Clinton Home Purchase Challenged
Media Monitor | By Reed Irvine and Cliff Kincaid | December 1, 1999
Klayman had been to court the day before trying to halt the closing by the Clinton’s on the purchase of a new home in Chappaqua, New York, for $1.7 million dollars.
Larry Klayman, chairman of Judicial Watch, spoke at the recent Accuracy in Media conference celebrating 30 years as an independent media watchdog organization. Klayman talked about the battle against corruption in the Clinton administration. He has filed more than 40 lawsuits against Bill and Hillary Clinton and others in their administration. Klayman had been to court the day before trying to halt the closing by the Clinton’s on the purchase of a new home in Chappaqua, New York, for $1.7 million dollars. The Clinton’s claimed they were pulling out of their initial deal after Judicial Watch sued and called attention to the fact that it was an illegal sweetheart deal the Clinton’s had cooked up with their good friend and chief Democratic fundraiser, Terry McAuliffe. McAuliffe is a witness in a federal case involving corrupt campaign finance activities between the Teamsters and the Democratic National Committee in the 1996 presidential campaign. He had agreed to put up over a million dollars in cash to secure a bank loan after other close friends of the president, including Mack McLarty, Erskine Bowles and Robert Rubin had turned him down. After not responding to the suit, the president’s lawyer, David Kendall, sent Klayman a letter demanding that he drop it, since they had ostensibly withdrawn from the arrangement with McAuliffe and Banker’s Trust. But in court the Clinton’s lawyers were forced to admit that they had not abandoned their option to secure the loan through Banker’s Trust. As Klayman charges, neither the president, nor any other federal employee, is allowed to accept gratuities worth more than one thousand dollars from people or companies for their personal benefit. A loan that a bank wouldn’t make to someone else with the same financial status would constitute such a gratuity, according to Larry Klayman. The Clinton’s dilemma is that they keep sending out letters appealing for money for their defense fund, claiming that they are millions of dollars in debt. If that isn’t true, the fundraising effort could be considered fraudulent. The judge ruled that the case would move forward, but he would not stop the closing from occurring the following business day. His reasoning was that if he found that the Clinton’s had engaged in illegal activities accepting illegal gratuities or improper illegal campaign contributions, and granted injunction, it would create the impression that they were guilty of a crime. Such a finding would give that impression and might damage their reputations. The AP reported that the judge “had dismissed the effort,” by Judicial Watch, failing to distinguish between the Temporary Restraining Order to halt the immediate closing, and the lawsuit in general. In addition, White House counsels Bruce Lindsey and Cheryl Mills had both worked on this personal loan, again in violation of the law. The deal went through the next business day with a different bank, with the Clinton’s putting up $340,000 of their own money.
Reed Irvine is the former Chairman of Accuracy In Media and Cliff Kincaid is the Editor of the AIM Report.
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