Well, now….. Just a few hours before Hillary Clinton is to face both the press and her opponents for the Democratic Nomination, ABC news is asking some interesting questions, which will doubtless play heavy tonight:
Three recipients of controversial 11th-hour pardons issued by former President Bill Clinton in January 2001 have donated thousands of dollars to the presidential campaign of his wife, Democratic front-runner Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., according to campaign finance records examined by ABC News, in what some good government groups said created an appearance of impropriety.
“It’s not illegal,” Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, told ABC News. “But, of course, it’s inappropriate and she should return the money. It does raise the appearance that this is payback.
“Appearance”? More like “confirmation”.
“One can only hope that she wasn’t yet aware of who made the donations,” said Sloan.
Just like she wasn’t aware that her people were planting questions. Mrs Clinton certainly has a lot of gaps in her understanding of her own campaign, if we’re to take her word on the matter. This strikes me as a problem of her management style at least, if not hiding criminal behavior. Ad yes, selling pardons for future political and monetary situations is a crime, as many reminded us at the time those pardons were first signed off on.
Blue Crab Boulevard [1] says:
The campaign has a point, of course. With the amount of cash in play, $5,300 is not even noise on the system. It speaks more to the judgment of the people who made the donations than it does to the campaign. Yet those people obviously felt that they owed something to the Clintons, did they not? It just adds another odor to the overall scent of corruption that seems to hang around the Clintons.
I’m not so sure we can excuse this because of the small amount. If I’m actually looking for a name of someone I don’t want to take money from, it’s easy enough to red-tag it, in today’s computerized society.
As an example, it took me exactly 10 seconds to come up with names she might want to avoid taking donations from… these are the people Bill Clinton signed pardons for:
Commutations
- Benjamin Berger [2]
- Ronald Henderson Blackley
- Bert Wayne Bolan
- Gloria Libia Camargo
- Charles F. Campbell
- David Ronald Chandler – federal death row [3] inmate[1] [4].
- Lau Ching Chin
- Donald R. Clark
- Loreta De-Ann Coffman
- Derrick Curry
- Velinda Desalus
- Jacob Elbaum
- Linda Sue Evans
- Loretta Sharon Fish
- Antoinette M. Frink
- David Goldstein
- Gerard A. Greenfield
- Jodie E. Israel
- Kimberly Johnson
- Billy Thornton Langston Jr.
- Belinda Lynn Lumpkin
- Peter MacDonald – President of the Navajo Nation [5]
- Kellie Ann Mann
- Peter Ninemire
- Hugh Ricardo Padmore
- Arnold Paul Prosperi
- Melvin J. Reynolds [6] – Democratic Congressman from Illinois – bank fraud [7] and obstruction of justice [8]
- Pedro Miguel Riveiro
- Dorothy Rivers [9] – lead official in Jesse Jackson [10]‘s Rainbow [11]/PUSH [12] Coalition, plead guilty to theft of 1.2 million dollars in federal grant money
- Susan Rosenberg
- Kalmen Stern
- Cory Stringfellow
- Carlos Anibal Vignali [13] – convicted [14] of cocaine [15] trafficking [16]
- Thomas Wilson Waddell III
- Harvey Weinig
- Kim Allen Willis
- Kimba Smith
- Antonio Camacho Negron – FALN [17] militant
Pardons
- Verla Jean Allen (1990 [18] false statements to an agency [19] of the United States)
- Nicholas M. Altiere (1983 [20] importation of cocaine [15])
- Bernice Ruth Altschul (1992 [21] money laundering [22] conspiracy)
- Joe Anderson Jr. (1988 [23] income tax evasion [24])
- William Sterling Anderson (1987 [25] defraudment of a financial institution, false statements to a financial institution, wire fraud [26])
- Mansour Azizkhani (1984 [27] false statements in bank loan applications)
- Cleveland Victor Babin Jr. (1987 [25] using the U.S. mail service to defraud)
- Chris Harmon Bagley (1989 [28] conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute cocaine)
- Scott Lynn Bane (Unlawful distribution of marijuana)
- Thomas Cleveland Barber (Issuing worthless checks)
- Peggy Ann Bargon (Violation of the Lacey Act [29], violation of the Bald Eagle Protection Act [30])
- David Roscoe Blampied (possess with intent to distribute cocaine)
- William Arthur Borders [31] Jr. (Conspiracy to corruptly solicit and accept money in return for influencing the official acts of a federal district court judge (Alcee L. Hastings [32]), and to defraud the United States in connection with the performance of lawful government functions; corruptly influencing, obstructing, impeding and endeavoring to influence, obstruct and impede the due administration of justice, and aiding and abetting therein; traveling interstate with intent to commit bribery)
- Arthur David Borel (Odometer Rollback)
- Douglas Charles Borel (Odometer Rollback)
- George Thomas Brabham (Making a false statement or report to a federally insured bank)
- Almon Glenn Braswell [33] (1983 mail fraud [34] and perjury [35])
- Leonard Browder (Illegal dispensing of controlled substance and Medicaid fraud)
- David Steven Brown (Securities fraud and mail fraud)
- Delores Caroylene Burleson, aka Delores Cox Burleson (Possession of Marijuana)
- John H. Bustamante (wire fraud)
- Mary Louise Campbell
- Eloida Candelaria
- Dennis Sobrevinas Capili
- Donna Denise Chambers
- Douglas Eugene Chapman
- Ronald Keith Chapman
- Francisco Larois Chavez
- Henry Cisneros [36] (former HUD [37] Secretary [38])
- Roger Clinton, Jr. [39] (half-brother of President [40] Bill Clinton [41])
- Stuart Harris Cohn
- David Marc Cooper
- Ernest Harley Cox Jr.
- John F. Cross Jr.
- Reickey Lee Cunningham
- Richard Anthony De Labio
- John Deutch [42] (former Director of Central Intelligence Agency [43])
- Richard Douglas
- Edward Reynolds Downe
- Marvin Dean Dudley
- Larry Lee Duncan
- Robert Clinton Fain
- Marcos Arcenio Fernandez
- Alvarez Ferrouillet
- Henry O. Flipper [44] – guilty of “conduct unbecoming an officer” (1882)
- William Dennis Fugazy
- Lloyd Reid George
- Louis Goldstein
- Rubye Lee Gordon
- Pincus Green [45]
- Robert Ivey Hamner
- Samuel Price Handley
- Woodie Randolph Handley
- Jay Houston Harmon
- Rick Hendrick [46]
- John Hummingson
- David S. Herdlinger
- Debi Rae Huckleberry
- Warren C. Hultgren Jr.
- Donald Ray James
- Stanley Pruet Jobe
- Ruben H. Johnson
- Linda Jones
- James Howard Lake
- June Louise Lewis
- Salim Bonnor Lewis
- John Leighton Lodwick
- Hildebrando Lopez
- Jose Julio Luaces
- James Timothy Maness
- James Lowell Manning, (1982, aiding and assisting in the preparation of a false corporate income tax return)
- John Robert Martin
- Frank Ayala Martinez
- Silvia Leticia Beltran Martinez
- John Francis McCormick
- Susan H. McDougal [47]
- Howard Mechanic [48]
- Brook K. Mitchell Sr.
- Samuel Loring Morison [49]
- Charles Wilfred Morgan III
- Richard Anthony Nazzaro
- Charlene Ann Nosenko
- Vernon Raymond Obermeier
- Miguelina Ogalde
- David C. Owen
- Robert W. Palmer
- Kelli Anne Perhosky
- Richard H. Pezzopane
- Orville Rex Phillips
- Vinson Stewart Poling Jr.
- Norman Lyle Prouse
- Willie H.H. Pruitt Jr.[3] [50]
- Danny Martin Pursley Sr.
- Charles D. Ravenel
- William Clyde Ray
- Alfredo Luna Regalado
- Ildefonso Reynes Ricafort
- Marc Rich [51]
- Howard Winfield Riddle
- Richard Wilson Riley Jr.
- Samuel Lee Robbins
- Joel Gonzales Rodriguez
- Michael James Rogers
- Anna Louise Ross
- Dan Rostenkowski [52] – Former Democratic [53] Congressman [54] convicted in the Congressional Post Office Scandal [55]
- Gerald Glen Rust
- Jerri Ann Rust
- Bettye June Rutherford
- Gregory Lee Sands
- Adolph Schwimmer
- Albert A. Seretti Jr.
- Patricia Campbell Hearst Shaw [56]
- Dennis Joseph Smith
- Gerald Owen Smith
- Stephen A. Smith
- Jimmie Lee Speake
- Charles Bernard Stewart
- Marlena Francisca Stewart-Rollins
- Fife Symington III [57] – former Arizona [58] governor
- Richard Lee Tannehill
- Nicholas C. Tenaglia
- Gary Allen Thomas
- Larry Weldon Todd
- Olga C. Trevino
- Ignatious Vamvouklis
- Patricia A. Van De Weerd
- Christopher V. Wade [59]
- Bill Wayne Warmath
- Jack Kenneth Watson
- Donna Lynn Webb
- Donald William Wells
- Robert H. Wendt
- Jack L. Williams
- Kavin Arthur Williams
- Robert Michael Williams
- Jimmie Lee Wilson
- Thelma Louise Wingate
- Mitchell Couey Wood
- Warren Stannard Wood
- Dewey Worthey
- Rick Allen Yale
- Joseph A. Yasak
- William Stanley Yingling
- Phillip David Young
- Keith Sanders
- Darren Muci
- John Scott (not a full pardon)
Can’t these names be added to a filter so the people taking the money know they may not want to do that? Or perhaps they don’t care. It sounds to me like someone wasn’t watching, or was hoping given the relatively small amounts, nobody else would notice.
Of course this brings up a point… they DID notice, officially, and said something about it… they in this case being the press. She’s gotten a pass for so long, she likely expected it to occur here, as well. It didn’t, which means she’s going to have to do some serious dancing, tonight, on this point, as well as on the planted questions, and the drivers licenses for illegals and so on.
Gonna be a fun night, says I….
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