlines offer flights to from LAX John Wayne Airport (SNA): John Wayne Airport (SNA) is in Orange County and is close to Long Beach also. But it is the farthest of the three major airports. Car Rentals: Renting a car is you best economic bet from this airport and offers most major brands. Taxi: will be about 45 each way. Food amp Entertainment Near The Hilton LB The Hilton Long Beach is located at 701 West Ocean Blvd. Long Beach, CA 90831. The Hilton is virtually surrounded by dining, entertainment and shopping venues. Both the Hilton and Long Beach City provide free shuttles in the downtown area. (The shuttles are downtown only and do NOT include the airport) In the Hilton and World Trade Center buildings are the Ascari restaurant and Jersey Mikes Subs. The Pike: Located couple of blocks from the Hilton and on the free shuttle route, The Pike has many restaurants of all varieties, along with entertainment and shopping P. F. Changs, Famous Daves, Hooters, Islands, Bubba Gump Shrimp California Pizza Kitchen, Outback, Chilis, Auld Dubliner Irish Pub, Kavikas, Laugh Factory amp more thepikeatlongbeach Pine Avenue: Staring only two block from the Hilton, this avenue is the heart of the downtown area and is included in the free shuttle route. Club Cohiba, Georges Greek Cage, Rock Bottom Brewery and nearly every type of food and shopping you can think of. Large Attractions: Queen Mary, Museum of Latin American Art, Aquarium of the Pacific, Laugh Factory
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