News in Canada is a week behind the rest of the world, but it does make for interesting reading:
Jackson tied to pardons scandal
Won clemencies for two friends: report: Allegations prompt further investigation of Reverend's tax-exempt organizations
Jan Cienski
National Post
WASHINGTON - Battered by recent revelations of a daughter born out of wedlock and allegations of tax dodges and corporate blackmail, Rev. Jesse Jackson, has now been entangled in Bill Clinton's pardons scandal.
Mr. Jackson won presidential clemencies for two friends, both issued during Mr. Clinton's last day as U.S. president. Both requests went directly to the White House, bypassing the normal channel through the U.S. Department of Justice, the Chicago Tribune reported yesterday.
One of the friends was Dorothy Rivers, a Chicago activist who took at least US$1.5-million in federal money intended to help poor children. Prosecutors said she charged US$70,000 on her dying son's credit card.
Ms. Rivers, dubbed "the Duchess" because of the swath she cut through Chicago society, had 20 months slashed off her five-year, 10-month fraud and tax evasion sentence by Mr. Clinton.
Although she sought clemency, Ms. Rivers continued to insist she was innocent and was pursuing a court appeal. Normally the president only intervenes once the convicted acknowledge their guilt.
Mr. Jackson told the Tribune he intervened for Ms. Rivers, who serves on the board of his Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, because, "she ain't shot nobody. She ain't dealt in drugs. She ain't [running] a house of prostitution ... She's a good person who overspent a grant or so."
The Democratic activist also got clemency for another ally, John Bustamante, who pleaded guilty to fraud in 1993 for misspending a US$275,000 loan. Mr. Bustamante helped ruin a bank, an insurance company and a newspaper.
However, Mr. Jackson was unable to persuade Mr. Clinton to pardon his half-brother, Noah Robinson, who has been serving a life sentence since 1989 for conspiracy to commit murder.
Mr. Jackson has extraordinary clout with the former president. The two are close political allies, and the black preacher and civil rights leader became Mr. Clinton's spiritual advisor during the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
Earlier this year, it emerged Mr. Jackson was carrying on an affair of his own while giving spiritual advice to Mr. Clinton. He fathered a daughter, now aged two, with a former employee, Karin Stanford.
Mr. Jackson retreated from public life to do some soul searching after the affair became public, but was back in the limelight in less than a week.
The Stanford story got people interested in the sometimes murky finances of his overlapping civil rights groups, charities and foundations.
Ms. Stanford had been paid US$35,000 in severance, which did not appear on the tax filings of Mr. Jackson's organizations. Last week, Mr. Jackson admitted at least five of his staffers, including Ms. Stanford, had been incorrectly reported as making less than US$50,000 a year.
He said it was a simple error of omission. His Citizenship Education Fund, which employed Ms. Stanford, will file an amended return including the dropped names.
Now a conservative group is asking federal tax authorities to take a closer look at Mr. Jackson's tax-exempt organizations. Mr. Jackson has been accused of threatening corporate boycotts of large firms undertaking mergers, then backing down when the companies gave contracts to his friends or donated to his organizations.
Two telecom companies, SBC and Ameritech, pledged US$500,000 to groups led by Mr. Jackson after he opposed their merger. Mr. Jackson initially opposed the deal, then changed his position when Ameritech agreed to sell part of its cellular business to a black-owned partnership that included one of his friends.
Other telecommunications firms also opened their wallets to Mr. Jackson's groups. He has admitted to targeting the industry, although he insisted his friends got contracts because of their skills, not their links to him.
"[Telecommunications] is where the biggest mergers took place. It's where the most money was. It's where the most opportunity was," Mr. Jackson told a news conference last Thursday.
Beer giant Anheuser-Busch Cos. sold a lucrative Chicago beer distributorship to two of Mr. Jackson's sons at about the same time he abandoned his "Bud is a dud" campaign against the brewer.
Despite the allegations against him, Mr. Jackson continues to try and identify with the poor, even though he has an income of US$430,000 a year.
"We've always made the choice to live rather modestly. I didn't have to do that, but that's a choice my family made," he told the Chicago Sun-Times.
He said his wife manages his family's affairs and said he doesn't even have a credit card.
"I have to borrow money from her to get a soft drink," he said. |
