by: F.R. Duplantier

"The Presidential Legal Expense Trust was established by private trustees on behalf of Bill and Hillary Clinton in June 1994," recalls Larry Klayman of Judicial Watch. "It was allegedly established to pay the President's legal fees incurred in defending against the numerous scandals of his Administration, as well as the private litigation brought against him." Klayman charges, however, that "the Trust was an illegal scheme, unlawfully soliciting and/or receiving something of value for the President, which violated the anti-bribery laws of the United States." He asserts that "the Trust was indeed a convenient conduit for attempted bribery. It eventually became known to the public that hundreds of thousands of dollars were being laundered into its accounts by Charlie Trie, money which came from foreign, possibly Communist Chinese sources."

The Presidential Defense Fund was one of several shady money-making ventures for Clinton Inc. Klayman charges that "seats on Clinton Commerce Department trade missions were indeed being sold in exchange for campaign contributions, with the knowledge and complicity, if not at the direction of, officials at the highest levels of the Clinton White House, including the President, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Vice President Al Gore."

In his Interim Report on Crimes and Other Offenses Committed by President Bill Clinton Warranting His Impeachment and Removal from Elected Office, presented to Congress in late September, Klayman records the testimony of Nolanda Butler Hill, "a close confidante and business partner of late Commerce Secretary Brown, with whom Secretary Brown had shared key details about the campaign-contributions-for-seats-on-trade-missions scheme. . . . Secretary Brown had even shown important documents to Ms. Hill that detailed this unlawful sale of taxpayer-financed government services," Klayman contends. "With Ms. Hill's uncontroverted testimony providing the capstone to its investigation, Judicial Watch has proven beyond all reasonable doubt that, not only was the Clinton Administration engaged in an unlawful scheme to sell seats on Commerce Department trade missions in exchange for campaign contributions, but that a criminal cover-up was ordered by President Clinton's top aides to thwart Judicial Watch's court-ordered investigation and to hide the culpability of the President, Mrs. Clinton, the Clinton Administration and the Democratic National Committee (DNC). . . ."

The possibility of national security breaches is what concerns Klayman most. He notes that Bernard Schwartz of Loral Space and Communications Corporation "now stands at the heart of a scandal over Clinton Commerce Department-approved missile technology transfers to China." According to Klayman, Judicial Watch was able to document Commerce Department official Ira Sockowitz's illegal removal of "top-secret documents relating to satellite encryption and intelligence reports on China, Russia and India." Sockowitz was a "confidante of alleged Chinese agent John Huang." Judicial Watch also deserves credit for unearthing Huang, "the Commerce official/DNC fundraiser now believed to have been a spy for the Chinese Government."