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Clinton, Rosen, Tonken
Joel Miller January 10, 2005

The Hillary Clinton/David Rosen/Aaron Tonken story is exploding. Rush was talking about it today, as was the editorial page of the New York Sun. And NPR even covered it Sunday, tying in the charity-scam angle with tsunami charitable giving.

But the real scuttlebutt is Hillary Clinton. Probing the question of Hillary's involvement in monies spent on the Hollywood Gala that honored her husband and dumped loads of possibly illegally reported cash into her Senate campaign coffers, Rush Limbaugh today summed up the question simply:

When the Clintons are involved and there is a scandal, is it easier to believe they know about it or they don't know about it? Is it easier to believe they're in on it or not in on it? We had Travelgate. We had Whitewater. We had Lewinsky. We had Paula Jones. All of these scandals. . . . I'm telling you, folks, wise behavior here is to take previous experience guided by intelligence and come to a conclusion. The conclusion is, a scandal-ridden bunch like this, there's another scandal, is it logical to assume they don't know anything about it? Is it logical to assume that one of their cohorts is turning on them and trying to screw 'em? Is it logical to believe that they're just innocent bystanders in all this? No it's not logical to believe that in any way, shape, manner, or form.
Based on Aaron Token's recollection of events, Limbaugh is exactly right. Writes Aaron on page 283 of King of Cons, "I went along [with Rosen]. I didn't know any better. Eventually, I would become a lot more familiar with Federal Election Commission requirements and see exactly how much misreporting had been done on things I was involved with. Tons." At the time, though, Aaron says he had to trust Rosen—albeit not completely, it turns out. "Concerned that some day this stuff might come back to haunt me, I saved all the receipts." He did, and he later turned over more than two dozen boxes of documents to the Feds to back up his story.

But back to the junior senator from New York. To how much of the alleged shenanigans was she privy? "Did she really know what was going on?" Aaron writes on 350 and 351. "I think David Rosen knew; I think [longtime aide] Kelly Craighead knew; I think [fund-raiser] Jim Levin knew. But Hillary? It was very possible that they hid it from her. In a way, that was their job. Protect the candidate."

But they didn't do a good job. Flip ahead to pages 365 and 366:

I'd spent odd moments alone with [Hillary] before, primarily in the evening at the White House. But this was my real shot to talk to her with no one else around, and what I wanted was to let her know how much I admired her, how much I was behind her, and most important, what I had already done for her. It was, quite by accident, the moment of truth. . . .
I told her about virtually every penny I'd spent on her behalf. I let her know what I was doing and had done for each event of hers. I spoke about the money and what a pleasure and honor it was to spend it on her candidacy for the U.S. Senate.

Once and for all, I wanted it clear in her mind who was the person really doing things for her. There was so much jockeying for position among those around her: Kelly, David, Jim Levin, and so on. People taking credit for stuff. I thought I might have been short-changed, and I wanted to correct that.

I believed that once she knew the facts, she would see how valuable I was to her and welcome me into her inner circle. The whole thing was intended to be solely for my benefit. I never wanted to hurt her. I could tell she wasn't entirely comfortable with this conversation, and yet I couldn't stop. It wasn't until much later that I fully realized what I had done. Whatever protection her staff had built around her, however much in the dark they had kept her, that was over.

Now she knew.

Did Hillary say, "Whoa, Nelly! Desist! Halt! Stop!"? Did she tell Rosen to rectify the matter on the campaign finance reports? Did she warn others about Aaron? Apparently not.

King of Cons features reproductions of thank-you letters Hillary wrote Aaron. Others exist that couldn't for space considerations be included. Bill Clinton was closely involved in a future Tonken project, A Family Celebration 2001 (ironic, considering that Bill's idea of family is loose enough to include the White House intern pool). Clinton was also pleased to receive checks totaling $300,000 from Aaron for his presidential foundation—copies of the checks are reproduced in the book. King of Cons also includes copies of Rosen's Beverly Hills Hotel bill for the event. Total: $9,280.58. But it's more than campaign finance.

The entire hypocritical leftist galaxy of Hollywood gets a salacious send-up in King of Cons. From Aaron's days as a virtual prisoner of Zsa-Zsa Gabor, to getting chiseled by Sylvester Stallone, to run-ins with Cher, Lance Bass, Roseanne, Barbra Streisand, the cast of Friends, Melanie Griffith, Sharon Stone—it's hilarious, tragic, absurd, awful, and incredible. And with David Rosen's indictment and further exploration into Hillary's involvement, it's also politically explosive. (Updated, 8:26pm CST.)