Hillary to Handpick Pardongate
Prosecutor
Newsmax 11/18/01 Carl Limbacher
Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) will effectively handpick the person who
will continue the investigation into the Clinton administration's Pardongate
scandal, a report set to appear in Monday's Roll Call magazine reveals.
Any nominee to replace Mary Jo White, the retiring U.S. Attorney for New York's
Southern District, will have to first get through the Democratic-controlled
Judiciary Committee, where Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) is a senior member.
"Just as important," says Roll Call, "a Democratic aide noted that Chairman Pat Leahy (D-Vt.) has continued a 'blue-slip' policy that requires both home-state Senators to sign off on nominees to the federal bench, U.S. Attorneys offices and the U.S. Marshals Service. "That policy effectively gives Clinton the ability to reject - by not returning a positive review of the nominee, on a blue slip of paper - any nominee to take over the office that is handling the investigation into her and her husband."
White's office has been slow-boating probes into ex-President Clinton's pardon of fugitive billionaire Marc Rich, as well as four Hasidic Rabbi's whose village of New Square, N.Y. voted 1200 to 4 for Mrs. Clinton in last year's Senate race.
The former first lady has denied ever discussing the New Square pardons with her husband. But White's Pardongate grand jury is believed to have heard testimony contradicting her alibi.
White is also probing allegations against former first brother Roger Clinton, whose company CLM LLC allegedly bilked a Texas family out of their life savings on the promise of a presidential pardon that was never granted. White has $235,000 in cancelled checks made out to Clinton's company and witnesses who say he was present when the money changed hands.
Still, despite compelling evidence of criminality, the Clinton probes are expected to go up in smoke once Hillary weighs in on White's successor. One name likely to hit the circular file immediately -- former Independent Counsel Robert Ray, who is rumored to be on the short list for the job.
Ray was stung by criticism that he let both Clintons off the hook last year on iron-clad perjury raps. The Clinton camp is said to fear he wouldn't be so lax a second time around.
In light of the Hillary fait accompli, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle has urged that White drop the Clinton probes entirely -- along with another investigation into bribery allegations against Sen. Robert Torricelli (D-N.J.).
A Clinton veto over her own prosecutor would all but certify the view that the former first family is now officially above the law, leaving some to wonder whether certain provinces of New York have been transformed into the east coast version of Arkansas.
In an episode that reminiscent of the way the Clintons' home state press covered for them during 1980's, a Westchester County police officer who was injured by Hillary's motorcade last month has been forbidden to talk to the media. With the exception of the New York Post's Page Six, the New York media have assiduously avoided covering the story.
HENCH adds: Why do a couple of two-bit, snake-oil, trailer-trash
hillbillies get to rape and pilliage this country while liberals, the media,
and even law enforcement, just smile and look the other way? The answer: Over
1,000 FBI files.
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