Previously Undisclosed Internal Memos Spell Out Criminal Case against Hillary Clinton Over 1990s Whitewater/ Castle Grande Land Transaction Scandal
We have a special Weekly Update for you today that you will want to keep in your files and share far and wide. Just yesterday, we 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. (Links to the full set of documents are below.)
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. But it wasn’t a lack of evidence of criminality that led to the decision not to prosecute Hillary Clinton.
Although some details of the documents were previously reported, Judicial Watch’s disclosure was the first public release of the independent counsel’s prosecution memos. The prosecution memos-portions of which are heavily redacted-were obtained from the National Archives and Records Administration through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.
An April 10, 1998, memo summarizes “the crimes under consideration”
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 yesterday by JW 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, was 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.
The evidence in the new documents covers:
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.
Despite this document dump, 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.” We are now 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. Hillary Clinton is a public figure running for president of the United States. Why would her alleged privacy outweigh the public interest in a draft indictment of her by federal prosecutors!
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. 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 Hillary Clinton’s State Department, these documents provide important background.
We have more on this topic coming soon, so be sure to check in. In the meantime, you have a weekend’s worth of educational reading, as good as any potboiler, about the corruption of Hillary Clinton (and her co-conspirator, Bill).
Links to the complete set of documents are available here:
Part one of “HRC Meeting” NARA Whitewater OIC document
Part two of “HRC Meeting” NARA Whitewater OIC document
Part three of “HRC Meeting” NARA Whitewater OIC document
Part four of “HRC Meeting” NARA Whitewater OIC document
Part five of “HRC Meeting” NARA Whitewater OIC document
Part six of “HRC Meeting” NARA Whitewater OIC document
NYPD Prioritizes Sensitivity toward Muslims over Public Safety
Advocates for terrorists control the debate, and too often, the policies of how to counter the threat from Islamic terrorism. These special interest groups, ranging from the ACLU to terrorist fronts such as Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), have law enforcement on a leash. Our Corruption Chronicles blog reported the latest assault on our security in which the New York City Police Department was targeted by the Left because of an effective anti-terrorist program focused upon radical Muslims:
The New York Police Department (NYPD) is the latest of several law enforcement agencies-including the FBI-to succumb to the pressure of Islamic groups demanding changes in anti-terrorism investigations and training they claim discriminate against Muslims.
As part of a court settlement announced this month the NYPD will purge a highly acclaimed report (Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat) that’s proven to be a critical tool in terrorism investigations. The NYPD will also limit the use of undercover officers and informants in Muslim communities and create a policy that bans religious discrimination. The department will “provide additional guidance to police officers at part of a settlement of lawsuits accusing the NYPD of improperly investigating Muslim groups,” according to a statement issued by the law enforcement agency. The change comes on the heels of an increase in terrorism attacks by radicals associated with groups like the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
The settlement stems from a 2013 lawsuit filed by three New York Muslims, two mosques and a Muslim nonprofit accusing the NYPD of “discriminatory surveillance” after 9/11. Muslim communities and their institutions were singled out and officers and informants were deployed to mosques to surveil innocent religious leaders and followers, the lawsuit alleges. The department also employed invasive tactics to spy on area Muslims, according to the complaint. The now-censored report “stigmatizes an entire faith community and invites discrimination,” the Muslim plaintiffs claim in their suit. The 90-page NYPD report says that most Islamic terrorists in the West start as “unremarkable people” who become religious and radical in a four-stage process.
“Many of the terrorist attacks or thwarted plots against cities in Europe, Canada, Australia and the United States have been conceptualized and planned by local residents/citizens who sought to attack their country of residence,” the 2007 NYPD report says. “The majority of these individuals began as “unremarkable” – they had “unremarkable” jobs, had lived “unremarkable” lives and had little, if any criminal history.” After the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris, a New York newspaper published a story documenting how the brothers who carried out the attack fit the profile of homegrown terrorists outlined in the NYPD’s “prescient but controversial” document.
The now-banned report was created to provide law enforcement agencies and legislators with information related to the operations of domestic terrorists after the 9/11 attacks. It was put together by the NYPD Intelligence Division under former police Commissioner Ray Kelly. The city’s agreement to delete it from the NYPD’s website is a “blatant act of cowardliness,” according to Patrick Dunleavy, the former deputy inspector general of the New York State prisons’ criminal intelligence division. Dunleavy worked with the NYPD’s intelligence division for several years and assures there was no bias in the department’s anti-terrorism work. “Seeing the NYPD and city officials caving in to the demands of a few is most disheartening,” Dunleavy writes in a recently published piece.
This appears to be a frightening trend that Judicial Watch has reported on extensively in the last few years. Muslim rights groups, especially the terrorist front organization CAIR, have proven they wield tremendous power in the Obama administration. This is especially true when it comes to the way the nation’s law enforcement agencies conduct anti-terrorism training. In fact, it was CAIR that got the FBI to purge anti-terrorism material determined to be offensive to Muslims. Judicial Watch uncovered that scandal a few years ago and obtained hundreds of pages of FBI documents with details of the arrangement. JW also published a special in-depth report in 2015.
CAIR and its allies also got several police departments in President Obama’s home state of Illinois to cancel essential counterterrorism courses over accusations that the instructor was anti-Muslim. The course was called “Islamic Awareness as a Counter-Terrorist Strategy” and departments in Lombard, Elmhurst and Highland Park caved into CAIR’s demands. Just a few months ago Islamic activists got the FBI to suspend a new internet program aimed at preventing the radicalization of youth because Muslim and Arab rights groups determined that it discriminates against Muslims and will lead to bullying, bias and religious profiling of students.
This is one of those stories that makes one ask: Is there anything our own public officials are doing now that paid foreign agents hostile to the U.S. would do differently?
Until next week…
Tom Fitton
President
