Corrupt President makes a deal with his counterparts:
October 12, 1999
The Trumka Card
Tomorrow, Al Gore will become the first Democrat since Walter Mondale to secure the endorsement of the AFL-CIO in the primaries. AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka was bragging yesterday, "This will be a boost to his campaign."
Smoothing the way last week, Bill Clinton became the first President in more than 50 years to address the corruption-plagued Teamsters union. Meanwhile, in Federal Court in Manhattan the trial of former Teamster political director William Hamilton was supposed to begin today after a year long delay. Mr. Hamilton has been indicted in a money-laundering conspiracy swapping contributions between the Teamsters and the Democratic National Committee. If this case were fully presented, it would surface other interesting names.
One witness who might be called, for example, is Terry McAuliffe, putative financier for the Clinton homestead in Westchester County. Gerald McEntee, a big Gore backer as head of the public employees union AFSCME might find his ears tingling. Not least, Richard Trumka, point-man in lobbying for Mr. Gore's union endorsement, might have to take the Fifth Amendment once again. But last week the Hamilton trial was suddenly and mysteriously postponed. How convenient!
The investigation is headed by Mary Jo White, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Manhattan, seen by veteran prosecutors as a lonely bastion of integrity in the Clinton Justice Department. These veterans, however, view the delay in her probe as inexplicable. Ms. White was handed the Teamster/DNC contribution scandal on a silver platter in 1997, but it bogged down even after initial guilty pleas. Justice gave assurances that it was vigorously pursuing the case to abort an investigation by Rep. Pete Hoekstra's oversight committee. But Mr. Hoekstra now says, "The entire Teamsters investigation has fallen into a black hole."
The Teamsters' case arises from the invalidated 1996 election of Ron Carey as the union's president. Mr. Carey was later barred from the union, and his foe, Jimmy Hoffa Jr., won the presidency. The Hamilton indictment concerns an illegal conspiracy to divert Teamster funds to the Carey campaign using the Democratic National Committee. The indictment says DNC finance director Richard Sullivan struck a deal with Martin Davis, a Carey campaign consultant. Mr. Davis agreed to raise $1 million for Democrats if the DNC would arrange a $100,000 donation to the Carey campaign. Mark Thomann, a DNC official, has testified he was then directed to divert $100,000 from a foreign donor intended for the Clinton-Gore campaign to Mr. Carey. The contribution was ultimately rejected because as an employer the prospective donor was barred from contributing to a union election.
In a separate attempt by the Carey campaign to raise illegal contributions, Mr. Davis has testified that he approached AFSCME official Paul Booth and the AFL's Mr. Trumka, and asked each to raise $50,000 for Mr. Carey. Mr. McEntee, Mr. Booth's boss, has told federal investigators that he solicited $20,000 in cash for Mr. Carey from an AFSCME vendor, a clear campaign violation. The Teamster election monitor found that Mr. Trumka's $50,000 in illegal contributions was funneled to the Carey campaign through individual Teamsters. Mr. Trumka has taken the Fifth Amendment both before a Congressional committee and court-appointed election monitor, but remains in office despite a 40-year-old AFL-CIO rule calling for removal of officials taking such refuge.
Mr. Davis also testified that the contribution scheme was initiated in discussions between himself and Mr. McAuliffe, who then deployed aides to execute the scheme. Mr. McAuliffe was given credit on DNC tally sheets for 35 donations to state Democratic parties made by the Teamsters as part of the scheme. Mr. McAuliffe told us he wasn't involved, though his lawyer acknowledges he might be called as a witness in the Hamilton trial.
Despite Ms. White's reputation, the ethical rot that has spread through the Clinton/Reno Justice Department casts doubt that so sensitive a case would be vigorously pursued. After listening to four FBI agents testify they were blocked from seeking a search warrant for documents being destroyed by Clinton fund-raiser Charlie Trie, Senator Fred Thompson wondered about an "Obstruction of Justice Department." Similarly, neither John Huang nor anyone else has gone to jail for the illegal diversion of foreign funds into 1996 Democratic campaigns. And Justice is still under fire for what Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman calls an "inexplicable" refusal to grant the FBI permission to wiretap nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee after evidence surfaced that Mr. Lee may have provided nuclear secrets to the Chinese.
The Clinton Administration's coziness with unions, no matter what, is hardly a surprise to close observers of its modus operandi. Take Arthur Coia, the head of the Laborers Union and a major Democratic fund-raiser. Justice prosecutors portrayed Mr. Coia as a "mob puppet" in a 212-page civil racketeering complaint and demanded his removal. But in 1995 he struck a deal with the Justice Department, which allowed him to stay in charge of his union and supervise a house-cleaning of its links to organized crime. Five days before the Justice deal, Hillary Clinton addressed the Laborers' annual convention, though her speechwriter wrote in a note: "They are mob." At the AFL-CIO's convention later that year, Mr. Coia cast the deciding vote to make John Sweeney head of the organization. At the AFL-CIO's convention yesterday, Mr. Sweeney attacked "our perverted U.S. Congress." Now, seven years into the Clinton Administration, Mr. Coia is expected to resign this month and later plead guilty to one felony count of improper association with a union vendor.
U.S. Attorney White can redeem herself with the Hamilton trial, but given the record of the Justice Department she serves there is plenty of reason for suspicion that this case will never be pushed to its logical conclusion. And to suspect that if Al Gore gets his big union endorsement tomorrow, it will be because the President played his Trumka card.
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