DaddyHalbucks

CLINTON
SCANDAL STATS
COMPILED BY THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW


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Originally published October 1998. Partially updated 9/21/00
Please send corrections and additions to THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW

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NOTES


Some of the data has not been updated recently and thus understates conditions. In certain areas, such as anomalous deaths, we have used an extremely conservative count. It is important in considering these fatal incidents to bear in mind the following:


(1) The fact that anomalies need to be investigated further carries no presumption of how a death actually occurred, only that there remain serious questions that require answers.


(2) The possibility of foul play must be taken seriously in a major criminal conspiracy in which over two score individuals and firms have been convicted and over 100 witnesses have pled the Fifth Amendment or fled the country.


(3) If foul play did occur in any of these cases, that fact by itself does not carry the presumption that the White House was involved. Given the footprints of organized crime, drug trade, foreign espionage, and intelligence agencies on the trail of the Clinton story, such a assumption would not be warranted.


ADMINISTRATION RECORDS SET
- The only president ever impeached on grounds of personal malfeasance
- Most number of convictions and guilty pleas by friends and associates **
- Most number of cabinet officials to come under criminal investigation
- Most number of witnesses to flee country or refuse to testify
- Most number of witnesses to die suddenly
- First president sued for sexual harassment.
- First president accused of rape.
- First first lady to come under criminal investigation
- Largest criminal plea agreement in an illegal campaign contribution case
- First president to establish a legal defense fund.
- Greatest amount of illegal campaign contributions
- Greatest amount of illegal campaign contributions from abroad


** According to our best information, 40 government officials were indicted or convicted in the wake of Watergate. A reader computes that there was a total of 31 Reagan era convictions, including 14 because of Iran-Contra and 16 in the Department of Housing & Urban Development scandal. 47 individuals and businesses associated with the Clinton machine were convicted of or pleaded guilty to crimes with 33 of these occurring during the Clinton administration itself. There were in addition 61 indictments or misdemeanor charges. 14 persons were imprisoned. A key difference between the Clinton story and earlier ones was the number of criminals with whom he was associated before entering the White House. Using a far looser standard that included resignations, David R. Simon and D. Stanley Eitzen in Elite Deviance, say that 138 appointees of the Reagan administration either resigned under an ethical cloud or were criminally indicted. Curiously Haynes Johnson uses the same figure but with a different standard in "Sleep-Walking Through History: America in the Reagan Years: "By the end of his term, 138 administration officials had been convicted, had been indicted, or had been the subject of official investigations for official misconduct and/or criminal violations. In terms of number of officials involved, the record of his administration was the worst ever."



HISTORICAL CONTEXT
- Number of independent counsel inquiries since the 1978 law was passed: 19
- Number that have produced indictments: 7
- Number that produced more convictions than the Starr investigation: 1
- Median length of investigations that have led to convictions: 44 months
- Length of Starr-Ray investigation (7/00): 67 months.
- Number of Starr-Ray investigation convictions to date (including one governor, one associate attorney general and two Clinton business partners): 15
- Median cost per Starr investigation conviction: $3.5 million as of 3/00
- Total cost of the Starr investigation (3/00) $52 million
- Total cost of the Iran-Contra investigation: $48.5 million
- Total cost to taxpayers of the Madison Guarantee failure: $73 million
- Number of Clinton cabinet members who came under criminal investigation: 5
- Number of Reagan cabinet members who came under criminal investigation: 4
- Number of top officials jailed in the Teapot Dome Scandal: 3


CRIME STATS
- Number of individuals and businesses associated with the Clinton machine who have been convicted of or pleaded guilty to crimes: 47
- Number of these convictions during Clinton's presidency: 33
- Number of indictments/misdemeanor charges: 61
- Number of imprisonments: 14
- Number of congressional witnesses who have pled the 5th Amendment, fled the country to avoid testifying, or (in the case of foreign witnesses) refused to be interviewed: 124


CAMPAIGN FINANCE INVESTIGATION
- As of June 2000, the Justice Department listed 25 people indicted and 19 convicted because of the 1996 Clinton-Gore fundraising scandals.
- According to the House Committee on Government Reform in September 2000, 79 House and Senate witnesses asserted the Fifth Amendment in the course of investigations into Gore's last fundraising campaign. [These figures are included in the larger figures elsewhere].
-James Riady entered a plea agreement to pay an $8.5 million fine for campaign finance crimes. This was a record under campaign finance laws.


STARR INVESTIGATION


- Number of Starr-Ray investigation convictions or guilty pleas to date (including one governor, one associate attorney general and two Clinton business partners): 15
- Number of Clinton Cabinet members who came under criminal investigation: 5
- Number of Reagan cabinet members who came under criminal investigation: 4
- Number of top officials jailed in the Teapot Dome Scandal: 3


SMALTZ INVESTIGATION
- Guilty pleas and convictions obtained by Donald Smaltz in cases involving charges of bribery and fraud against former Agriculture Secretary Espy and associated individuals and businesses: 15
- Acquitted or overturned cases (including Espy): 6
- Fines and penalties assessed: $11.5 million
- Cost of investigation: $22.2 million through 9/99
- Amount Tyson Food paid in fines and court costs: $6 million
- Amount Tyson Food still has in annual government contracts: $200 million
- Reasons individuals other than Espy were convicted or pled guilty: Concealing knowledge of gifts to Espy and his girlfriend (1), providing illegal gratuities to Espy(4), illegally supplementing the salary of a government official (2), concealing receipt of illegal funds on behalf of Espy (1) (Espy's chief of staff sentenced to prison in this case)


CRIMES FOR WHICH CONVICTIONS HAVE BEEN OBTAINED
Drug trafficking (3), racketeering, extortion, bribery(4), tax evasion, kickbacks, embezzlement (2), fraud (12), conspiracy (5), fraudulent loans, illegal gifts(1), illegal campaign contributions(5), money laundering (6)


POSSIBLE CRIMES AND SUSPICIOUS MATTERS INVESTIGATED BY SPECIAL PROSECUTORS, CONGRESS,
AND/OR INVESTIGATIVE REPORTERS
Bank and mail fraud, violations of campaign finance laws, illegal foreign campaign funding, improper exports of sensitive technology, physical violence and threats of violence, solicitation of perjury, intimidation of witnesses, bribery of witnesses, attempted intimidation of prosecutors, perjury before congressional committees, lying in statements to federal investigators and regulatory officials, flight of witnesses, obstruction of justice, bribery of cabinet members, real estate fraud, tax fraud, drug trafficking, failure to investigate drug trafficking, bribery of state officials, use of state police for personal purposes, exchange of promotions or benefits for sexual favors, using state police to provide false court testimony, laundering of drug money through a state agency, false reports by medical examiners and others investigating suspicious deaths, the firing of the RTC and FBI director when these agencies were investigating Clinton and his associates, failure to conduct autopsies in suspicious deaths, providing jobs in return for silence by witnesses, drug abuse, illegal acquisition and use of 900 FBI files, illegal futures trading, murder, sexual abuse of employees, false testimony before a federal judge, shredding of documents, withholding and concealment of subpoenaed documents, fabricated charges against (and improper firing of) White House employees, as well as providing access to the White House to drug traffickers, foreign agents and participants in organized crime.
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