Tuesday, May 31, 2005

Is Hillary Off the Hook? Don’t Bet on It!

There’s an interesting in story in NewsMax today regarding the David Rosen trial. He was acquitted of underreporting costs of an August 2004 fundraiser for Hillary Clinton,
However, Peter Paul believes his civil case is strengthened, not weakened as a result.

New York Sen. Hillary Clinton's chief accuser Peter Paul said Saturday that yesterday's acquittal of her former campaign finance chairman, David Rosen, doesn't mean she's in the clear.

"This is by no means an exoneration of Hillary's campaign," Paul told NewsMax. "In fact. it's an indictment of her campaign."

Calling Rosen a sacrificial lamb who was set up to take the fall for higher-ups, Paul said, "The jurors clearly didn't believe that he filed these false FEC reports on his own."

The jury’s decision in this case actually reflected the degree in which Rosen was responsible for the accounting, not whether the accounting was accurate.

U.S. District Judge A. Howard Matz dismissed one count before Rosen's trial started earlier this month. On Wednesday, Matz tossed out a second count, which - Paul told NewsMax - was based a false report filed by the campaign's treasurer, Andrew Grossman.

"When the judge dismissed that count of Rosen's indictment, that was a signal to the jury that he wasn't responsible," Paul explained.

"In fact, it wasn't Rosen's responsibility, which one of the jurors made clear, to ensure that the accounting was accurate," he said. "And if Rosen wasn't responsible for the third one, there was no reason for the jury to think he was responsible for the first two."

It could very well be that Senator Clinton has been exonerated as a result of the verdict of this trial, but there is still a question that remains unanswered, at least in my mind. If Rosen isn’t responsible for the accounting, then who is? Until that is resolved, there will be more questions than there are answers.

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