Hillary Clinton used sex as a weapon against Vince Foster and Webb Hubbell but she was forced to put them on Bill Clinton's government payroll to keep them quite. Hillary Rodham Clinton is clearly a stone cold criminal with a law degree and political influence to keep her out of prison.
Today, the new, unredacted version of the memo—fills in important blanks in the criminal case against Mrs. Clinton.
The entire text of the memo can now be pieced together from the redacted version released by the National Archives and the new, unredacted version, reported here for the first time.
The broad contours of the Whitewater case against Mrs. Clinton are well known.
With Governor Bill Clinton running Arkansas,
Mrs. Clinton leveraged her work at the Rose Law Firm into a series of transactions on behalf of a corrupt financial institution, Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan, run by a longtime Clinton crony, James McDougal.
Among the transactions was a document drafted by Mrs. Clinton to conceal a series of fraudulent loans that were used to deceive federal bank examiners.
The fraudulent loans were part of a land deal known as Castle Grande.
Mrs. Clinton, along with her Rose Law Firm partner Webster Hubbell—later given a high-ranking post at the Justice Department by President Clinton—handled the Madison Guaranty accounts for law firm.
Hubbell’s father-in-law, Seth Ward, also played a key role in the Madison accounts.
In the mid-1980s, federal bank regulators started taking a close look at Madison Guaranty and concluded that Castle Grande was a sham, a crime, and part of a pyramid scheme to enrich insiders and hide the S&L’s disintegrating finances. According to the newly obtained document, “Hillary Clinton and Hubbell concealed their involvement in Castle Grande.”
OIC prosecutors turned over every rock in Clintons’ financial world and drafted several possible indictments of Clinton and Hubbell.
Last year, Judicial Watch disclosed that the National Archives holds versions of the draft indictments, but has refused to produce them in response to Freedom of Information Act requests, citing concerns for Mrs. Clinton’s privacy.
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton denounced the move as “a political decision to protect [Clinton’s] candidacy” and vowed to press on in court.
The new, unredacted version of the OIC memo spells out the criminal case against Mrs. Clinton:
Here is how we would characterize this case in the legal terms of an indictment: “The object of the conspiracy was to conceal, by unlawful means, the true facts relating to HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON’s and WEBSTER LEE HUBBELL’s relationship with Seth Ward, Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan and Madison Financial Corporation.
By concealing these facts HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON and WEBSTER LEE HUBBELL would avoid and evade potential criminal and civil liability, fraudulently secure additional income for the Rose Law Firm and safeguard the political campaigns of William Jefferson Clinton.”
What this means in practice is that Hillary Clinton and Hubbell may have been involved in a crime in 1986. When they realized their potential criminal, civil and political exposure, they concealed their activities, repeatedly and with great effect. The case would be the story of how that happened.
The crime? Castle Grande “cross loans,” and an “option agreement” drafted by Mrs. Clinton, were used to deceive federal bank examiners.
The Clinton campaign did not reply to requests for a response to the charges. Mr. Hubbell declined to comment.
The newly revealed document fills in some of the blanks relating to prosecution theories of criminal conduct by Mrs. Clinton, Hubbell, and a third Rose Firm partner, Vincent Foster. The document notes that the partners were “concealing conduct bearing on possible civil and criminal liability.”
As Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign gained speed, media pressure on Mrs. Clinton increased. Reporters started asking questions about Madison Guaranty. The S&L had imploded in the 1980s and was the subject of several civil and criminal cases. The Rose Law Firm partners—Clinton, Hubbell and Foster—were well aware of the campaign’s vulnerability on the Madison issue.
“Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton were business partners of the owner of a failed S&L,” notes the National Archives version of the OIC memo.
“[I]t was alleged McDougal had hired Hillary Clinton to represent him before state agencies that reported to her husband as a way of indirectly wielding influence over the decisions being made….
the campaign and Hillary Clinton personally provided the public with inaccurate information regarding: how [Madison] came to retain the [Rose Law Firm] and the extent and nature of Hillary Clinton’s work before state agencies—inaccurate stories that Hillary Clinton and Hubbell were ‘stuck with’ as official investigations began.”
Federal investigations—prompted by news reports and the Clintons’ often evasive, incomplete responses to questions—soon began.
The Resolution Trust Corp., the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., Congress, and the OIC all questioned Mrs. Clinton under oath.
Many records were missing.
Following the campaign, notes the National Archives version of the memo, “Hubbell and Vince Foster removed all remaining [Rose] records relating to the [firm’s] and Hillary Clinton’s work for [Madison] from the law firm.
In various parcels those records were sent to Washington, D.C.”
Undisclosed until today is a censored line from that version of the memo: Rose attorneys, it says, “liken the removal of these firm records to theft.”
The National Archives version of the memo notes: “Two copies of the most significant of these records, Hillary Clinton’s billing records for the work she did for [Madison] are known to exist—one set was discovered in a brief case in Vince Foster’s attic in July 1997;
the other set was discovered in the [White House] Book Room adjacent to Hillary Clinton’s office in August 1995 and publicly released in January 1996.”
The 1996 news of the discovery of a set of billing records in the White House set off a furor. The documents had been under subpoena for two years. Mrs. Clinton was summoned to a grand jury to explain.
Why were the billing records so important?
Mrs. Clinton by that time had made numerous sworn statements to federal investigators and Congress. If the statements were false, that was a crime. The billing records might prove whether Mrs. Clinton was telling the truth or lying.
And if Mrs. Clinton was hiding documents under subpoena—a charge she denied, saying she had no knowledge of how the billing records got to the White House—then she might be guilty of obstruction of justice.
The OIC believed that Mrs. Clinton knew precisely where the records were and had reviewed them during the presidential campaign. According to the National Archives version of the memo: “The evidence supports the conclusion that Hillary Clinton reviewed the billing records in detail in February-March 1992, and that she retained a copy of the records for reference and use during 1992-1995.”
Undisclosed until today—that is, censored from the National Archives version of the memo—is the prosecutors’ conclusion about what this would mean to a jury: “a reasonable jury is likely to conclude that her statements to investigators during 1994-1996 were inaccurate and misleading [and] were made with the knowledge of their falsity. Hillary Clinton, Hubbell and Vince Foster’s concealment and destruction of the relevant records is substantial corroborative evidence of their consciousness of guilt.”
The National Archives version of the memo continues: “What, then, are the crimes under consideration? Between January 1994 and February 1996 both Hillary Clinton and Hubbell made numerous sworn statements to the RTC, the FDIC, the Senate and the House of Representatives, and to OIC.
Each of these reflected and embodied materially inaccurate stories relating to: how [the Rose Law Firm] came to be retained by [Madison Guaranty]; Hillary Clinton’s role in the [Castle Grande] venture; Hillary Clinton’s role in representing [Madison] before state agencies; Hubbell’s representations to the RTC and FDIC regarding Hillary Clinton’s role in the [Castle Grande] venture; and the removal of records from [the Rose firm]. The question, generally, is not whether the statements are inaccurate, but whether they are willfully so.”
Sound familiar? As in Whitewater, Mrs. Clinton now faces questions about missing records—the thousands of emails supposedly deleted forever from her computer.
As in Whitewater, a series of shifting explanations seem to dig her deeper into a hole.
As in Whitewater, she works behind a phalanx of lawyers well-schooled in Clinton damage control—indeed some of the very same lawyers who steered her through the OIC investigation.
In the end, Mrs. Clinton defeated the OIC. Prosecutors decided not to seek an indictment from a grand jury, concluding that they could not win the largely circumstantial case against such a popular, high-profile defendant.
Also looming large in the OIC’s thinking: Monica Lewinsky.
The Lewinsky investigation was hurtling along a separate track.
Prosecutors were convinced they had overwhelming evidence that President Clinton had committed perjury and obstruction of justice in the Lewinsky case.
The case against Mrs. Clinton was abandoned and the full focus of the OIC turned to Lewinsky.
As one prosecutor later remarked, “Monica saved Hillary.”
Note: this article originally appeared on Breitbart.com
A 4/10/98 OIC memo uses terms ‘crime(s),’ ‘criminal,’ ‘fraudulent,’ ‘misrepresented,’ ‘inaccurate,’ ‘deceive,’ ‘mislead,’ ‘misstatement,’ and ‘concealed’ 27 times in 20 pages to describe actions by Clinton and Whitewater associates
(Washington, DC) January 28, 2016 – J
udicial Watch today released 246 pages of previously undisclosed Office of Independent Counsel (OIC) internal memos revealing extensive details about the investigation of Hillary Rodham Clinton for possible criminal charges involving her activities in the Whitewater/Castle Grande fraudulent land transaction scandal. The memos are “statements of the case” against Hillary Clinton and Webster Lee “Webb” Hubbell, Hillary Clinton’s former law partner and former Associate Attorney General in the Clinton Justice Department. Ultimately, the memos show that prosecutors declined to prosecute Clinton because of the difficulty of persuading a jury to convict a public figure as widely known as Clinton. (Links to the full set of documents are below.)
Although some details of the documents have been previously reported, Judicial Watch is today publicly releasing the independent counsel prosecution memos for the first time. The prosecution memos—portions of which were heavily redacted—were obtained by Judicial Watch from the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.
What, then are the crimes under consideration? Between January 1994 and February 1996 both Hillary Clinton and [Webster] Hubbell made numerous sworn statements to the RTC, the FDIC, the Senate and the House of Representatives, and to the OIC. Each of these reflected and embodied materially inaccurate stories relating to: how RLF [Clinton and Hubbell’s Rose Law Firm] came to be retained by MGSL [the Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan]; Hillary Clinton’s role in the IDC/Castle Grande venture; Hillary Clinton’s role in representing MGSL; Hillary Clinton’s role in representing MGSL before state agencies’; Hubbell’s representations to the RTC [Resolution Trust Corporation] and FDIC regarding Hillary Clinton’s role in the IDC/Castle Grande venture; and the removal of records from the RLF. The question, generally, is not whether the statements are inaccurate, but whether they are willfully so.
The records released today by Judicial Watch were prepared for an “All OIC Attorneys” meeting on April 27, 1998, at which a final decision about whether to indict Clinton and Hubbell was the subject of a lengthy debate. The records explore in detail the role Clinton played in the fraudulent Castle Grande transaction, the role of Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan, and the subsequent lengthy cover-up as the Clintons sought and won the White House.
Clinton, according to prosecutors, drafted an option agreement that concealed from federal bank examiners a fraudulent $300,000 cross-loan in the Castle Grande transaction. Her concealment of her role in this fraudulent transaction, including the hiding of her Rose Law Firm billing records concerning her legal work for Madison, were the subject of an OIC obstruction of justice probe.
The 1998 memoranda include substantial evidence depicting Clinton and her former Rose Law Firm partners—Hubbell, and Vincent Foster, both of whom went on to senior positions in the Bill Clinton presidency—as complicit in activities that “facilitated crimes.”
Page 18 of the OIC documents notes that Clinton “destroyed” her personal records of her work for Madison Guaranty. Page 39 of the documents notes:
Section II contains a chronological background and contextual summary of the investigation so that the facts relating to possible obstruction can be placed in the context of the ongoing investigation by OIC.
- Castle Grande. “The Castle Grande transactions were crimes.” The statement is followed by an explicit six-paragraph dissection of the land-flipping scheme.
- Madison Guaranty S&L. Clinton minimized the role she played in seeking state regulatory assistance for the corrupt savings and loan, headed by key Clinton financial and political supporter James McDougal. At the time, Bill Clinton was governor of Arkansas.
- Vincent Foster and the Missing Rose Law Firm Billing Records. The Rose records were a key piece of evidence in the probe. They were missing for years. After Foster’s July 1993 suicide, the OIC documents note, where the billing records went “is an open question…. Several pieces of evidence support the inference that personal documents which Hillary Clinton did not want disclosed were located in Foster’s office at the time of his death and then removed.”
- Removal of Records from Vincent Foster’s Office. “ [O]n the afternoon of July 21st Bernard Nussbaum, then White House Counsel, initially agreed to allow two career DOJ employees to review the documents in Foster’s office for evidence that might shed light on the cause of his death. That evening and the next morning Nussbaum, Hillary Clinton, Susan Thomases, and Maggie Williams (Hillary Clinton’s chief of staff) exchanged 10 separate phones calls … That morning, according to the DOJ employees, Nussbaum changed his mind and refused to allow the DOJ prosecutors to review the documents; instead, he reviewed them himself and segregated several as ‘personal’ to the Clintons.”
- Hiding the Billing Records. “On the evening of July 22nd, Thomas Castleton … assisted Williams [Maggie Williams, Hillary Clinton chief of staff] in carrying a box of personal documents up to … a closet in Hillary Clinton’s office. The closet is approximately 30 feet from the table in the Book Room, where the billing records were found 2 years later…. There is a circumstantial case that the records were left on the table by Hillary Clinton. She is the only individual in the White House who had a significant interest in them and she is one of only 3 people known to have had them in her possession since their creation in February 1992.”
- Buying the Silence of a Co-Conspirator? Hubbell, criticized by the OIC for his lack of cooperation with the probe, received several “jobs” from Clinton supporters for which he apparently did little or no work. During a taped conversation in prison, Hubbell appears to acknowledge that he withheld information from the OIC. Several of Hubbell’s job-providers fell most strongly within the hush money allegation. The OIC notes eight of them on page 197.
- The Missing Draft Indictment. More than 60 pages of the OIC memoranda are completely censored, withheld by the National Archives. Multiple sources tell Judicial Watch that these pages include a full draft indictment of Clinton and Hubbell, as well as a detailed “order of Evidence” list.
The National Archives is withholding additional documents Judicial Watch believes to be critical to understanding Clinton’s full role in the Whitewater scandal.
On March 9, 2015, Judicial Watch submitted a FOIA request seeking all draft indictments of Clinton in the files of Hickman Ewing Jr., who served as deputy independent counsel in the Whitewater probe. In 1999, Ewing testified that he wrote a draft indictment of Clinton.
On March 19, 2015, the National Archives admitted locating records responsive to the Ewing material request, confirming that it found 38 pages of responsive records in a folder entitled “Draft Indictment,” and approximately 200 pages of responsive records in a folder entitled “Hilary Rodham Clinton/Webster L. Hubbell Draft Indictment.” Judicial Watch is suing in federal court to force the release of the draft indictment, which is being withheld by the National Archives to protect the privacy of Hillary Clinton.
Ultimately, as an April 24, 1998, memo suggests, prosecutors were persuaded that a jury would not convict Clinton based upon circumstantial evidence. OIC attorney Paul Rosenzweig wrote:
In a high profile case of this sort, however, I think that some jurors are likely to put OIC to the full measure of proof beyond a reasonable doubt and, in effect, insist that circumstantial evidence is an inferior form of evidence on which they cannot convict. Such a distinction would be “lawless” in a formal sense, as contrary to their jury instructions – but we blink reality if we do not expect this reaction to a primarily circumstantial high profile case.
The prosecutor concluded:
Bottom line: We can anticipate the following: 2% = Rule 29; 18% = Acquittal; 70% =Hung Jury; 10% = Conviction. Not enough in my view.
“These new Hillary Clinton prosecution memos are damning and dramatic,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “Hillary Clinton’s bank fraud, obstruction, lies, and other fraud began in Arkansas, continued in the White House and actually accelerated because the suicide of her friend Vincent Foster. The memos suggest that if she weren’t First Lady, she would have been successfully prosecuted in federal court. As we continue the court fight to get the actual draft indictment of Hillary Clinton we first uncovered in this investigation, Americans would do well to read these memos. If you want to understand the deplorable ethics and corruption at the Clinton State Department, these documents provide important background.”
