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Troubles engulf the Clintons
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Adding to the Clintons' woes, White's office reportedly was examining Clinton's decision to grant four men clemency for stealing millions from the federal government.
The Associated Press, quoting a source familiar with the case, said the US Attorney was investigating whether Clinton commuted the sentences of Benjamin Berger, Kalmen Stern, Jacob Elbaum and David Goldstein in exchange for votes.
The four men are from New Square, NY, a Hasidic community that voted heavily for Senator Clinton in November.
The vote in the November 7 election in New Square was 1,359 votes for Clinton and only 10 for her Republican opponent Rick Lazio. Two other nearby Rockland County Hasidic villages gave 3,480 votes to Lazio and 152 to Hillary.
The Hasidic Jews were charged with taking some US$40 millionin federal funds through a phony school and originally faced 30 to 78 months in prison.
Senator Clinton's office declined comment. "Sen. Clinton has spoken about this pardon on several occasions and we do not have anything to add at this time," said Sen. Clinton's spokeswoman Karen Dunn.
Roger got paid from pardoning Rich
The furor over President Bill Clinton's pardons intensified on Saturday as Congressional investigators focused on Roger Clinton and his efforts to win pardons for friends and associates from his half brother.
Roger Clinton's lobbying became known one day after Hugh Rodham, President Clinton's brother-in-law, agreed to return a fee of US$400,000 that he had been paid to help two men who received a presidential pardon and a grant of clemency on January 20, Mr Clinton's last day in office.
Congressional investigators have asked Mr Rodham to explain his role in the successful effort to obtain pardons for Carlos Vignali, a convicted drug dealer, and Almon Glenn Braswell, an herbal supplement marketer convicted of fraud and perjury. Prosecutors for Ms White, the United States attorney in New York, are also investigating the pardons.
Congressional investigators said they had information that Roger Clinton received US$30,000 from Mr Vignali and US$15,000 from Mr Young. But the investigators cautioned that they had received no hard evidence of the payments.
Mr Wood and Roger Clinton were the subjects in a federal cocaine inquiry in Arkansas in the 1980's. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal last month, Mr Wood said he had applied for a pardon several years ago and had not "seen Roger in 15 years".
On January 20, Roger Clinton, 44, himself received a pardon for a 1985 cocaine possession conviction for which he had served one year in prison. The week before last, Roger Clinton was arrested and charged with drunken driving and disturbing the peace after an altercation in Los Angeles.
In developments related to the initial investigation, documents given on Saturday to the House Government Reform Committee confirmed that Denise Rich, Mr Rich's former wife, made three contributions totaling US$450,000 to the Clinton presidential library. The records also show that Beth Dozoretz, the former Democratic National Committee fund-raiser and friend of Ms Rich, promised to raise US$1 million for the library.
But the library foundation declined to comply with requests for a number of other documents, including a list of individuals who donated or pledged more than US$5,000.
(SD-Agencies)
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