The Emerging Clinton Foundation Scandal
By Andrew C. McCarthy
PJMedia.com
Is this the beginning … of RICO?
Okay, so that’s not quite
as catchy as Edward G. Robinson’s
immortal line. But it is what a good prosecutor
would be asking while pondering the growing cloud
around the Clinton Foundation.
Among Little Ceasar’s
imprints on popular culture is that Robinson’s
mobster character, Cesare Enrico Bandello, inspired
Congress to name its seminal anti-organized crime
legislation “RICO” — the Racketeer Influenced and
Corrupt Organizations Act of 1971. The mafia was its
most infamous target, but far from its only target.
RICO makes it a crime to
run an organization through what’s called a “pattern
of racketeering activity.” The term
racketeering is extensively defined in the
statute. It includes acts involving bribery, fraud,
and obstruction of justice, to name just a few.
Prosecutors are fond of
RICO because it enables them to unite disparate
illicit or corrupt transactions into one framework,
the enterprise. It need not be a mafia family
or traditional criminal organization; it can be an
ostensibly legitimate organization — e.g., a
foundation, a labor union, a corporation, a guild —
that, contrary to the image it projects publicly,
commits sundry legal offenses in conducting its
affairs.
As a matter of fact, if the pattern of offenses
includes fraud and influence peddling, then the
enterprise’s portrayal of itself as a caring,
altruistic charitable foundation can be very helpful
to the case. Juries do not like hypocrisy and shady
dealing. They get turned off by “charitable
organizations” that turn out, in the main, to be
vehicles for their principals to live lavishly or
covers for selling political influence. And juries
know charitable organizations tend not to wipe their
servers clean even after congressional investigators
have instructed them to preserve evidence.
Plus, it is important to bear in mind that, at
the moment, the political dimension of the Clinton
Foundation scandal transcends the possibility of
criminal or civil legal liability. Right now, the
Clinton Foundation provides a stark reminder of the
last enterprise these characters ran: the Clinton
White House. Remember that one? Campaign finance
irregularities, selling influence (remember the
Lincoln bedroom?), awarding pardons to fraudsters
and terrorists for the purpose of rewarding donors
and courting political constituencies, blatant
obstruction of justice, and perjury.
You see the Hillary! 2016
campaign launch, you consider what we’re learning
about the Clinton Foundation, and you naturally ask
yourself: Do we really want to go through this
again?
You consider the Clinton Foundation, you think
about the State Department — Benghazi, the courting
of the Muslim Brotherhood, the secret, unlawful
email system, the foreign money pouring into Clinton
coffers while Mrs. Clinton was making key decisions
about American foreign policy — and you naturally
ask yourself:
What has Hillary Clinton ever run that did not
turn into a debacle?
Finally, we should also
consider the Obama administration’s legal standards.
As I’ve recently
discussed here at Ordered Liberty, the Justice
Department has just filed its indictment of Senator
Robert Menendez (D – NJ) on various corruption
charges. The prosecution’s theory is that Menendez
accepted “things of value” in exchange for using his
political influence to benefit a big-time donor.
Sen. Menendez counters that he did nothing wrong —
i.e., that there is no nexus between, on the one
hand, the hefty contributions, private jet rides to
ritzy resorts, and other posh gifts he received,
and, on the other hand, the use of his office in
ways that just happened to favor the donor.
We are still at a very early stage of
scrutinizing the Clinton Foundation, but we can
already say two things with confidence:
(1) The millions upon millions of dollars the
Clinton Foundation has collected from foreign donors
and others with significant self-interest in U.S.
government policy — during a time when Mrs. Clinton
had a key role (and the prospect of an even bigger
role) in designing U.S. government policy — makes
the gifts to Menendez look like chump change.
(2) To the best of our knowledge, Menendez never
withheld his emails from the government or wiped his
server clean.