Free Republic

What’s she hiding? Thus far, New York State Senator and Presidential candidate Kirsten Gillibrand has chosen to go with a fairly innocuous, “I never heard of that group” response whenever she’s been asked about the NXIVM sex cult. It was Frank Report that first broke the story about ties between NXIVM and Gillibrand. Our original reporting was motivated by Gillibrand’s claim that then-President Bill Clinton should have resigned over the Monica Lewinsky scandal. At that time, we simply summarized what we knew about the involvement of her father, Doug Rutnik, with NXIVM – and asked that she hold hearings “about...

Seagrams heiress Clare Bronfman is [paying] for lawyers representing her five co-defendants, accused fellow Nxivm cult members, in federal court. [Vanguard] Keith Raniere, who allegedly ran the upstate New York sex sect...Raniere’s attorneys Marc Agnifilo and Paul DerOhannesian are being paid by an irrevocable trust fund set up by Clare Bronfman. At a hearing in Brooklyn Federal Court Thursday, U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis said he would be “hard pressed” to recall another case in which a legal defense fund of its kind existed. Bronfman has set up a second trust for Raniere’s infant son, court documents revealed. Charges against...

[snip]Ten Points 1. Kirsten Gillibrand is the junior U.S. Senator from New York and a very likely 2020 presidential candidate. 2. Her father, Doug Rutnik is an attorney and lobbyist. 3. In 2004, Rutnik worked for a company call Nxivm, and Nxivm is an incredibly shady “self-help” company that, when looked at closely, may have seemed like a cult. 4. That’s by 2004 standards, by the way—as Ben-Mathis Lilly pointed out at Slate, Forbes and UPI had already called the place a “cult” and a “pyramid scheme.” Rutnik has no claim to ignorance. 5. He worked with them for a...

Ex-Senator D’Amato under fire for tilting election to Gillibrand at Republicans’ expense Published on May 27, 2010 by Official Wire (OfficialWire) WASHINGTON, DC While the media continues to call the New York Senate race a done deal in favor of Democratic incumbent Kirsten Gillibrand, shady subplots involving her rise to prominence remain unexamined. America Outraged Political Action Committee has been seeking to expose what it calls “an egregious case of political cronyism” involving former Republican senator and political power broker Al D’Amato and Gillibrand, the daughter of a prominent lobbyist. Among the connections: Gillibrand's father, Doug Rutnik, a contributor mostly...