>>18613289

>>18613242

>G. Gordon Liddy

weird coincidence

>>18612540 lb

>8/8 Mar-a-Lago raid

>3/30 Indictment

WhiteWatergate x1000

muh hush money

> https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1997/04/11/first-lady-denies-hush-money-paid/3ef00ba8-56fb-4b79-864d-495de6f27cd9/

FIRST LADY DENIES HUSH MONEY PAID

By Peter Baker

April 11, 1997

Hillary Rodham Clintonyesterday ridiculed allegations that the White Housearranged hush money for her former law partner Webster L. Hubbell, likening them to the spaceship fantasies of the California cult whose members committed mass suicide last month.

"That's part of the continuing saga ofWhitewater," she said. "You know, the never-ending fictional conspiracy that, honest to goodness, reminds me of some people's obsession with UFOs and the Hale-Bopp comet some days."

During an interview on WAMU-FM's "Diane Rehm Show," the first lady said she was duped by Hubbell and lost money as a result of his bilking scheme at the Arkansas law firm where they once worked. Senior administration officials, she said, were merely trying to help a friend through "a rough patch" when they helped him find lucrative employment before he went to prison.

They had no need to orchestrate payments to buy Hubbell's silence on Whitewater, she added. "There isn't anything to be hushed up about."

The White House recently acknowledged that senior aides to the president including Chief of Staff Erskine B. Bowles and counselor Thomas F. "Mack" McLarty tried to line up work for Hubbell after he resigned as associate attorney general in 1994. Hubbell was paid more than $500,000 during this period while he was under investigation, including $100,000 from the Indonesia-based Lippo Group that later emerged as a central player in campaign fund-raising investigations.

Hillary Clinton was told about the plans to help Hubbell at the time, according to the White House. Independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr, who is considering whether to seek an indictment of the first lady in connection with the failed Whitewater real estate venture, is investigating the Hubbell payments.

The first lady said she did not realize the extent of Hubbell's legal problems at the time of his resignation, even though she retained informal ties to Little Rock's Rose Law Firm, whose partners had charged that he had overbilled clients and charged improper expenses to the firm. Hubbell eventually pleaded guilty to bilking nearly $500,000.

"At the time, we had no reason to disbelieve his denials of wrongdoing," Hillary Clinton said. "And he very clearly and unequivocally just looked us in the eye and said I didn't do anything wrong. This will blow over. This is all going to be taken care of.' "

The first lady said she feels "particularly badly about this because I believed him absolutely." She added that she would like to talk with him to clear the air. "Obviously, we can't do that now because the conspiracy buffs would go wild and no telling what they would claim."

She pointed out that because she had been a partner she was among his victims. "You know, it hurt me personally," she said. "People seem to forget that the money that he went to prison for having misused was partly my money."

In a separate interview on CNN, the first lady said she did not raise money for Democrats on federal property and defended inviting donors to stay overnight in the Lincoln Bedroom. "The White House is the only home we have," she said. ". . . We have entertained at home a great deal, and I regret deeply that anyone has tried to impute anything other than what we thought we were doing, which was being hospitable."

The president roared with laughter when told about his wife's remark about the UFOs and Hale-Bopp comet. "Did she say that?" he said. "That's pretty good."

He would not say whether he shared the sentiment. "If I didn't, I wouldn't disagree with her in public," he said.

But the president went on to say that he accepts Hubbell's apology for lying to him, made during a recent television interview. "I'm not angry at him anymore because he's paid a very high price for the mistake he made," Clinton said. CAPTION: First lady Hillary Rodham Clinton answered questions on CNN and WAMU radio.

>>18613358

>WhiteWatergate x1000

>muh hush money

`HUSH MONEY' ALLEGATIONS HARD TO PROVE, EXPERTS SAY

By William Neikirk and Washington Bureau

Chicago Tribune

•

Apr 04, 1997 at 12:00 am

WASHINGTON — The suspicion of investigators that one ofPresident Clinton's closest friends might have been given high-paying jobs in exchange for his silenceis emerging as one of the most intriguing controversies dogging the president.

Disclosures that two of Clinton's most trusted aides, Counselor Thomas "Mack" McLarty and Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles, tried to line up employment for former Justice Department official Webster Hubbell in 1994 have reviveddark memories of Watergate-era "hush money" paymentsto protect President Richard Nixon.

McLarty and Bowles say they were motivated by sympathy for an old friend in trouble and didn't know at the time that a Whitewater independent counsel was investigating Hubbell for bilking his former law firm when he resigned as the No. 3 Justice Department official.

President Clinton backed them up Thursday, saying both men acted out of "human compassion" and did nothing improper.

Nonetheless, McLarty has received a subpoena from independent counsel Kenneth Starr, The Associated Press reported Thursday. Sources told the AP that Bowles also was expected to be subpoenaed soon. Both intend to cooperate, officials said.

Hubbell himself offered new details Thursday, telling the AP that he lied to Clinton during a Camp David, Md., meeting shortly after his resignation and denied the independent counsel's charges against him.

"The president asked me if I'd done something wrong," Hubbell said. "And I didn't tell him the truth."

What prosecutors may suspect to be true in "hush-money" cases often is not brought to trial for a simple reason: They are notoriously hard cases to prove.

While the efforts of McLarty and Bowles on Hubbell's behalf might raise questions about their motives, an array of criminal lawyers said that the facts so far fall short of constituting a crime.

"Based on the facts as we know them, there is absolutely no hush-money, obstruction-of-justice case here," said Dan Webb, a former U.S. attorney in Chicago. "It is not even a close call."

>>18613478

>>18613478

>HUSH MONEY' ALLEGATIONS HARD TO PROVE, EXPERTS SAY

Richard Phelan, the Chicago attorney who prosecuted former House Speaker Jim Wright, agreed."It's awfully hard (to prove) unless you have the testimony of the guy who's the hushee," he said.

Even if a compelling circumstantial case could be made that Hubbell had gained the jobs in an effort to buy his silence, that wouldn't be enough to obtain a conviction, criminal lawyers said.

Such cases require prosecutors to document an intent by the participants to violate the law by making and receiving "hush-money" payments, said Plato Cacheris, a Washington, D.C., criminal defense lawyer.

"Hush money is money given to an individual to buy his silence," Cacheris said. "I know that people are suggesting this in the Hubbell case. I see no evidence of that. He had fallen on hard times, and his friends were trying to give him employment. That doesn't necessarily imply they were buying his silence."

Webb said that "it has been my experience as a prosecutor over the years that you can never make a hush-money case unless you have an insider who absolutely `flips' and makes direct testimony" on payments made in exchange for silence.

Unlikethe Watergate scandal, where cash payments were made to Watergate burglars in exchange for their silence, the evidence in the Hubbell case is indirect and subject to varying interpretations of the participants' intent.

Hubbell resigned from the Justice Department in the spring of 1994 while under investigation by the independent counsel for overcharging his former law firm and clients in Arkansas. Later in the year, he pleaded guilty to mail fraud and tax evasion. In 1995 he began serving an 18-month prison term.

Hubbell has served his full term, leading to speculation that prosecutors felt that he did not cooperate as much as they had hoped in the Whitewater investigation.

Hubbell is a key figure in the Whitewater case. Not only was he a partner along with First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Rose Law Firm in Little Rock, Ark., and came to the Justice Department as a Clinton confidante, he also maintained possession of key Whitewater files when he was in Washington. Many of these files are missing.

McLarty and Bowles made telephone calls on behalf of Hubbell shortly after his resignation in March 1994, resulting in a job for Hubbell from Truman Arnold, a Texas oil executive, Democratic fundraiser and lifelong McLarty friend. McLarty also asked lawyer Vernon Jordan, a close Clinton friend, to help find employment for Hubbell.

In June of 1994,Hubbell wound up on the payroll of a Hong Kong firmowned by the Riady family of Indonesia, which was involved in the fundraising scandal, a few days after James Riady, an executive for the Lippo Group of Indonesia, visited the White House.

The timing and the large size of Hubbell's post-resignation compensation, reported to be as much as $500,000, have caused prosecutors and congressional investigators to look into whether he might have been offered employment in exchange for not cooperating with the government in the Whitewater case.

"Your eyebrows go up" as a prosecutor when confronted with such facts, Phelan noted. But he added that more direct, solid evidence is required to bring charges and prove the case.

"If you had something besides that (the jobs provided by the Riady family and others), that circumstantial evidence would be damaging," he said.

Starr has some prosecutorial tools at his disposal, including giving a potential witness immunity from prosecution. But Phelan noted,"You've got to make sure that the credibility of an immunized witness is pretty good too."

> https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1997-04-04-9704040124-story.html

>>18613520

>>18613552

April Fools

>>18613678

>>18613717

noice

stolen

>>18613358

>muh hush money

>>18613478

>>18613485

>$17 million

Congress paid out $17 million in settlements. Here’s why we know so little about that money.

MJ Lee Sunlen Serfaty Juana Summers

By MJ Lee, Sunlen Serfaty and Juana Summers, CNN

Updated 8:10 PM EST, Thu November 16, 2017

Two things have become painfully clear on Capitol Hill this week: Lawmakers and staffers say sexual harassment is “rampant” – but even members of Congress have no idea just how widespread the problem is.

The controversial and sensitive issue has taken center stage in Congress this week, with female lawmakers making fresh allegations of sexual harassment against unnamed members who are currently in office, and the unveiling of a new bill on Wednesday to change how sexual harassment complaints are reported and resolved. On Thursday, a woman shared her story of being groped and kissed without her consent by Sen. Al Franken in 2006.

So far, there’s been little specific data to help illuminate just how pervasive sexual harassment is on Capitol Hill, but one figure has emerged: the total that the Office of Compliance, the office that handles harassment complaints, has paid to victims.

On Thursday, the Office of Compliance released additional information indicating that it has paid victims more than $17 million since its creation in the 1990s. That includes all settlements, not just related to sexual harassment, but also discrimination and other cases.

An OOC spokeswoman said the office was releasing the extra data “due to the interest in the awards and settlement figures.” The OOC has come under fire in recent days for what lawmakers and Hill aides alike say are its antiquated policies that do not adequately protect victims who file complaints.

CNN has also learned that during the current Congress, no settlement payment approval requests have been made to the congressional committee charged with approving them.

Here’s what we know – and what we don’t know – about that money:

When was this money paid out?

According to a report from the Office of Compliance, more than $17 million has been paid out in settlements over a period of 20 years – 1997 to 2017.

How many settlements have there been?

According to the OOC data released Thursday, there have been 268 settlements. On Wednesday, Rep. Jackie Speier, the California Democrat who unveiled a bill to reform the OOC, announced at a news conference Wednesday that there had been 260 settlements. The previous tally did not include settlements paid in 2015, 2016 and 2017.

Where did the settlement money come from?

Taxpayers. Once a settlement is reached, the money is not paid out of an individual lawmaker’s office but rather comes out of a special fund set up to handle this within the US Treasury – meaning taxpayers are footing the bill. The fund was set up by the Congressional Accountability Act, the 1995 law that created the Office of Compliance.

How many of the settlements were sexual harassment-related?

It’s not clear. Speier told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Wednesday that the 260 settlements represent those related to all kinds of complaints, including sexual harassment as well as racial, religious or disability-related discrimination complaints. The OOC has not made public the breakdown of the settlements, and Speier says she’s pursuing other avenues to find out the total.

In its latest disclosure, the OOC said that statistics on payments are “not further broken down into specific claims because settlements may involve cases that allege violations of more than one of the 13 statutes incorporated by the (Congressional Accountability Act).”

Who knows about the settlements and payments?

After a settlement is reached, a payment must be approved by the chairman and ranking member of the House administration committee, an aide to Chairman Gregg Harper, a Mississippi Republican, told CNN.

The aide also said that “since becoming chair of the committee, Chairman Harper has not received any settlement requests.” Harper became chairman of the panel at the beginning of this year.

It’s not clear how many other lawmakers – if any – in addition to the House administration committee’s top two members are privy to details about the settlements and payments.

A source in House Speaker Paul Ryan’s office told CNN that Ryan is not made aware of the details of harassment settlements. That source also said that the top Democrat and Republican on the House administration committee review proposed settlements and both must approve the payments.

Similarly, a source in Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s office told CNN that Pelosi also is not made aware of those details, and that they are confined to the parties of the settlement and the leaders of the administration committee.

>>18613800

>>$17 million

>Congress paid out $17 million in settlements.

“Leader Pelosi has expressed support for the efforts of Rep. Speier who is working on multiple bills to reform the secretive and woefully inadequate process,” the source added.

When asked about Ryan’s knowledge of any sexual harassment settlements, a spokesperson for Ryan’s office noted that the committee is conducting a full review of workplace harassment and discrimination.

What do these settlements tell us about the scope of the sexual harassment problem on Capitol Hill?

It is unclear how much of the $17 million is money paid to sexual harassment cases because of the Office of Compliance’s complex reporting process. However, even knowing that dollar figure doesn’t quantify the problem: a source within the Office of Compliance tells CNN that between 40 and 50% of harassment claims settle after mediation – an early stage in the multi-tiered reporting process.

And the number of settlements reached may not be indicative of how widespread sexual harassment is, as many victims chose not to proceed with OOC’s process for handling complaints. Tracy Manzer, a spokeswoman for Speier, told CNN last week 80% of people who have come to their office with stories of sexual misconduct in the last few weeks have chosen not to report the incidents to the OOC.