http://1984arkansasmotheroftheyear.b...llary-for.html
chapter 2
Ascent to Power
The morning in 1974 after the impeachment staff was disbanded Hillary took a train to Little Rock, Arkansas. She moved in with Bill Clinton and they eventually married.
When Bill ran for Attorney General in 1977 his campaign was financed partly by the Riady family of Indonesia, which owned banks and had other investments in Arkansas. When he won the election Hillary became associated with the Rose law and brought the Riady enterprises with her as clients. The Riadys were to remain friends and financial backers of the Clinton for many years to come
In 1979 Bill became the nation's youngest governor and Hillary became a Rose partner. Thirteen years later in 1992, still financed in part by the Riady family, Bill campaigned for the Presidency. With Hillary alongside him in the hustings they promised “two for one” in high office.
Once in the White House Hillary became the first wife of a president to occupy a prominent office in the West Wing, with shared authority over the President’s staff. A few days later Bernie Nussbaum, who had been her mentor on the Nixon impeachment staff, was appointed chief White House counsel and moved into the office next to hers.
In the early day of his presidency Bill Clinton had pledged “the most ethical administration in history.” When he also announced the nomination of Patricia Wald, a highly respected federal judge to be Attorney General, I considered her an ideal choice. I had worked closely with her in her earlier years in the Department of Justice and was very aware of her subsequent career. But sadly, Clinton’s announcement was news to Pat, who first learned about it from a news reporter – and soon declined the nomination.
The traditional way to nominate a cabinet member is to check first with the nominee before announcing the nomination and to give the nominee a say in the choice of top subordinates. With no advance notice to Wald, Hillary and Nussbaum had already selected her former law partner, Web Hubbell to be Associate Attorney General, and Philip Heymann to be Deputy Attorney General.
Wald had known little about Hubbell other than the facts that he had been Hillary’s law partner and Bill Clinton’s close friend. But Wald knew a lot about Heymann. She had been an Assistant Attorney General in the Carter Justice Department, when Heymann was a criminal prosecutor – and had launched a "sting" operation that became known as "Abscam."
Heymann had used FBI agents disguised as Arab sheiks to ensnare and indict six Congressmen and one Senator for accepting bribes. All but one of the defendants were pro-labor liberal Democrats who were pledged to support Senator Kennedy’s efforts to defeat Carter for re-election in the then upcoming Democratic primaries.
Pat Wald saw Abscam as an unethical political prosecution of Carter‘s critics. She had let it be known to President Carter that she would resign in protest if Heymann were to proceed to obtain indictments. To silence her Carter promptly “kicked her upstairs” – by nominating her for the Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Having had no having no say in the appointments of either Heymann or Hubbell, Wald declined the nomination.
After Pat Wald turned down the offer the Clintons second choice for Attorney General was Shirley Hufstedler, a former Secretary of Education under President Carter. Like Pat Wald, she had also first learned of the offer and the prior appointments of Hubbell and Heymann from the media. Hufstedler also refused the offer.
Hillary’s third and fourth choices respectively were her personal friends Zoe Baird and Kimba Wood. Both seemed to be figurehead but each of them were eventually disqualified for not paying social security taxes for their house maids -- scandals known in the media as "Nannygate."
Hillary’s fifth choice was Janet Reno, a Florida prosecutor who had been recommended by Hillary’s brother Hugh -- who lived in Florida and knew Reno well.
In Reno’s confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee it came out that while prosecutor in Dade County Florida, crime increased 50%. In addition, Republican Senators Hatch and Cohen said that the Judiciary Committee had received "rumors" of character flaws in the form of excessive drinking and a gender preference for young women. However, Reno was confirmed.
Later an op-ed article about Reno appeared in the Wall Street Journal by Jack Thompson, a Florida lawyer with the highest ratings in ethics by the bar association. Thompson had been opposed to the confirmation – and also appeared on such shows as Nightline, Crossfire and Good Morning America. He described Reno as a “closet” homosexual, who was “subject to bribes and unfit to be Attorney General.”
Within Reno’s first month the FBI had intentionally fire bombed the Branch Davidian compound at Waco, Texas and killed several innocent people. Although it later came out that the plans to fire-bomb Waco had been laid before she took office, Reno took the blame. Quoting the famous sign in President Truman’s office she stated: “The Buck Stops here.”
For the entire eight years of the Clinton presidency Janet Reno was to remain as Attorney General – and incur frequent criticism for her willingness to act as a protective shield for the White House. For example, on October 7, 1997 the New York Times (which had supported Clinton’s election and re-election) was to publish an editorial critical of Reno’s failure to investigate the Democratic fund raising scandals of 1996, stating:
It has been a full year since Ms. Reno was confronted with initial evidence of the biggest political money scandal in a generation, and her response shows little concern with her place in history as a custodian of the Justice Department…Senator Fred Thompson, chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, rightly describes Justice as being in “departmental meltdown.’… It would be nice if Senator Thompson's remark could be written off as partisan hyperbole, but the record supports him.
<-----Hanoi COG
