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| The book and their enthusiastic reading captured the return of Americas innate optimism and self-confidence
On many stops we picked up friends, supporters, and local officials who wanted to be aboard for the next leg of the tripI especially enjoyed sharing the leisurely travel with Chelsea, as we stood on the caboose, waved to the crowds, and talked about everything under the sunOur relationship was as close as ever, but she was changing, growing into a mature young woman with her own opinions and interestsMore and more, I found myself amazed at how she saw the world
Our convention opened on the twenty-sixth, with appearances by Jim and Sarah Brady, who appreciated the support the Democrats had given to the Brady bill, and Christopher Reeve, the actor who, after being paralyzed in a fall from a horse, had inspired the nation with his courageous fight to recover and his advocacy for more research into spinal cord injuries
On the day of my speech, our campaign was rocked by press reports that Dick Morris had frequently been with a prostitute in his hotel room when he was in Washington working for meDick resigned from the campaign, and I put out a statement saying that he was my friend and a superb political strategist who had done invaluable work over the past two yearsI regretted his departure, but he was obviously under enormous stress and he needed time to work through his problemsI knew Dick was resilient and felt sure he would be back in the political arena before long
My acceptance speech was easy to give because of the record: the lowest combined rate of unemployment and inflation in twenty-eight years; 10 million new jobs; 10 million people getting the minimum wage increase; 25 million Americans benefiting from the Kennedy-Kassebaum bill; 15 million working Americans shop for chanel bags with a tax cut; 12 million taking advantage of the family leave law; 10 million students saving money through the Direct Student Loan Program; 40 million workers with more pension security
I stated that we were going in the right direction and, referring to Bob Doles speech in San Diego, said, with all respect, we do not need to build a bridge to the past; we need to build a bridge to the future let us resolve to build that bridge to the twenty-first centuryThe Bridge to the 21st Century became the theme of the campaign and the next four years
As good as the record was, I knew that all elections are about the future, so I outlined my agenda: higher school standards and universal access to college; a balanced budget that protected health care, education, and the environment; targeted tax cuts to support home ownership, long-term care, college education, and child-rearing; more jobs for people on welfare and more investment in poor urban and rural areas; and some new initiatives to fight crime and drugs and clean the environment
I knew that if the American people saw the election as a choice between building a bridge to the past and building a bridge to the future, we would winBob Dole had unintentionally given me the central message of the 1996 campaignOn the day after the convention closed, Al, Tipper, Hillary, and I kicked off my last campaign with a bus tour, beginning in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, with Governor Mel Carnahan, who had been with me since early 1992, going through southern Illinois and western Kentucky, and winding up in Memphis, after several stops in Tennessee, with former governor Ned Ray McWherter, a huge bear of a man who was the only person I ever heard call the vice president AlbertNed Ray was worth so many votes that I didnt care what he called Al, or me for prada evening bags that matter
In August, Kenneth Starr lost his first big case, one that reflected just how desperate he and his staff were to pin something on meStarr had indicted the two owners of the Perry County Bank, lawyer Herby Branscum Jrand accountant Rob Hill, on charges arising out of my 1990 gubernatorial campaign
The indictment stated that Branscum and Hill had taken about $13,000 from their own bank for legal and accounting services they did not perform in order to reimburse themselves for political contributions they had made, and that they had instructed the man who ran the bank for them not to report two cash withdrawals of more than $10,000 each from my campaign account to the Internal Revenue Service as required by federal law
The indictment also named Bruce Lindsey, who had served as my campaign treasurer, as an unindicted co-conspirator, alleging that when Bruce withdrew the money to pay for our election day get out the vote activities, he had urged the bankers not to file the required reportStarrs people had threatened Bruce with an indictment, but he called their bluff; there was nothing wrong with our contributions or the way they had been spent, and Bruce had no motive for asking the bank not to make the required filing on it: we would be making all the information public in three weeks as required by Arkansas state election lawSince the contributions and their expenditure were legal and our public report was accurate, Starrs people knew Bruce hadnt committed a crime, so they settled for smearing him as an unindicted co-conspirator
The charges against Branscum and Hill were absurdFirst, they wholly owned the bank; if they did not impair the banks liquidity, they could take money out of it as long as they paid income taxes on it, and there was no suggestion that they cartier pasha crono had not done so in this caseAs to the second charge, the law that requires a bank to report cash deposits or withdrawals of $10,000 or more is a good one; it permits the government to follow large amounts of dirty money from criminal enterprises like money laundering or drug dealingThe reports filed with the government are checked every three to six months but are not open to the publicAs of 1996, there had been two hundred prosecutions for failure to file the reports required by the act, but only twenty of them were for failures to report withdrawalsAll of those involved money that was tainted by an illegal enterpriseUntil Starr came along, no one had ever been indicted for a negligent failure to report deposits or withdrawals of legitimate funds
Our campaign money was undisputably clean money that had been withdrawn at the end of the campaign to pay for our efforts to call voters and offer rides to the polls on election dayWe had filed the required public report within three weeks after the election, detailing how much money we had spent and how we had spent itBranscum, Hill, and Lindsey simply had no motive to hide from the government a legal cash withdrawal that would be a matter of public record in less than a month
That didnt stop Hickman Ewing, Starrs deputy in Arkansas, who was just as obsessed as Starr with going after us and not nearly as good at disguising itHe threatened to send Neal Ainley, who ran the bank for Branscum and Hill and who had been responsible for filing the reports, to prison unless he testified that Branscum, Hill, and Lindsey had ordered him not to file it, even though Ainley had earlier denied any wrongdoing by themThe poor man was a little fish caught in a powerful net; he changed his storyInitially charged with five felonies, Ainley was now allowed chanel j10 watch knockoff to plead to two misdemeanors
As in the earlier trial of the McDougals and Tucker, I testified on videotape at the request of the defendantsThough I had not been involved in the withdrawals, I was able to say I had not appointed Branscum and Hill to the two state boards on which they served in return for their contributions to my campaign
After a vigorous defense, Branscum and Hill were acquitted on the reporting charges, and the jury deadlocked on the question of whether they had falsely reported the purposes for which they had withdrawn funds from their own bankI was relieved that Herby, Rob, and Bruce Lindsey were cleared, but sickened by the abuse of prosecutorial power, the enormous legal costs my friends had been forced to bear, and the staggering costs to the taxpayers of a prosecution over the $13,000 of reimbursements the defendants got from their own bank and the failure to file federal reports on two legal and publicly reported withdrawals of campaign funds
There were noneconomic costs as well: FBI agents working for Starr went to Rob Hills teenage sons school and dragged him out of class for questioningThey could have talked to him after school or during lunch or on the weekendInstead, they humiliated the young man in hopes of pressuring his father into telling them something that would damage me, whether it was true or not
After the trial, several jurors burned the independent counsels office with comments like Its a waste of moneyI would hate to see the government waste more money on Whitewater; If theyre going to spend my tax dollars, they need stronger evidence; If anyone is untouchable it is OIC [Office of Independent Counsel]One juror who identified himself as an anti-Clinton person said, I would have loved for them to have a little more evidence, but they prada clutch didnt |
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