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Politics : Clinton's Scandals: Is this corruption the worst ever? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DMaA who wrote (3504)	8/31/1998 9:17:00 PM
From: Doughboy	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 13994

Was there soft money when the law was written 100 years ago? No, but that's not the point. The law says something like, a federal employee cannot raise money for an ELECTION from a federal office building. Gore was not raising money for an "election" because he thought he was raising money for the Democratic Party. In any event, obviously the law was meant to prevent someone shaking down a constituent when they walked in the door: "hey buddy, I'll get you your mineral rights if you give 50 dollars to my campaign." It had nothing to do with telephones and whether someone calling from a phone is somehow using his public office to raise money. This is yet another technical/legalistic reading of the laws that makes a federal crime out of basically unobjectionable behavior. Everyone who's looked at . . . has said she HAS to appoint if she's going to obey the law. That's not correct either. I just read several articles that said that it's a foregone conclusion that after the 90 day review she will not name an IC for Gore because the criteria for meeting the Act are not met. The Strauss notes do not say a thing about what Gore knew, and until there is credible evidence that Gore knew that he was raising hard money, that's the way Reno is going to leave it. On top of that Reno has taken a sensible view that there should be "aggravating" circumstances to justify prosecuting someone under an opaque, turn-of-the-century law, such as repeated violations, strong evidence of knowledge that the law was being broken. Let's face it, Gore blew it, but it was an honest mistake. Does anyone really believe that Gore would not have gone to the 7-11 down the street had he known that what he was doing was illegal? Now, if you're talking about the DNC fundraising scandal, yes I agree that the calls for an IC have been stronger there because both Freeh and now this guy LaBella have asked for them. But let's remember, the House has already spent upteen millions to conduct an investigation and came up with squat to justify these taxpayer dollars. DOJ in contrast has already obtained several guilty pleas and indictments. I don't know why there is such a drumbeat for yet another IC. Doughboy