Posted on 04/22/2005 2:22:49 AM PDT by The Raven
Perhaps you remember Henry Cisneros. He's the former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development who pleaded guilty in 1999 to lying to FBI investigators during his pre-appointment background check about hush payments to a former mistress, on which it also happens he hadn't paid the requisite taxes.
-snip-
With Mrs. Clinton likely to run for President in 2008, all of this obviously bears on the character of her potential Administration. (Bill Clinton pardoned Mr. Cisneros in 2001.) But just as important is the rare look the report may provide of how the IRS can be manipulated for political ends. This is the first time the IRS has been investigated with grand jury subpoena power, and it is likely to be revealing.
Abuse of the taxing power is about as serious as corruption can get in our democracy, and it should be of bipartisan concern. In the 1990s, conservative critics of the Clinton Administration such as the Heritage Foundation had to endure suspicious audits. And of course the Nixon Tapes reveal that the former Republican President ordered tax investigations of Democratic opponents and donors. These columns recently raised doubts about an IRS probe of the tax status of the NAACP.
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
I would love to see some light shining on the abuses and corruption of the Klintoon administration.
I would think that the Democrats themselves would want to root out the corruption in their ranks. However, it seems that I am projecting my own desire for honesty on them. They're all about the power--integrity and honesty only get in the way.
I would think we would have a BUSH Justice department that cared... but, I doubt we will ever see the truth about all the damage the Klintoons accomplished! The WOD, Drugs for Seniors, helping illegal invaders, and supporting the Afghanistani and Iraqi people are more important, than putting our country first!
Your statement about the Dims is equally appropriate for all the rest of the "royalty" we have lording it over us...
Hummmmm, maybe one of them hopes to be her VP choice.
Good conclusion:
Using his subpoena power, Mr. Barrett also found that the IRS would not have been able to kill the case on its own. It had to have cooperation from the Justice Department, particularly the Public Integrity and Tax divisions. We're told Mr. Barrett beat back several attempts by Justice to squelch or otherwise limit his investigation, and that a lot of important names from the Clinton era appear in the report. One key figure is likely to be former Clinton Administration IRS Commissioner Peggy Richardson, a prominent Texas Democrat, and a friend of both Mr. Cisneros and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.
With Mrs. Clinton likely to run for President in 2008, all of this obviously bears on the character of her potential Administration. (Bill Clinton pardoned Mr. Cisneros in 2001.) But just as important is the rare look the report may provide of how the IRS can be manipulated for political ends. This is the first time the IRS has been investigated with grand jury subpoena power, and it is likely to be revealing....
Yet now three highly partisan Democrats want to de-fund this probe and prevent publication of the report. "There is no other way to characterize this but as obstruction of justice," a source tells us, noting that Congress has never before tried to step on an Independent Counsel investigation like this. Surely given the ethical history of the Clinton years, the public deserves to see the report and judge for itself whether the IRS and Justice Department were misused for political purposes.
I absolutely want to see the SProsecutor's report! More on the stakes from David Limbaugh's book, "Absolute Power":
NY Times columnist William Safire is reporting that on December 20, 2000, soon after Al Gore's concession, three top Justice Department aides, including an assistant attorney general, ordered one of the last remaining independent counsels, David Barrett, to stop his grand jury investigation. Barrett refused and Justice is apparently in a panic, especially with the prospect that the "incorruptible" John Ashcroft, if confirmed, will be taking the helm at Justice. Barrett is reportedly investigating allegations that the Justice Department pressured the Internal Revenue Service not to cooperate with his investigation into where disgraced Clinton appointee Henry Cisneros got the money to pay his former mistress -- payments that led to Cisneros's prosecution and resignation. Justice allegedly told the IRS not to allow Barrett to see all of Cisneros's tax returns. So, as Safire asks, "Was Justice colluding with the IRS in protecting any Clinton appointees or heavy contributors from charges of tax fraud?" "Equal justice," Safire reminds us, "demands the law to move in, not to 'move on.'"
The Clinton-Reno Justice Department, from Waco to Elian -- with Travelgate, Chinagate, Monicagate, and the illegal war against tobacco in between -- was one continuous, perfidious scandal factory. The republic cannot long endure such corruption and abuses of power.
While there have been numerous books about the Clinton administration and its multitudinous scandals, there has been no comprehensive case-by-case critique of the Clinton Justice Department. All of the sordid details must be exposed and articulated in a way that is accessible and intelligible to the average reader. If we can't succeed in bringing the late administration to account for its misdeeds, at least we can attempt to deter future administrations from such illegality by publicly exposing the abuses of the Clinton-Reno Justice Department.
Wouldn't that be loverly! Let's hope that Rush and David make this a hot topic.
There seem to be just too many hot topics right now. I do not think the Dems can stifle all of them.
There is no doubt that Clinton used the IRS as a weapon against his enemies. You will never, under any circumstances convince me that Linda Tripp, Dolly Kyle Browning, Paula Jones, the lady he groped in the Oval Office when she asked for a job (her name escapes me), and several others getting IRS audits is a 100% coincidence.
I must be missing something. Why would Kerry want to keep all this from coming out? Wouldn't the information have detrimental effects on Hillary, his biggest obstacle to a second run for the White House?
Kerry ping
on or off, let me know...
you can leave me on the ping list. Its nice getting alerted to things :D
Who is to say that other Democrats might not be implicated, as well.
Dems try to kill Clinton probe
New York Daily News
WASHINGTON - Senate Democrats are quietly trying to kill a 10-year legal probe that implicates several senior Clinton administration appointees for obstruction of justice, the Daily News has learned.
The Democrats, saying that the $21 million investigation by Independent Counsel David Barrett should have ended long ago, succeeded in attaching an amendment to a spending bill Tuesday to cut off his funding by June 1.
But two sources close to the investigation said that if the legislation becomes law, it will thwart Barrett from making public a final report that names senior officials in the Clinton Justice Department and Internal Revenue Service who allegedly buried a tax fraud case involving former cabinet member Henry Cisneros.
"It's about obstruction of justice," said one of the sources. "People are willing to take drastic actions to kill this report."
Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), who introduced the amendment with Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), said last week that the disgraced HUD secretary paid a $10,000 fine in 1999 for lying to the FBI and that then-President Bill Clinton pardoned Cisneros, so the probe "should have ended years ago."
Barrett's probe began in 1995 by looking into allegations that Cisneros, who was Clinton's secretary of Housing and Urban Development, lied to the FBI about payments to his mistress. It expanded years ago into a broader obstruction case involving alleged tax fraud, according to the sources.
The report will allege that Justice Department officials snuffed out a tax case against Cisneros and that the IRS sometimes audited Clinton critics without good cause.
Barrett's investigation was wrapped up two years ago, and his 400-page final report was submitted to a three-judge panel last August, said two sources.
Because those named in the report have until the end of June to refute Barrett's findings, Kerry and Dorgan's amendment would prevent its release.
"I would love to see some light shining on the abuses and corruption of the Klintoon administration."
Don't be a CINO (Conservative in Name Only)
Don't listen to CINO's in politics,
the Main Stream CINO media,
and even here on Free Republic.
Remember all who told you not to worry about klintoon, hitlery and reno
after the 2000 election?
Remember all who said Ashcroft would prosecute them.
Remember Chinagate, Pardongate, Waco, Vince Foster, the Jewish town in NY etc., etc., etc. ?
Well reno ran against Jeb Bush and hitlery wants to beat Hanoi Kerry in 08
Are YOU willing to listen to the CINO's again?
Indeed. I'd be curious to know the depth and breadth of the IRS employee involvement.
Bureaucracies are a natural constituency of a party that advocates govenment expansion. The federal bureaucracy inside the beltway is one of the most influential and powerful constituencies of the Democratic Party. IMHO.
nice work, Tonk!
Many of us, strongly conservative, Republicans thought that some of these would come back to 'bite' the Clintons after he was out of office.
I guess we're still hanging on to some hope Tonkin, but it looks like all Presidents protect each other.
Plink
American citizens paid for the investigation into the Clinton crooks we are owed at the very least the full truth and nothing but the truth. Stop covering-up for the Clintons.
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