It's been five and a half years since I filed an Federal Elections Commission complaint, and a civil fraud and coercion suit against Hillary Clinton for hiding more than $1.2 million in contributions I made to her 2000 Senate campaign.
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On Jan. 26, 2006, the FEC forced her campaign to publicly admit that she took more than three quarters of a million dollars from me and hid it in a series of false FEC reports. The Supreme Court of California upheld my landmark civil fraud suit against a senator and president for conspiracy and fraud, and denied Hillary's motion to dismiss her from the suit.
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But being Hillary Clinton means never having to personally go on the record for any of the wrongdoing or deceptions she is regularly caught in. She occupies that rarefied space, even above the president of the United States, where all accountability to the people she serves, and the Constitution she has sworn to defend, can be filtered through official spokesmen and legal mouthpieces. No one in the media has ever challenged her five-year refusal to personally respond to the election scandal she can't shake.
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Unlike any other public figure before her, she is never required to answer to journalists or justice officials. She can refuse to comment to the media on scandals that regularly swirl around her, and she can dissemble and deceive FBI investigators in sworn, as well as unsworn, statements with impunity. She has managed to elevate herself to a unique status of unaccountability, above the rule of law that governs all other Americans. House Impeachment Manager Dave Schippers made the chilling observation – in the documentary I am now producing about the fraud that elected Hillary to the Senate – that "Hillary may be indictable, but never convictable in an American courtroom."
Hillary is keenly aware of her "untouchable" status, as my personal experience with her these last five years proves. Her hubris is empowered by her complete lack of accountability for any action she takes or directs, and her deep-seated belief that she is destined to become the most powerful woman in human history. It is this combination of personality "conditions" that makes her the most pernicious threat to the people she encounters on her way to obtaining absolute power, and then to the liberties of those people she will govern, if and when she achieves that power.
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The Washington Post asked Hillary about the contributions I made to her senatorial campaign in the form of producing and paying for the largest fund-raising event in American political history. Hillary's response came through Howard Wolfson in two sequential articles written by Lloyd Grove in his Reliable Source column in the Washington Post, Aug. 15 and 17, 2000.
On Aug. 15, Wolfson vowed, "We will not be accepting any contributions from [Peter Paul]."
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On Aug. 17, Wolfson said, "I stand corrected" when the Post "located Federal Election Commission records showing that the 50-something Paul donated $2,000 to Clinton's Senate campaign on June 30." Then, on Hillary's behalf, Wolfson made the outright lie that "[Paul] had previously given, but not associated with this event, and today we returned the check."
Brian Ross, the last investigative reporter on ABC's "20/20," is the only reporter to confront Hillary on camera, asking about my contributions to her 2000 campaign, my allegations in my civil suit and her relationship with me. Hillary refused to comment then and refuses to comment to this day.
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After Hillary's finance director, David Rosen, became the first senior fund-raising official of a U.S. senator to be indicted and tried on three counts of election fraud, Hillary's only comments to the media came through her lawyer, David Kendall, who repeated his mantra to all media inquiries: "[Mrs. Clinton's] Senate Campaign Committee has fully cooperated with the investigation. New York Senate 2000 properly reported all donations in 2000."
When the FEC obtained an admission from New York Senate 2000 that it had engaged in a 5-year deception, violating the federal election law by hiding the largest donation made to her campaign, Mr. Kendall was suddenly nowhere to be found. Like Hillary, Kendall became unavailable when his disdain for the truth was exposed by his client's own admissions. Instead, one Marc Elias, another lawyer, was enlisted by Hillary and Kendall to offer a written statement to the media, thereby avoiding any questions they might raise outside the new script that was being "distributed."
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Attorney Elias wrote that the December 2005 FEC settlement agreement with New York Senate 2000 and Hillary's campaign treasurer, Andrew Grossman, "made it clear that there was no violation of Federal Election Law by the Hillary Rodham Clinton for Senate Committee in connection with the 2000 Hollywood fund-raiser."
What Elias' statement didn't make clear, in the same way the word "is" is subject to various definitions in the Clinton lexicon, is that the New York Senate 2000 was Hillary's only official joint fund-raising committee that uniquely happened to represent the Hillary Rodham Clinton for Senate Committee in raising hard and soft dollars together. Even Hillary could no longer deny that New York Senate 2000 engaged in a massive election-law fraud, so she now tried to nuance the issue through a new spokesman, a second-tier legal representative of her campaign.
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Hillary parsed once again the meaning of her campaign's FEC fraud admission. It wasn't her personal Senate election committee that committed the fraud, it was only the umbrella committee that was the official representative of her Senate committee in making soft-money reports to the FEC!
No other public figure in the United States could get away with that transparent duplicity. The media would not stand for it. But when it comes to Hillary – the empress of prevarication and parsing – none of the rules apply. As a result, she continues to add more outrageous insults to more egregious injuries to the integrity of the political process, the Fourth Estate and the justice system. All is fair in her relentless pursuit of greater political power, unchallenged by the media or the judicial system.
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One thing that can't be parsed with the FEC settlement agreement is the fact that Hillary's campaign finally admitted it took and hid more than $721,000 personally donated by me after she vowed to the voters: "We will not be accepting any contributions from [Peter Paul]."
This vow that Hillary made as part of her election campaign, that she would not accept any contribution from the man she now admits is, in fact, her largest contributor, should be remembered by, and reminded to, her voters and the Senate Ethics Committee.
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Hillary's admission to the FEC proves that the pre-election promise she made to the voters through the Washington Post was a cynical lie. It was that lie that enabled her to win election to the U.S. Senate and eventually provide the rationale for the various false statements and obstructions of FBI investigations that led to David Rosen's indictment and trial for actions specifically admitted by Rosen's boss, and Hillary's treasurer, Andrew Grossman.
Hillary's broken vow should cost her. It should cost her the ire of the voters she deceived – and continues to deceive – about the identity and amount donated by her largest contributor. It should cost her a Senate sanction for engaging in calculated deceptions and cover-ups to ensure her election to the Senate and allow her to remain undisturbed as the junior senator from New York. It should cost her the refund of the money she illegally coerced from her donor, then hid and lied about to the world for five years.
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Most importantly, if the media finally does its duty as the Founding Fathers intended, when the truth of Hillary's election fraud – and its subsequent manipulation of the Justice system – finally reaches the people, it should cost Hillary any hope of ever attaining the White House again.
To ensure that the truth reaches the American people regarding Hillary Clinton's role in the criminal misconduct that elected her to the Senate and in the obstruction of the government investigations surrounding it, the non-profit legal foundation that represents me, United States Justice Foundation, needs financial assistance. The landmark civil-fraud suit now pending in California, having been reviewed by the California Supreme Court and ordered to proceed, will continue to expose Hillary's misconduct in hiding more than $1 million in my contributions to her Senate campaign, and then obstructing the federal investigations surrounding those contributions.
My fortune has been destroyed by the Clintons, so USJF must rely on contributions from the public to mount the best legal case possible. Your help and support through The Hillary Clinton Accountability Project is critical to the success of this effort. Please consider making a significant contribution to supporting the only legal impediment that stands between Hillary Clinton and the White House in 2008!
When Hillary's conduct in obstructing FBI investigators about her role in serious election fraud crimes is compared to Lewis Libby's conduct in the FBI investigation of the non-crime relating to a CIA agent's identity, the government may be compelled to take some action to apply the laws equally and fairly to both. Please support USJF in this cause.
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Peter F. Paul, a former fund-raiser for Sen. Clinton, has filed a civil suit charging her and her husband, former President Clinton, with fraud, coercion and conspiracy.