Book: Prosecutors were prepared to indict Clintons

[Denny Crane]

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20091219/D9CM4CKG0.html

Book: Prosecutors were prepared to indict Clintons

NEW YORK (AP) - Prosecutors investigating Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton were prepared to seek indictments of them for their roles in the Whitewater and Monica Lewinsky affairs, an explosive new book about the former president's scandals charges.

In "The Death of American Virtue: Clinton vs. Starr," due out in February, author Ken Gormley also says that Lewinsky believed Bill Clinton lied about their affair during grand jury testimony about his relationship with the White House intern.

The Associated Press on Friday obtained a copy of the book by Gormley, a Duquesne University law professor, about the scandals that enveloped the final years of the former president's second term. Excerpts from the book were first reported Thursday on the Politico news Web site.

Calls seeking comment from now-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and the former president's foundation weren't immediately returned Friday.

Gormley didn't return AP calls seeking comment; his publicist, Penny Simon, said Friday Gormley wouldn't speak about the book until its Feb. 16 release.

Former independent counsel Kenneth Starr's office spent millions in the 1990s on a probe of Clinton's affair with Lewinsky and efforts to cover it up, which led to the president's impeachment by the House. Starr's five-year probe also investigated the Clintons' Whitewater business dealings, the suicide of deputy White House counsel Vincent Foster, firing of White travel office workers and charges that White House officials misused FBI files.

After Starr left office, his successor, Robert Ray, sent a message to the ex-president that he was prepared to prosecute Bill Clinton. The books says Ray "took steps to instill the fear of God in the White House."

"I wanted them to know I was coming," Ray said. "I was fully of the view that if I was not prepared to carry out the threat, it wasn't worth making."

Lewinsky told Gormley that Clinton lied in grand jury testimony about the sexual affair they had.

"There was no leeway on the veracity of his statements because they asked him detailed and specific questions to which he answered untruthfully," Lewinsky said this year, according to the book.

Starr prosecutors in 1998 proposed to formally indict Hillary Rodham Clinton on charges she and a former law partner lied about her business dealings with Madison Guaranty, a failed savings and loan connected to friends James and Susan McDougal, Gormley wrote.

The indictment was drafted against Clinton and Webster Lee Hubbell to be filed in Arkansas federal court, the book said.

"Yet the consensus was that any effort to prosecute Mrs. Clinton would be extremely risky," Gormley wrote. Prosecutors believed that "getting an Arkansas or a Washington grand jury to indict the First Lady seemed like a long shot." Starr prosecutors instead decided to focus efforts on charges against the former president, the book says.

In a deal with prosecutors on his last full day as president, Clinton acknowledged that he gave false testimony in the Lewinsky scandal, heading off the threat of indictment. As part of the deal, the president said he gave false answers in a January 1998 deposition, but he insisted he didn't do so knowingly, an important element of the crime of perjury.

In Gormley's new book, former Secret Service Director Lewis Merletti says that the FBI was suspicious that he had colluded with Clinton in order to get the agency's top job. Merletti claimed an FBI agent accused him of concealing Clinton's indiscretions. The FBI agent denied the accusation.

Gormley interviewed the former president, Starr, Lewinsky, Susan McDougal - who spent 18 months in prison for refusing to testify before a Whitewater grand jury - and ex-Arkansas state worker Paula Jones who filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Bill Clinton.
He did not interview the former first lady.

 

[Denny Crane]

I can't find any WWW sites claiming Gormley is some right wing financed kook. I'm sure that's coming though.

 

[oldmangrouch]

The fact he cares about Bill Clinton's sex life qualifies him as some sort of "kook"...if not a pervert.

 

[Denny Crane]

For the purpose of accuracy...

Clinton cut a plea bargain, basically, with Special Prosecutor Ray. Clinton was disbarred in Arkansas and by the Supreme Court, and paid $850,000 to Paula Jones to settle the lawsuit against him.

http://famguardian.org/Subjects/LawAndGovt/News/ClintonDisbar-011001.htm

Clinton Disbarred From Supreme Court
By Anne Gearan

Associated Press Writer

Monday, Oct. 1, 2001; 10:48 a.m. EDT

WASHINGTON –– The Supreme Court ordered former President Clinton disbarred from practicing law before the high court on Monday and gave him 40 days to contest the order.

The court did not explain its reasons, but Supreme Court disbarment often follows disbarment in lower courts.

In April, Clinton's Arkansas law license was suspended for five years and he paid a $25,000 fine. The original disbarment lawsuit was brought by a committee of the Arkansas Supreme Court.

There are no fines associated with the Supreme Court action. Most lawyers who are admitted to the Supreme Court bar never actually argue a case there, but the right to do so is considered an honor.

Clinton agreed to the Arkansas fine and suspension Jan. 19, the day before he left office, as part of an understanding with Independent Counsel Robert Ray to end the Monica Lewinsky investigation.

The agreement also satisfied the legal effort by the Arkansas Supreme Court Committee on Professional Conduct to disbar Clinton for giving misleading testimony in the Paula Jones sexual harassment case.

The Supreme Court followed its standard rules in the Clinton case, which include suspending Clinton from practice in the court and giving him 40 day to show why he should not be permanently disbarred.

The court order did not mention any vote by the justices.

"Whenever a member of the bar of this court has been disbarred or suspended from practice of any court of record, or has engaged in conduct unbecoming a member of the bar of this court, the court will enter an order suspending that member from practice before this court," Supreme Court rules say.

Julia Payne, a spokeswoman for Clinton, referred calls to his lawyer, David Kendall, in Washington. Kendall did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/pjones/pjones.htm

Paula Jones agreed to drop her sexual harassment lawsuit against President Clinton on Nov. 13 in return for $850,000 – but no apology or admission of guilt from the president.

 

[Denny Crane]

The fact he cares about Bill Clinton's sex life qualifies him as some sort of "kook"...if not a pervert.

The guy's a highly rated constitutional scholar who wrote an award winning book about Watergate as well. Particularly on the side of Archibald Cox, the special prosecutor in that case.

What I find interesting in all this is that there was merit to an indictment of Hillary Clinton for her Rose Law Firm dealings (and lying about it), though they decided against it because they felt they could not get a grand jury in D.C. or Arkansas to go along.

All the while, the Clintons claimed there was nothing to Whitewater, it turns out there was very much something to Whitewater.

 

[Sug]

Denny. How is life on the island? I so enjoy your spam posts as a "mod".

 

[jlprk]

Yes, Denny appears to be the last of the hermits persecuting Clinton, the best President we have had since Roosevelt.

Prosecutors are always ready to ruin anyone's life, no matter how much they must convolute the wording of the law. That's what they are eager to do. Your quote repeatedly says that they backed off. That's because they would have lost. The inference of the quote is that they backed off because there was something to their accusations. Quite the opposite. They chickened out because they were losers.

"Impeach" means you bring impeachment charges, not that you find someone guilty. Clinton was "impeached" by some horses' asses who needed 60 votes to find him guilty. In the vote, they couldn't even muster up close to FIFTY. The "impeachment" wasn't even close, and everyone with a brain knew years in advance that this ridiculous 8-year nonsense would end in defeat for the Clinton-haters.

But now you bring it up, extending it to 17-year nonsense. If not for your (and I do mean you, Denny, and others who have pushed this BS for so long) incessant publicity of this trivia, subsequent presidents would have continued Clinton's brilliant economic management. This nation would have been out of debt years ago, with giant surpluses causing incredible economic power around the world. China would still be a peanut compared to us, and for decades to come. The world would owe us trillions, instead of us beholding to China and Japan as we do because of your nonsense about Clinton.

 

[oldmangrouch]

The guy's a highly rated constitutional scholar who wrote an award winning book about Watergate as well. Particularly on the side of Archibald Cox, the special prosecutor in that case.

What I find interesting in all this is that there was merit to an indictment of Hillary Clinton for her Rose Law Firm dealings (and lying about it), though they decided against it because they felt they could not get a grand jury in D.C. or Arkansas to go along.

All the while, the Clintons claimed there was nothing to Whitewater, it turns out there was very much something to Whitewater.

On the contrary...this tends to prove there was nothing to it.

If there had been any meat on the Whitewater case, Clinton's sex life would never have become an issue. It was in no way material to the original investigation - just a desperate attempt to find *something* to trash Clinton over.

This is no different from somebody using Dubya's "wild child" youth as an excuse to be critical of his Iraqi policy. Pure bull-dada.

 

[Denny Crane]

Yes, Denny appears to be the last of the hermits persecuting Clinton, the best President we have had since Roosevelt.

Prosecutors are always ready to ruin anyone's life, no matter how much they must convolute the wording of the law. That's what they are eager to do. Your quote repeatedly says that they backed off. That's because they would have lost. The inference of the quote is that they backed off because there was something to their accusations. Quite the opposite. They chickened out because they were losers.

"Impeach" means you bring impeachment charges, not that you find someone guilty. Clinton was "impeached" by some horses' asses who needed 60 votes to find him guilty. In the vote, they couldn't even muster up close to FIFTY. The "impeachment" wasn't even close, and everyone with a brain knew years in advance that this ridiculous 8-year nonsense would end in defeat for the Clinton-haters.

But now you bring it up, extending it to 17-year nonsense. If not for your (and I do mean you, Denny, and others who have pushed this BS for so long) incessant publicity of this trivia, subsequent presidents would have continued Clinton's brilliant economic management. This nation would have been out of debt years ago, with giant surpluses causing incredible economic power around the world. China would still be a peanut compared to us, and for decades to come. The world would owe us trillions, instead of us beholding to China and Japan as we do because of your nonsense about Clinton.

I agree that Clinton was a great president, but the impeachment and his not being thrown out of office was the right outcome all the way around. He did lie under oath, regardless of what it was about. It was really stupid for the republicans to impeach him over perjury when there were several other more substantial things (like election law violations).

Our entire trade deficit when GHW Bush left office was $80B. It was $80B to China alone when Clinton left office. Democrats refused to give GHW Bush MFN status for China, but happily went along when Clinton asked for it.

Clinton's surpluses were illusory, though - govt. revenues were massively inflated by capital gains taxes on dot bomb bubble stocks and mutual funds (that owned those stocks). It simply wasn't sustainable, and it was effectively taxing peoples' life savings and not their incomes. Especially when the stock market (NASDAQ) went up 100% in the last three months of the previous tax year and lost $5T in value before April 15th the next year.

We all saw that when you tax peoples' life savings, they borrow against their homes (and other assets) to pay that tax, and that led to the housing bubble. No doubt govt. didn't do anything about that bubble either until it was too late.

If you care why I say Clinton was a fine president, it's because he actually let government shrink through attrition, he and republicans in congress held spending down, he effectively used military force in Haiti, Kosovo, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan (I'm probably leaving a few out), ended welfare as we know it, signed NAFTA and GATT, and his general practice of triangulation meant we got the best ideas from either party.

Have at it some more.

 

[MrJayremmie]

I think the impeachment of Clinton was silly and way too partisan. I could care less what someone does with their personal time out of office, as long as they are productive in office. Kennedy certainly had plenty of personal stuff going on while president, but even as we found out about it in later years, it didn't bother me a bit.

But alas, that is a topic for another time.

 

[Denny Crane]

I think the impeachment of Clinton was silly and way too partisan. I could care less what someone does with their personal time out of office, as long as they are productive in office. Kennedy certainly had plenty of personal stuff going on while president, but even as we found out about it in later years, it didn't bother me a bit.

But alas, that is a topic for another time.

Kennedy wasn't sued by a private citizen for sexual harassment.

I really don't care what Clinton did or does in his personal life. But he wasn't above the law as president. I see the impeachment making that statement (not above the law).

 

[jlprk]

The same people who spread the anti-Clinton stuff spread the unfounded anti-Kennedy stuff. All you have on him is that one Mafia woman says she did it with him. So much for the [plural] many many rumors, many many known facts, many many affairs. If you want to trust a Mafia woman, then do what you must, but don't misstate it in the plural.

Back to the thread subject. What sources agree with the following statements? Other than right-wing ones. How about sources from the government, maybe ones which forecast surpluses and deficits. As far as I know, this is just more rumor from right-wing blogs.

Clinton's surpluses were illusory, though - govt. revenues were massively inflated by capital gains taxes on dot bomb bubble stocks and mutual funds (that owned those stocks). It simply wasn't sustainable, and it was effectively taxing peoples' life savings and not their incomes...We all saw that when you tax peoples' life savings, they borrow against their homes (and other assets) to pay that tax, and that led to the housing bubble.

 

[Denny Crane]

The same people who spread the anti-Clinton stuff spread the unfounded anti-Kennedy stuff. All you have on him is that one Mafia woman says she did it with him. So much for the [plural] many many rumors, many many known facts, many many affairs. If you want to trust a Mafia woman, then do what you must, but don't misstate it in the plural.

Back to the thread subject. What sources agree with the following statements? Other than right-wing ones. How about sources from the government, maybe ones which forecast surpluses and deficits. As far as I know, this is just more rumor from right-wing blogs.

I don't care about JFK's personal affairs. He was never sued for sexual harassment.

This is from nobody's blog:
Government's message isn't unified. Hardly. While Clinton and his economic advisors were saying the economy was in the sweet spot, Greenspan was talking about irrational exuberance. Which one was right?



1998-2000 were the years of balanced budgets, no?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot-com_bubble

The "dot-com bubble" (or sometimes the "I.T. bubble"[1]) was a speculative bubble covering roughly 1998–2000 (with a climax on March 10, 2000 with the NASDAQ peaking at 5132.52) during which stock markets in industrialized nations saw their equity value rise rapidly from growth in the more recent Internet sector and related fields

Read this:
How Mutual Funds Can Cause Big Tax Payments In Bear Markets

And here's how it went down:

If your life savings was $100K and you put it in mutual funds investing in the NASDAQ in 1999.... From Sept. or Nov. 1999 to right before tax time (about March 2000), the NASDAQ doubled. You owed capital gains taxes on $100K of increase.

But your mutual fund had cut in half by tax time, due to the bubble bursting. You owed the tax on gains you no longer could capture. To pay the tax, you'd have to sell some of your remaining $100K worth, say $15K, leaving your net worth at $85K. You were just taxed 15% of your net worth.

And here's factcheck.org's take on the balanced budgets:

http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/during_the_clinton_administration_was_the_federal.html

An equally if not more powerful influence was the booming economy and huge gains in the stock markets, the so-called dot-com bubble, which brought in hundreds of millions in unanticipated tax revenue from taxes on capital gains and rising salaries.

 

[BLAZER PROPHET]

As someone who does some investigative work, there was no doubt there were clearly some indictable things the Clintons did. Clearly. To bash Denny because he's discussing an upcoming book is pretty low. Stupid, too.

 

[barfo]

I don't care about JFK's personal affairs. He was never sued for sexual harassment.

No one was sued for sexual harassment back then. It wasn't illegal until 1964.

barfo

 

[jlprk]

NASDAQ (at least then, I don't know about now, I got out after 2000) was known as having a lot of electronics and computer companies. So it was affected far more than the NYSE by the dot com bubble (otherwise known as, banks stupidly investing in tiny software startups). So your graph is right. And you are right that if you put all your family money into NASDAQ at its peak, by a few months later you had lost most of your money. But it is typical, by the time people sell,that it's too late to make what they could have at the peak. I don't think many people sold at the right time, because they didn't know when prices were going to come down. Of course, big operators make many buys and sells, so they were the ones who paid almost all of the capital taxes. The graph shows that the time period we're talking about was between late 99 and late 2000. That's when prices peaked, but there is no graph there to tell us when sales peaked. Taxes were generated when stocks were sold, not when their prices peaked.

Clinton was greatly decreasing the deficits long before NASDAQ exploded. He had it going by the start of his second term. The peak in the graph 3 years later did not cause his miracles in the deficits.

You stated that families had to sell their houses and I asked for sources. Your response is that they WOULD have had to do so if they had sold enough stock at the time, to generate enough tax. This is always true, not just then. But you do not come up with actual families who had to sell their houses, just a logical rebut that it must have happened. How about this: Few people would sell so much stock, knowing that they would have to sell their houses to pay the capital gains. So there, I just offered a logical rebut to your logical rebut to my request for real people who did so.

 

[MARIS61]

The guy's a highly rated constitutional scholar

Link?

What I find interesting in all this is that there was merit to an indictment of Hillary Clinton for her Rose Law Firm dealings (and lying about it), though they decided against it because they felt they could not get a grand jury in D.C. or Arkansas to go along.

All the while, the Clintons claimed there was nothing to Whitewater, it turns out there was very much something to Whitewater.

There was NO merit to an indictment of Hillary which is the only reason she was not indicted. To imply otherwise is pathetic.

 

[MARIS61]

We all saw that when you tax peoples' life savings, they borrow against their homes (and other assets) to pay that tax, and that led to the housing bubble.

Utter nonsense.

 

[Denny Crane]

Link?




There was NO merit to an indictment of Hillary which is the only reason she was not indicted. To imply otherwise is pathetic.

http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=108006

"Starr prosecutors in 1998 proposed to formally indict Hillary Rodham Clinton on charges she and a former law partner lied about her business dealings with Madison Guaranty, a failed savings and loan connected to friends James and Susan McDougal, Gormley wrote."

 

[Denny Crane]

NASDAQ (at least then, I don't know about now, I got out after 2000) was known as having a lot of electronics and computer companies. So it was affected far more than the NYSE by the dot com bubble (otherwise known as, banks stupidly investing in tiny software startups). So your graph is right. And you are right that if you put all your family money into NASDAQ at its peak, by a few months later you had lost most of your money. But it is typical, by the time people sell,that it's too late to make what they could have at the peak. I don't think many people sold at the right time, because they didn't know when prices were going to come down. Of course, big operators make many buys and sells, so they were the ones who paid almost all of the capital taxes. The graph shows that the time period we're talking about was between late 99 and late 2000. That's when prices peaked, but there is no graph there to tell us when sales peaked. Taxes were generated when stocks were sold, not when their prices peaked.

Clinton was greatly decreasing the deficits long before NASDAQ exploded. He had it going by the start of his second term. The peak in the graph 3 years later did not cause his miracles in the deficits.

You stated that families had to sell their houses and I asked for sources. Your response is that they WOULD have had to do so if they had sold enough stock at the time, to generate enough tax. This is always true, not just then. But you do not come up with actual families who had to sell their houses, just a logical rebut that it must have happened. How about this: Few people would sell so much stock, knowing that they would have to sell their houses to pay the capital gains. So there, I just offered a logical rebut to your logical rebut to my request for real people who did so.

First things first.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irrational_exuberance

Greenspan's comment was made on December 5, 1996 (emphasis added in excerpt):
[...] Clearly, sustained low inflation implies less uncertainty about the future, and lower risk premiums imply higher prices of stocks and other earning assets. We can see that in the inverse relationship exhibited by price/earnings ratios and the rate of inflation in the past. But how do we know when irrational exuberance has unduly escalated asset values, which then become subject to unexpected and prolonged contractions as they have in Japan over the past decade? [...]
— "The Challenge of Central Banking in a Democratic Society", 1996-12-05

See the 1996 in there? So there was this irrational exuberance going on while you say Clinton was balancing the budget.

Second, you seem to have misinterpreted my post. Most people were in mutual funds, not buying the stocks directly. So it was the funds who were selling the stocks, but the owners of those funds were the ones who had to pay the capital gains tax. I posted this link about How Mutual Funds Can Cause Big Tax Payments In Bear Markets, but I guess you didn't read it?

Many investors that hold mutual funds outside of a tax-advantaged account such a 401(k) or Roth IRA are going to receive a rude awakening when their broker sends them their year-end tax documents. Average people that experienced losses of 30%, 40%, and even 50% or more are likely to find that they owe capital gains taxes on these losers. Don’t think it’s possible? Unfortunately, due to the way mutual funds are structured, it’s a simple reality that many new investors don’t even understand.

So, no, it wasn't the big operators who paid the capital gains taxes, it was mom and pop.

Why did the big operators sell stocks? Two obvious reasons: 1) they take profits and invest in the next big thing, and 2) it was tax time (duh) in March 2000 and the first wave of people selling some mutual fund shares to pay their taxes meant stocks needed to be sold to provide the required liquidity.

The people who sold enough shares early enough did well enough, but once things started tanking, the wisdom was to ride it out (ride it down, more like it).

Third, if you had 1/2 of your life savings in mutual funds, the govt. ended up taxing you on 1/2 of your life savings. If you had 1/4, they taxed you on 1/4. Trying to make it out like the govt. didn't tax your life savings to balance the budget is missing the point.

Fourth, I didn't say people had to sell their homes, so that's something of a strawman. What I did say was:

We all saw that when you tax peoples' life savings, they borrow against their homes (and other assets) to pay that tax, and that led to the housing bubble. No doubt govt. didn't do anything about that bubble either until it was too late.

Why did they borrow against their assets to pay the tax? Like I said, the wisdom of the time was to ride out the crash and hope things would take off again. If you owned stock and were on margin, you got margin calls and found that the reason the stock market is tanking is because everyone is selling (hence not many buying so how do you sell?) and you had to cover those margin calls somehow.

Boy were people borrowing against their inflated stocks all along. It led to unrealistic economic growth and unsustainable tax revenues. If you don't mind my quoting a progressive blog:

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2008/09/sound_economy.html

For eight years we have papered over the fact that American consumers do not have the purchasing power to sustain economic expansion. As a report I authored a little more than a month ago details, the wage and salary increases that have occurred since 2000 have not been sufficient to even maintain the level of income that most families enjoyed at the beginning of this decade. Employment has not kept pace with population growth. And even though worker productivity has increased by nearly 20 percent over this period, weekly wages are barely higher than they were on the day the current president took office.

Under normal circumstances, we would have seen the effects of slow wage and job growth much sooner in the economic cycle. But the Bush administration and their enablers at the Federal Reserve Board found a way to inoculate the economy temporarily from the fact that the paychecks which Americans were taking home were insufficient to buy the goods and services the economy was capable of producing. The prescription was easy credit—car loans, credit cards, and most importantly, mortgages.

The bolded bits are most relevant to our discussion here.

I maintain that people weren't living high on the hog (during the Clinton or Bush years) due to wages and salaries, but from easy credit and borrowing. Living beyond our means.

Surprisingly, they blame Bush, but it's really an issue of the incoming administration continuing some policies of the outgoing one.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/dec2002/fore-d07.shtml

The report notes: “Homes that went into foreclosure in 2000, had, on average, nearly twice as many loans per home as the homes foreclosed in 1993. In 1993, the homes that were foreclosed averaged 1.8 loans per home, while the 2000 foreclosures averaged nearly 3 loans per home. In other words, fewer homes were purchased while more loans and foreclosures were filed.” [ See http://www.snapwa.org/foreclosures1.htm]

An important factor behind the increase in mortgage foreclosures is the rise of so-called subprime loans. Subprime loans are made to borrowers with credit deemed insufficient to qualify for a standard home mortgage. They sometimes entail predatory practices including exorbitant interest rates, additional fees and prepayment penalties that make it virtually impossible for the borrower to escape from debt. Subprime lending is targeted disproportionately at the poor, minorities and the elderly.

The increase in home foreclosures is linked to the rise in subprime lending. Studies in Boston and Atlanta conducted during the 1990s showed foreclosures by subprime lenders tripling, while foreclosures by other lenders remained steady or declined. A similar study in Chicago, which began at an earlier date, showed an even more dramatic increase. [ See Subprime Foreclosures: the Smoking Gun of Predatory Lending? Policy Development and Research Information Service http://www.huduser.org/index.html]

During the 1990s the practice of “risk based’ pricing increased. Banks began charging higher than normal interest rates to certain borrowers deemed to have lower than average credit worthiness. This practice was justified on the grounds that it opened home ownership to those who would not otherwise qualify for mortgages. However, by their nature, subprime loans carry a higher risk of default because they impose an additional financial burden on those who are in many cases least able to afford it. Further, subprime loans have become an arena for outright fraud and abuse. Cases of “redlining” have been documented where whole neighborhoods, usually poor or minority, are deemed to be substandard credit risks, forcing residents with otherwise excellent credit to pay subprime interest rates.

One of the most flagrant offenders is CitiGroup, headed by Bill Clinton’s former treasury secretary Robert Rubin. In March the Federal Trade Commission charged CitiGroup with deliberately “steering” and “misleading” borrowers into accepting predatory loans.

It is alleged that CitiGroup, its affiliate Associates First Capital and sister company CitiFinancial engaged in predatory lending practices such as inducing borrowers to take out high-interest loans even though they qualified for prime-rate loans. It is also charged that CitiGroup engaged in another predatory tactic known as “flipping,” where borrowers are pushed into progressively higher-interest loans by repeatedly refinancing their mortgages. The bank is also alleged to charge “excessive and unjustified” fees and impose impossible loan terms that lead to foreclosure.

Despite these serious allegations of a criminal character, CitiGroup and its executives were able to escape any major consequences by paying a mere $215 million in restitution to defrauded home buyers.

Such practices are by no means the exception. Subprime lenders often impose interest rates far higher than anything that could conceivably be justified by factoring in costs associated with added risk. Borrowers are often unaware of provisions hidden in fine print that require additional fees, balloon payments or the payment of compulsory life insurance premiums. In some cases lenders simply lie to borrowers, stating installment amounts that are far lower than what the mortgage holder is actually required to pay.

There are indications that the speed of home foreclosures is increasing. This is also tied to the rise of subprime lenders. For example, the above mentioned study in Washington state noted that of all foreclosures reported in 2000, subprime lenders were responsible for 58 percent of fast foreclosures, defined as foreclosures within the first two years.

Powerful financial interests have intervened to block even token reform. For example, the Ohio legislature enacted a bill in February 2002 prohibiting local communities from passing laws against predatory lending.

So the subprime thing was going on in the 1990s under Clinton's watch and continued on Bush's. Like I said.

 

[BLAZER PROPHET]

Denny, so far as I can tell, you call them straight up. The lefties here are personally attacking you in an uncalled for way- and they know it, but that's what lefties do. It's just their nature. So continue to post as you see it. For those who actually believe in fairness and honesty, they have no problems with your posts- may not always agree, but at least you make good efforts to back up your posts.

Repp'd.

 

[barfo]

"Starr prosecutors in 1998 proposed to formally indict Hillary Rodham Clinton on charges she and a former law partner lied about her business dealings with Madison Guaranty, a failed savings and loan connected to friends James and Susan McDougal, Gormley wrote."

If Minstrel told you that once upon a time I considered posting "Denny Crane is a unemployed truckdriver with six nipples and a liking for shuffleboard", what would you conclude?

Somehow I'm guessing that your standard of proof there might be a little higher. You might question Minstrel's veracity, and/or the veracity of his source. You might suggest that since I didn't post it, perhaps I didn't actually believe that. You might make the point that even if I did believe that, that certainly doesn't prove you like shuffleboard. You might even question whether I was grinding an ax of some kind.

You probably wouldn't conclude "Well, Minstrel said that, so I guess I've got six nipples. Wonder where the other four are?" Unless, of course, you really really want to believe you have six nipples...

barfo

 

[Denny Crane]

If Minstrel told you that once upon a time I considered posting "Denny Crane is a unemployed truckdriver with six nipples and a liking for shuffleboard", what would you conclude?

Somehow I'm guessing that your standard of proof there might be a little higher. You might question Minstrel's veracity, and/or the veracity of his source. You might suggest that since I didn't post it, perhaps I didn't actually believe that. You might make the point that even if I did believe that, that certainly doesn't prove you like shuffleboard. You might even question whether I was grinding an ax of some kind.

You probably wouldn't conclude "Well, Minstrel said that, so I guess I've got six nipples. Wonder where the other four are?" Unless, of course, you really really want to believe you have six nipples...

barfo

I admit I'm struggling with your logic here.

The article I posted is about a book by a constitutional scholar who interviewed the people involved in the investigation of the Clintons while Bill was president.

 

[barfo]

Clinton's surpluses were illusory, though - govt. revenues were massively inflated by capital gains taxes on dot bomb bubble stocks and mutual funds (that owned those stocks).

Incorrect. While increased capital gains taxes certainly helped, they went from $60B in 1995 to $140B in 2000 - an increase in annual collections of $80B. The surplus in 2000 was $236B. Even if you eliminated the capital gains tax entirely - not just the increased revenue, but the tax itself - there still would have been a surplus.

It simply wasn't sustainable, and it was effectively taxing peoples' life savings and not their incomes. Especially when the stock market (NASDAQ) went up 100% in the last three months of the previous tax year and lost $5T in value before April 15th the next year.

This is a very interesting theory you have, but I'm not buying it either. If everyone really paid 15% of their life savings in cap gains following the crash, then capital gains tax receipts should have gone up in 2001. Instead they declined.

barfo

 

[Denny Crane]

Incorrect. While increased capital gains taxes certainly helped, they went from $60B in 1995 to $140B in 2000 - an increase in annual collections of $80B. The surplus in 2000 was $236B. Even if you eliminated the capital gains tax entirely - not just the increased revenue, but the tax itself - there still would have been a surplus.



This is a very interesting theory you have, but I'm not buying it either. If everyone really paid 15% of their life savings in cap gains following the crash, then capital gains tax receipts should have gone up in 2001. Instead they declined.

barfo

There was a deficit after the crash because there were no ridiculously inflated capital gains. In fact, people carried forward the capital losses.

Think again about capital gains tax collections.

http://taxes.about.com/od/capitalgains/a/CapitalGainsTax_4.htm

Capital Gains Tax Rates

Type of Capital Asset: Short-term capital gains (STCG)
Holding Period: One year or less
Tax Rate: Ordinary income tax rates up to 35%

 

[barfo]

There was a deficit after the crash because there were no ridiculously inflated capital gains. In fact, people carried forward the capital losses.

Ok, so what happened to the tax paid by the people who had to mortgage their house to pay 15% of their life savings in cap gains tax?

barfo

 

[Stevenson]

I agree that Clinton was a great president, but the impeachment and his not being thrown out of office was the right outcome all the way around. He did lie under oath, regardless of what it was about.

This book, and the impeachment, were a joke. Lying under oath happens every day in court, but it is not the same thing as perjury. Perjury is lying about a substantial fact of relevance. Saying you are 22 when you are really 23 would not be perjury but it would be lying.

Clinton is as sharp as it gets and he parsed his words very carefully when he was deposed - on purpose - so as to not perjure himself.

If the prosecutors had the goods on the Clintons, they would have pressed charges. Period, end of story. that they didn't means they didn't have it.

One example, and please don't ask why I know this minutiae, but I do: In the Paula Jones lawsuit, "sexual relations" was carefully defined as "contact with the genitalia, anus, groin, breast, inner thigh, or buttocks of a person with an intent to arouse or gratify the sexual desire of that person." Clinton received oral sex. That does not fit the description of "sexual relations" hence he said he did not have "sexual relations with that woman" and hence didn't commit perjury.

It was all politics and it was all BS.

 

[Denny Crane]

This book, and the impeachment, were a joke. Lying under oath happens every day in court, but it is not the same thing as perjury. Perjury is lying about a substantial fact of relevance. Saying you are 22 when you are really 23 would not be perjury but it would be lying.

Clinton is as sharp as it gets and he parsed his words very carefully when he was deposed - on purpose - so as to not perjure himself.

If the prosecutors had the goods on the Clintons, they would have pressed charges. Period, end of story. that they didn't means they didn't have it.

One example, and please don't ask why I know this minutiae, but I do: In the Paula Jones lawsuit, "sexual relations" was carefully defined as "contact with the genitalia, anus, groin, breast, inner thigh, or buttocks of a person with an intent to arouse or gratify the sexual desire of that person." Clinton received oral sex. That does not fit the description of "sexual relations" hence he said he did not have "sexual relations with that woman" and hence didn't commit perjury.

It was all politics and it was all BS.

From a politico.com article about the book (they were the first):
http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=9E1EB013-18FE-70B2-A8885BA87D68F260

While Bill Clinton was steaming mad about Judge Susan Webber Wright’s decision to cite him for civil contempt in the Paula Jones sexual harassment case and accused her of political bias, Clinton and his defenders failed to acknowledge that Wright “could have ended his presidency with the stroke of a pen” by initiating criminal contempt proceedings against him while the impeachment case was still pending. Gormley cites a source that said she weighed a criminal citation against Clinton but decided against it.




She initiated contempt proceedings afterward:

http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1999/04/13/contempt.reaction/

Clinton's contempt citation not a surprise to many

April 13, 1999
Web posted at: 11:09 a.m. EDT (1509 GMT)

WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, April 13) -- Two months after he was acquitted by the Senate, President Bill Clinton received news Monday that U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright was holding him in contempt of court for his "willful failure" to testify truthfully in the Paula Jones sexual harassment lawsuit.

 

[Denny Crane]

Ok, so what happened to the tax paid by the people who had to mortgage their house to pay 15% of their life savings in cap gains tax?

barfo

Temporarily paid down some of the debt.

 

[Stevenson]

"Wright said: "Simply put, the president's deposition testimony regarding whether he had ever been alone with Ms. Lewinsky was intentionally false and his statements regarding whether he had ever engaged in sexual relations with Ms. Lewinsky likewise were intentionally false."

However, Clinton has steadfastly maintained that the statements he made in the Jones deposition were "legally accurate."

Lying, but not perjury. Lying is not an impeachable offense.