I haven't seen one MSM source following the trial of David Rosen today (but Tom Delay is still under scrutiny).
This post is a brief for everybody on what's being said in the media and around the blogosphere. For those that don't know, Hillary's 2000 campaign finance director, David Rosen, faces three felony counts for filing false campaign finance reports in connection with a Hollywood fundraiser and concert that was in August of 2000. The celebrity-studded fundraiser was held at a radio executive's estate in the Brentwood hills above Los Angeles. Prosecutors are asserting that the true cost of the affair was over $1 million, but it seems that Mr. Rosen reported costs of just $400,000. This would allow increased funds that Hillary Clinton had to spend on her Senate bid.
Later on it was discovered that Senator Kennedy's brother-in-law, Raymond Reggie, was the informant who told the news of the Clinton fundraising case. Power Line:
Reggie was charged with bank fraud in February (click here for access to the press release on the indictment). It appears, however, that the case had been brewing since 2002, leading to the possibility that Reggie may have been cooperating with the government since then.
One of the readers advises that, according to published reports available via Lexis-Nexis, Reggie is a prominent fundraiser for Democrats, including participation in organizing a Hollywood fundraiser in August 2000 for Hillary Clinton. According to another report, he stayed over at the White House in the waning days of the Clinton administration. He is included on a list of overnight guests of the Clintons between July 1999 and August 2000 that is accessible here.
Josh Gerstein of the New York Sun, who had originally broke the story, followed up on the Reggie development:
The disclosure that Reggie was surreptitiously recording conversations for the FBI may have caused some heartburn yesterday for Democrats who have had contact with him since 2002.
Reggie was a regular presence at Mr. Clinton's side when he visited New Orleans during his presidency and thereafter. Just last September, Mr. Clinton had lunch in that city with Reggie, as the former president swung through town to sign his autobiography and attend a $10,000-a-head Democratic Party fund-raiser, the Times-Picayune newspaper reported. A former congresswoman and ambassador to the Vatican, Lindy Boggs, joined Reggie and Mr. Clinton at the lunch, as did two federal judges whom Mr. Clinton appointed.
When Mrs. Clinton traveled to New Orleans in May 2000 to raise $100,000 for her Senate campaign, Reggie was on the host committee.
An attorney for the Clintons, David Kendall, had no immediate response yesterday to questions about Reggie's role in Mrs. Clinton's Senate campaign or about the possibility that Reggie might have taped one or both of the Clintons.
Writes John Hinderacker:
The transcript [of the audio recording] is damning, in that it appears to support the government's claim that Rosen knowingly mis-accounted for the event's expenses, so as to maximize "hard money" raised via the event, and minimize "soft money." But the conversation between Rosen and Reggie ranged into topics far more entertaining than campaign finance:
The chitchat ranges from speculation that a wealthy Clinton donor was using cocaine to lusty remarks by Rosen about the donor's young daughter. Rosen does not hesitate to disparage President Clinton, noting that he began calling regularly -- once a week -- after Rosen went to work for Hillary Clinton. "Go screw yourself , Mr. President," Rosen says, pretending to pick up one such call.
The salaciousness reaches its pinnacle with Rosen's rambling anecdote about a fat cat Clinton donor who said after a night of partying that he sent prostitutes to the hotel rooms of two top Clinton loyalists.
"So the next day, (one of the loyalists) calls (the donor) from the golf course with Clinton," Rosen told Reggie. "Clinton gets on the phone, he goes, I just wanna tell you something. . . . The day I'm outta office, I'm going out with you."
And I thought this anecdote about Al Gore was revealing:
Rosen added that he'll never work for Gore again. The former vice president, whom he thought he knew well, failed to recognize him at an event.
"I won't cross the street for that guy," he said. "I was willing to get talked back into another round with his ass. And I went to an event, and he was there. And I'm with him one-on-one a hundred times. At least. And he thought I was the valet parker."
Writes Michelle Malkin:
Meanwhile, convicted Dem operative and Hillary fund-raiser Aaron Tonken says from jail that Hillary should be fined by the FEC.
John McCaslin adds:
However, the event's co-organizer, Aaron Tonken, says Rosen shouldn't go to prison.
"David, I don't think, deserves to go to jail," Tonken told the Associated Press from his own prison cell, wouldn't you know. Tonken was sentenced to 63 months on unrelated charges of defrauding charities of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Instead, Tonken - who was in charge of corralling celebrities for the fundraiser - says Mrs. Clinton's campaign should be fined.
I noted that the media is still scrutinizing Tom Delay, but what has he done to deserve it? As one wrote, "what laws has DeLay broken? And what laws has he been accused of breaking? While it's not possible to answer the former with any degree of certainty, the answer to the latter is: none." Yet Rosen, as I just pointed out, is on trial for the filing of false campaign finance reports. The FBI says he deliberately undercut the cost of the Hollywood fundraiser by two-thirds to "increase the amount of funds available" for Clinton's Senate run in 2000.
On the lack of media reporting, that same reporter wrote:
It's not that the media are ignoring the trial altogether. They're simply not putting as much effort into it as they are in their attempt to smear Republican DeLay. ...
The media elite would no doubt pay more attention if Clinton herself were on trial. She's not, and neither has she been accused of breaking the law.
But wouldn't the public like to know if she has? Aren't there some journalists out there who want to find out if the senator was aware of the misreporting and therefore complicit in a crime?
That doesn't seem to be the case. But imagine the journalistic enterprise on display if the proceedings involved the former staffer of a GOP senator.
In contrast to the meager coverage accorded Rosen, consider the attention given to DeLay. Between May 5 and Sunday, The New York Times had three stories on DeLay's troubles and a national brief that mentioned "the ethics questions Mr. DeLay is facing." These followed a consistent run of stories on DeLay's problem that goes back weeks.
The L.A. Times had two stories on DeLay late last week, one of them on A1. Meanwhile, the Post has kept the waters around DeLay churning on a regular basis for weeks, often using front-page articles to make the point that he's "embattled."
Maybe the explanation is simple: The media will have plenty of time to see what Clinton's been up to once they've run DeLay out of town. We wouldn't bet on it, though.
By the way, as Sibby points out, the Argus Leader is awefully quiet on this issue.
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