FUND-RAISER WHETS HIS POISON PEN
Page 6 - Cindy Adams - Gossip - NY Post
A poisonous Hollywood-soaked memoir is coming down. The book is also virulently anti-Clinton.
Author, Aaron Tonken.
Producer/fund-raiser Tonken alleges:
He was involved in arrangements dealing with Marc Rich.
Nobody else has said this. Nobody's confirming this. Nobody is rushing to buttress Tonken's rep for not-so-squeaky clean sullied truth. Tonken alone is alleging it.
What he has already done so far, however, is, he has set these things down in black and white in a manuscript proposal.
He has had substantial chats with possible ghostwriters or collaborators.
Tonken alleges in Chapter 13:
* He was a White House guest seven times in Clinton's last three months in office.
* He sat "with Hillary (the Clintons, he writes, had separate bedrooms) in their pajamas eating popcorn and watching TV."
* He handed checks to certain pols which, he further states, was "illegal."
* He sees a "brown bag" with cash going someplace it shouldn't.
* He "smokes pot" with Clinton's brother Roger.
* He "funnels over $100,000 in illegal contributions."
And who is this guy who is now the centerpiece of an FBI investigation and was already subpoenaed twice by a grand jury?
He produced Hollywood's glitziest fund-raiser. Aug. 12, 2000. It was for the Clintons. I was there. So was Chelsea. Ditto a tubful of bold-faced one-namers like Brad and Jen, Cher, Whoopi, Goldie, Stevie, Diana, Shirley, etc.
The 2,000 guests paid $1,000. Private feed afterwards, another $2,000. Souvenir journal ad — another 5K. It raised a million and a half for Hillary's Senate campaign. The FBI now alleges another few mil went unreported.
All of that story I don't know. That is not my story today. My today's story is, Aaron Tonken's book.
The anti-Hillary manuscript from this onetime F.O.C., Friend of the Clintons, is titled: "Hands Out, Palms Up."
So, again, who is this Aaron Tonken?
Born in small-town Michigan, school dropout in 10th grade, an "A" schmoozer, he cold-called Jackie O at age 12, so he writes, and they "chatted amiably." At 14 he was schmoozing local politicos. At 15 he was in D.C. with Ted Kennedy.
His eventual lure was Hollywood.
He writes about the movie capital: "In a land of moral imbeciles, I knew I could be king."
He names names. Skewers every cinema celeb you ever heard of. Tells which VIPs took payoffs. What big-time stars did shakedowns. Who of California's royalty skimmed their own charities. He cites the gift-demanding celebs. Lists those who wouldn't do benefits unless their own families first got benefited. Lists those who wouldn't do benefits for their own families unless they themselves first got benefited.
Tonken is now a felon. He's out of gas, broke, badgered by the mob with whom he's been in bed, and has, he claims, contemplated suicide. But before he gets to use the bullets for his borrowed gun, the California attorney general and FBI nail him. Preliminary indictments come down. He's party to seven different lawsuits. He's pled to one count of fraud in return for singing.
The song he is singing is very off-key and will cause major disharmony for big bbbiiiiigggg names in Washington and New York and will lance the dark side of the underbelly of Hollywood.
His opening chapter says these same celebrities who were his pals will eventually send a prayer up to whatever God they believe in and that it will end with: "Please, don't let him mention my name."
Thomas Nelson, out of the South, will be the publisher. |
