Posted on 04/23/2002 7:17:50 AM PDT by xsysmgr
On January 16, 1996, Carol Getty, a top official at the United States Parole Commission, answered the telephone in her office at the commission's regional headquarters in Kansas City, Missouri. Getty wasn't quite prepared for what happened next. The caller was President Clinton's brother, Roger, and he wanted to ask that a man named Rosario Gambino, an organized-crime figure serving 45 years in federal prison for heroin smuggling, be granted parole. As Clinton spoke, Getty became increasingly concerned. Clinton seemed familiar with some of the inner workings of the Parole Commission — he said he knew the Kansas City office was scheduled to be closed soon and that Getty might not remain a commissioner for much longer, which wasn't public knowledge at the time — and he told Getty he wanted to come by her office in the next day or two. Getty, who knew it would be improper for a commissioner to discuss the details of a case with a member of the public, much less the president's brother, said Clinton could meet with her staff. Then she ended the conversation and called her bosses in Washington.
The calls that day began an extraordinary debate inside the commission as officials realized that the president's brother was making appeals on behalf of a notorious mobster. Although it has long been known that Roger Clinton, during his brother's last days in office, tried to win a presidential pardon for Gambino, Clinton's attempts to influence the Parole Commission have received much less notice. In the summer of 1998 — at about the same time Bill Clinton's sex-and-perjury scandal was reaching its crescendo — Roger Clinton's efforts attracted the attention of the FBI, which tried to set up a sting operation in the case, only to be frustrated by a political appointee on the commission who feared that independent-counsel Kenneth Starr was behind the investigation (he wasn't). The story, in all its intriguing and sometimes comical detail — what was the actor George Hamilton doing with a briefcase full of Rolex watches? — is told in "Justice Undone: Clemency Decisions in the Clinton White House," an impressively comprehensive report by the House Government Reform Committee that has so far received far less attention than it deserves.
ROGER & TOMMY
Roger Clinton's involvement with the Gambino case began around 1995. As Clinton recalled in an interview with the FBI, he was in a nightclub in Beverly Hills when a man named Pasquale — Clinton didn't remember his last name but knew he was the manager for an old rock singer named Gino Vanelli — said he wanted Clinton to meet someone. It was Tommy Gambino, the son of Rosario Gambino, and a reputed crime figure himself. As Clinton later told the FBI, it was easy to guess what Tommy Gambino wanted. "Clinton stated that the two most common questions he gets asked regularly are, 'What is it like to be the president's brother?' and 'Can you help me get someone out of jail?'" FBI investigators wrote after an interview with Clinton. "Clinton stated after talking to Tommy Gambino he knew the reason for the introduction was to see if he could help Tommy Gambino get his father released from prison."Despite Clinton's (accurate) suspicion that he was being used, the two men became friends. Gambino showed Clinton the legal papers he had filed in efforts to get Rosario out of jail, and Clinton later told the FBI he became "passionate" about Rosario's cause, believing that the elder Gambino had not been treated fairly. Although it might seem odd to an outside observer, Clinton said he identified with the Gambino family. "Clinton stated that since Rosario Gambino had been in prison, Tommy had had to grow up without a father," the FBI report on the Clinton interview said. "Clinton advised that he, too, had grown up without a father and sympathized with that position. Tommy Gambino has a close-knit Italian family. Clinton stated that when he grew up in Arkansas he and his brother grew up close to an unnamed, tight-knit Italian family. He further stated that he has his own prison experience which has given him an insight into the prison system. Through his experience of being incarcerated, he claimed to have learned that things are not always as they appear or as they are reported."
It's not clear if Clinton and Tommy Gambino had a financial arrangement. Gambino certainly seemed to have money. He sometimes gave Clinton "expense" money — he later gave Clinton a check for $50,000 — and he liked to talk with Clinton about the good things in life, like fine cigars and expensive watches. During his interview with the FBI, Clinton recalled one such conversation, in a coffee shop in Beverly Hills. "Clinton stated he knew if the embargo on Cuban cigars ever got lifted, 'they could all make a lot of money,'" the FBI report reads. "Clinton recalled a conversation, the date or approximate time of which he could not recall, he had with his brother, Bill Clinton, who told him the cigar embargo would not be lifted while he was still president. President Clinton allegedly said, "The embargo will be eased for food and medicine because that is the direction the world is going, but not for cigars, not during your lifetime.'" Roger Clinton broke the news to Tommy Gambino, and that was that on the Cuban-cigar issue.
The conversation then turned to watches. Clinton looked at the watch on Gambino's wrist, a large, shiny Rolex. Gambino asked if Clinton had ever owned one. Clinton had not. When they left the coffee shop, according to the FBI report, Clinton and Gambino went to what Clinton called a "pawn shop," also in Beverly Hills. There, according to the FBI report, "they encountered actor and Hollywood celebrity George Hamilton. Clinton said Hamilton, who is 'a friend of Tommy's,' sells watches and cigars. Clinton said Hamilton had a briefcase full of watches which he displayed to Clinton and Gambino, but they left without buying a watch." Years later, Gambino would give Clinton a Rolex — he called the gift "an Italian custom" — but for now, the watch would have to wait.
“BROTHER RECOMMENDED MEETING”
As his friendship with Tommy Gambino grew, Clinton decided to contact the Parole Commission on Rosario's behalf. According to the FBI report, Clinton told agents he knew that "his name associated with the Gambino name would raise some eyebrows," but he did not think it would be a serious problem. Clinton also told the FBI that he did not discuss his decision to take on Gambino's case with anyone, although he believed, in the words of the FBI report, "that the president knew he had some business with the U.S. Parole Commission, but did not know specifically what he was working on." Clinton told the FBI that he specifically did not tell his brother he was working on Gambino's behalf.But it appears that that is not what he told the Parole Commission. After Clinton's first call to Carol Getty on January 16, 1996, Getty called Michael Gaines, a top official at the commission's main office in suburban Washington, to tell him what had happened. The next morning, Clinton called the Kansas City office again, to say he would not come by, as he had originally said, because he had decided it would be better to go straight to the national headquarters. About two weeks later, on January 30, Clinton called Gaines's office and left a message with the secretary. It said, "Roger Clinton, very important. ASAP — Re: brother recommended meeting."
Now it was Gaines's turn to be nervous. He wrote a memo to his file, saying, "I do not know Roger Clinton, and I have not spoken to him about this matter." He called the White House counsel's office to tell them about the message. And he got in touch with the Parole Commission's general counsel, Michael Stover, who volunteered to return Clinton's call. According to a memo Stover wrote after the call, Clinton told Stover that his brother, the president, was "completely aware of my involvement." Clinton also said the president had told him the Kansas City office would be closed soon, and that he should contact Washington instead.
Stover told Clinton that Gaines could not meet with him, which caused Clinton to become angry and raise his voice. After the conversation, Stover wrote that he was "disturbed at the tactic employed by Roger Clinton of repeatedly invoking his brother" and that the Parole Commission "must not permit itself to be subjected to improper attempts to exercise political influence over its procedures." Stover later told the Government Reform Committee that "an alarm bell goes off when the half-brother of the president is helping an organized crime figure." Concerned, Stover alerted the Justice Department, and also asked Gaines to call the White House to warn them about Clinton's actions. After talking with Gaines, Stover wrote that the two men agreed that "the Commission should be shielded, if at all possible, from the unwelcome intrusion of a man who would appear to have nothing to contribute to the Commission's deliberations in the Gambino case but a crude (and I hope unauthorized) effort to exercise political influence."
Perhaps because he got such a chilly reception from Stover, Clinton did not call back; indeed, he did not contact the commission for more than a year. Then, in December 1997, he called Gaines again (Gaines had become chairman of the commission) and asked for a meeting. By that time, the commission had hired a chief of staff, a woman named Marie Ragghianti — she was the first politically appointed staff member on the commission — and Gaines asked her to meet with Clinton. This time, no one told Stover, at least not immediately; when he heard about the meeting, he warned against it, but Ragghianti went forward.
According to the House-committee report, Ragghianti took an instant liking to Clinton. She told congressional investigators that Roger was "not the yokel he is painted to be" and that she found him "downright engaging." After the meeting, she spoke to colleagues about Clinton's charm, saying, "This isn't even the president. Imagine what the president is like." After the meeting, Clinton kept in touch with Ragghianti. In the spring of 1998, he was given another meeting, and in the next couple of months, he called Ragghianti and other commission officials eleven times (Ragghianti had given him her home phone number). Then, in July 1998, he met with her yet again (Stover was kept in the dark about the meetings). According to the House-committee report, a staffer who was present said that Clinton "mentioned his brother" during nearly all of the meetings and also said he was working "with his brother's knowledge." Said the staffer, "He threw it in your face that he was staying at the White House."
During this time Clinton made emotional appeals for Rosario Gambino's freedom. In one handwritten note to commission officials, he wrote, "We all deserve a second chance! I am living proof of that." In another letter, Clinton said he had studied a Sicilian phone book and came away convinced that the name Gambino was a common one in Sicily. "A large majority is unrelated to the Gambino crime family," Clinton wrote.
THE STING THAT WASN'T
That is where things stood when, in August 1998, the commission got a call from an FBI agent who said he wanted to look at the Rosario Gambino file. Commission staffers didn't know if the agent was interested in Gambino or Roger Clinton, but they gave the FBI all their documents in the case, including those that mentioned Clinton. After that, agents came back several times to interview staffers about Clinton.While that was going on, Clinton continued calling the commission. But Ragghianti, aware that the FBI was looking into the case, no longer took his calls. On January 22, 1999, Clinton happened to call at a time when an FBI agent was at the commission's offices. The agent listened to the messages Clinton left and asked permission to record them. Although Ragghianti said she "felt kind of bad" about letting the FBI tape the messages, Stover said she should cooperate, and the FBI was allowed to record Clinton's messages.
According to the House report, the FBI "decided to intensify its investigation of Clinton" after listening to the taped phone messages. Agents came to Ragghianti with a plan. They wanted Thomas Kowalski, a senior commission official who had been in the meetings between Ragghianti and Clinton, to arrange a meeting with Clinton at a restaurant. Kowalski would be accompanied by an FBI agent who would pose as another commission staffer. Together, they would talk to Clinton about the Gambino case and try to determine whether Clinton was trying to illegally influence the commission.
Stover OK'd the plan. But Ragghianti didn't like it and rejected the suggestion without consulting her superiors at the commission. According to the House report, quoting investigators' interviews with Ragghianti, "She felt that the Parole Commission 'did not conduct its business in restaurants' and that it would make the Parole Commission look bad if someone overheard the discussion between Clinton and the undercover FBI agent. She also felt that it was entrapment to allow the FBI to operate under Parole Commission auspices in order to obtain evidence against Roger Clinton." According to the report, Ragghianti was also "annoyed by Stover's approval of the FBI plan. She felt that he had 'crossed over the line and lost legal objectivity.'"
Frustrated, the FBI came back with another request. They wanted to know if Kowalski would agree to page Clinton and then allow the FBI to record the conversation when Clinton called back. The FBI, according to the House report, "would provide Kowalski with suggested questions for Clinton to determine Clinton's purpose in contacting the Parole Commission." As was the case with the first plan, the FBI suggestion sparked an intense debate inside the commission. Ragghianti was again opposed to the FBI's idea. "Her initial reaction upon hearing of the request was to question whether any taping at the commission's headquarters in Maryland would be illegal, 'recalling the Linda Tripp debacle related to a similar tape recording,'" says the House-committee report. The report says Ragghianti argued that the FBI agents were on a "witch hunt" and might even be working for Ken Starr. (She called the local U.S. attorney, who assured her that the FBI was working for that office, not Starr.)
Despite Ragghianti's objections, Kowalski agreed to go along. But this time, Clinton was the problem. Kowalski went to an FBI office and called Clinton's cell phone, but Clinton didn't call back. The plan took a slight detour when, a few weeks later, Clinton called Kowalski to say he would be in Washington and wanted to meet. Kowalski told the FBI and allowed agents to wire his office to record the meeting, which was to take place in March, 1999.
As the day of the meeting approached, Ragghianti was, by her own account, a nervous wreck. "I hardly slept that night," she wrote of the night before the meeting. The morning of the meeting, she spoke to Kowalski to give him instructions on how to conduct the meeting. Ragghianti wanted Kowalski to open the meeting by telling Clinton that it would be their last meeting, she said, and should emphasize that any contacts Clinton had with the commission should be in the form of letters, not face-to-face meetings. After the FBI agents began setting up the room, Ragghianti wrote later, "I went back into [Kowalski's] office and said, 'Now remember, Tom — business as usual!' And he answered in a joking way (though I knew he was serious), 'Yes, Ma'am!' I then left, and went up to watch and wait for RC."
Looking out a window, Ragghianti saw Clinton arrive in a cab. Then she saw the FBI agents go to their car. "It became increasingly clear that they must be listening to the RC/Tom meeting from their car," Ragghianti wrote later, "and I was distraught, but helpless. At that point, all I could do was pray." After what Ragghianti described as "the longest hour and a half of my life," Clinton left and Ragghianti raced to Kowalski's office to find out what had happened. In her memo, she wrote, "I said how'd it go and he {Kowalski] said — it went great, he [Clinton] didn't say anything out of line, it was just fine! I said thank God, are you sure? And he said yes, he just said all the usual things — the things he's said before, and he didn't say anything unusual — was exactly like we thought it'd be. I was greatly relieved." The FBI agents left, telling Ragghianti that they didn't need any more information and apparently closing down that part of their investigation.
A ROLEX AT LAST
What did it all mean? Perhaps Roger Clinton never intended to do anything wrong. On the other hand, it is also possible that Ragghianti's decision to reject the FBI's original sting plan irreparably damaged the FBI's investigation. "The effect of Ragghianti's decision certainly was to protect Clinton," the House-committee report says. "Her decision to reject the undercover plan may have had a crippling effect on the FBI investigation." In any event, in April 1999 the commission denied parole for Rosario Gambino.But Clinton did not give up. Instead, he turned his attention to convincing his brother to pardon Gambino (a plan that also failed). After the pardon scandal broke into the open, Clinton's work for Gambino, along with his efforts to win pardons for other criminals — plus his acceptance of hundreds of thousands of dollars from foreign sources — led to a still-unfinished investigation by federal prosecutors.
And Clinton's friendship with Tommy Gambino did not end, either. One day in 1999, after the failure of his Parole Commission lobbying, Clinton was playing golf at the Rancho Park public course in Los Angeles. In a story first reported by the New York Times, Clinton was playing with three strangers he had met at the course when on the tenth hole, a man drove up in a golf cart. The man gave Clinton a small box and then left. Clinton told his fellow golfers that the man was Tommy Gambino. Then Clinton opened the box. Inside was a gold Rolex watch.
An administration discussing parole policy with the freakin' Gambino family?
The Gift that Keeps On Giving....
...kind of like the Energizer Bunny, it keeps going, & going, & going....
Rest assured, this won't be the last scandal to break--
“My client had nothing to do with the low-rent, trailer-park trash politicians who infested our country for the past eight years.”
< /rhetoricaly stupid questioning voice>
I wonder how much Bill is paying Roger to keep his mouth shut lately? I'd estimate six figures.
It sounds like they might have had Roger if it weren't for the actions of Ragghianti, the political appointee.
The heading will probably be wrong - this might be the latest, but it won't be the last Clinton scandal.
Perhaps organized crime will do what the Senate and the American people didn't have the stones to do.
An administration discussing parole policy with the freakin' Gambino family?
I'll tell you what is frightening. An administration that has credible evidence that HUNDREDS of serious crimes (not just illegal pardons but election tampering, perjury, obstruction of justice, violation of privacy, blackmail, bribery, treason, murder and mass murder) were committed by the previous administration and the party that put them in office ... and doesn't even bother to investigate! It means the whole system legal system has broken down. It means that Presidents, their staffs and party officials are now above the law. It means that future Presidents and parties will be even more corrupt. It means that the previous party may have something on the current administration that is even more damaging than ... murder. Now THAT is scary.
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