Just as slavery and white supremacy were the tools of Democratic exploitation in the South, the boss system was the party’s tool of corruption and theft in cities throughout the country. The most famous Democratic bosses were Edward Crump, mayor of Memphis from 1910 to 1916; Tom Pendergast, who ran the Jackson County Democratic Club and controlled local politics in Kansas City, Missouri, from 1911 until his conviction for tax fraud in 1939; Frank Hague, mayor of Jersey City from 1917 to 1947; and Richard Daley, who was mayor of Chicago from 1955 to 1976.
The boss system may seem a relic of the Democratic past, but it continued well into the twentieth century. Bosses are widely credited with securing Harry Truman’s nomination for vice president at the 1944 Democratic convention. Chicago boss Richard Daley is said to have swung a very close election in JFK’s favor through use of an old boss tactic: dead people’s votes. Nixon honorably refused to contest the 1960 election even though he knew that the Illinois result had been rigged.
The boss system of the Democrats was a racket to take advantage of new immigrants who came to this country in waves starting in the late nineteenth century and continuing through the twentieth. Many immigrants came with nothing, speaking little or no English, and had no easy way to establish themselves in this country. Just as progressive Democrats found a way to control poor blacks under the guise of helping and providing for them, they also found a way to control poor immigrants under the same pretext.
Democratic bosses built their power by making themselves indispensable to these northern immigrants. At first the immigrants didn’t need the Democratic Party. They relied on private fraternal organizations that provided food to the destitute, instruction in speaking English, civic lessons to help immigrants assimilate, and also information about employment and sometimes training skills for construction and manufacturing jobs.
It wasn’t long, however, before Democratic Party bosses saw immigrant groups as sources of political power, whose votes could be acquired through patronage—that is, through tapping the city treasury. Dressed up as aid for the disadvantaged, or as social justice, such looting schemes were a way to gain votes, maintain power, and profit off the public purse. Democrats, in other words, found a way to do what Democrats have always done, namely, steal for their own benefit.
Once in power, Democratic bosses offered lucrative no-bid contracts to businesses in exchange for large contributions to the Democratic machines. They also handed out service contracts to their own cronies, padding the bill so that projects that should have cost a few thousand dollars ended up costing tens, even hundreds of thousands, of dollars by the time the bosses received their take.
In exchange, the immigrant had to agree to vote early and vote often. This is not a joke; Democrats perfected “repeater” techniques in which the same guy voted more than once. Even dead people showed up at the polls, judging by the resemblance of voter identification with the gravestones in local cemeteries.
How ironic that a party named “Democrat” would specialize in such perversions of the democratic process. Even today the party supports same-day voter registration and opposes voter identification requirements. These positions are intended to clear the way for illegals to vote. So the vote-rigging scam continues in a modified form.
The most famous—or infamous—of the Democratic bosses was Boss Tweed who ran the Tammany Hall racket in New York City. Few progressives today defend the Tweed ring. But Terry Golway in his book Machine Made makes the case that Tweed “helped create modern government and urban politics.”8 Golway means that Democratic dominance of cities today is largely maintained through Tweed-style operations. He’s right. My only disagreement with him is that he thinks that’s a good thing, and I think it’s a very bad thing.
Golway doesn’t sugarcoat Tweed, a former bookkeeper who built his early following by starting a local gang devoted to bribes and street-corner protection rackets. Eventually Tweed established a powerful fraternal group, the Society of St. Tammany. His title was Grand Sachem of the society. The name of the group alone is interesting because curiously Tammany’s name does not appear in the Catholic Church’s recognized roster of saints.
Tweed did not seek high public office for himself. He didn’t have to. He was much more powerful operating as a shadow government, appointing and controlling others who held the official positions. For twelve years, Tweed basically ran New York City. He established a one-party system; Republicans had no say. From his unassuming post as deputy street commissioner, Tweed appointed his proteges to important positions, such as city alderman and state Supreme Court justice.
Tweed built close ties to the Catholic Church, doling out small favors in exchange for the church’s blessing. This was important to Tweed because most of his supporters were Catholic immigrants fiercely loyal to the church. Tweed also built close ties to unions that were only too happy to cooperate in his system of shakedowns, kickbacks, and payouts. These unions remained corrupt long after the Tweed era, and well into the twentieth century.
In the middle of the century, for example, many unions were controlled or influenced by New York’s five mafia syndicates: the Gambino, Lucchese, Genovese, Colombo, and Bonnano families. Mob-controlled union bosses prospered through kickbacks and payoffs while ordinary workers got nothing. Union members who protested against corruption were regularly threatened and in some cases killed. This ugly history of American unions is generally downplayed in progressive historiography.
Many poor Irishmen loved Tweed, because of his highly publicized distribution of turkeys during Thanksgiving and other symbolic acts of charity. In reality, Tweed made sure the big bucks always flowed back in his own direction. He regularly raked in huge kickbacks from city contracts. Typical of the Tweed racket is the way he bilked New York taxpayers for the construction of the city courthouse.
The courthouse had been budgeted to cost $250,000. But Tweed paid a carpenter $350,000 for a month’s work that should have cost a few thousand dollars. He charged the city nearly $3 million for furniture and half a million for carpet. Hundreds of thousands were paid in “repairs” and “alterations” to a firm with close ties to Tweed. In the end, this single project ended up costing taxpayers $14 million.
Eventually the New York Times published a series of articles exposing the Tweed racket. Cartoonist Thomas Nast of Harper’s launched a one-man crusade against Tammany Hall, caricaturing the Tweed group as rapacious pigs with their snouts in the trough and Tweed supporters as ignorant, drunken Irishmen. Tweed disputed the charges with Hillary-style resolve, but over time the criticism took its toll.
Samuel Tilden, who was the chairman of the New York Democratic Party, was finally pressured to take action. Tilden knew that the corruption was not unique to Tweed; it ran deep within the ranks of the party. Tilden also knew that Tweed had gone too far, and Tweed’s identification with the Democratic Party could end up severely damaging the party. Tweed, therefore, would have to go.
So Tilden gathered evidence against Tweed. He took his time, however. Tilden’s inquiry lasted almost ten years. Historians have subsequently wondered why it took so long. The reason is that Tilden wanted to protect the Democratic Party that was vulnerable to being taken down with Tweed. Tilden wanted to take down Tweed but to protect the party. Indeed, he had an idea of how the Democrats could, over time, make Tweed’s type of racket legal.
Eventually Tweed was indicted on 120 charges ranging from forgery to grand larceny. He was found guilty and sentenced to twelve years in prison. Accompanied by several henchmen, Tweed fled to California and then to Spain. But someone recognized him there from one of Nast’s cartoons, and he was extradited to New York. He died in prison in 1878.
In bringing down Tweed, Tilden is credited with being one of the first “reform” Democrats. This “reform” tradition is closely associated with progressivism. Some historians gullibly assume that the progressives were all about ending Democratic corruption. In reality they were all about streamlining it, legalizing it,
and making it part of the Democratic way of doing business.
A Tammany Hall flunky, George Plunkett, whose sayings were collected and memorialized by writer William Riordan in a book titled Plunkett of Tammany Hall, candidly laid out the formula. Here we find Plunkett dispensing telling advice to his fellow Democrats. “Politicians do not have to steal to make a living because a politician can become a millionaire through honest graft.”9 I’m quite sure that Harry Reid has a copy of this book by his bedside, and three generations of Democrats have become rich following Plunkett’s advice.
Although Tweed’s reign lasted for just over a decade, the Tammany Hall domination of New York politics continued from the 1860s through the 1930s. It only ended with the Great Depression. The reason it ended is that it was incorporated into a bigger scheme. FDR in a sense took over the Tammany scheme and made it national. FDR’s famous tirades against the boss system in New York were not because he opposed the system in principle. He didn’t like local bosses because he wanted himself to become the big national boss.
FDR, however, didn’t completely end the boss system in American cities. He merely federalized its principles for the benefit of the national Democratic Party. FDR, it’s important to note, was already wealthy when he came to the White House; his goal in taking the boss racket to a national level was power, not personal enrichment.
The criminal genius of the Clintons is that they have taken the urban racket to national, even international, heights for personal gain, selling the prestige of the presidency during Bill’s tenure and selling American foreign policy itself during Hillary’s tenure as secretary of state. In this respect, the Clintons are in a corrupt league of their own.
Hillary famously claimed she and Bill were “dead broke” when they left the White House. Admittedly the Clintons had accumulated substantial legal bills because of their various scandals, from Whitewater to the Paula Jones sexual harassment case to the Monica Lewinsky investigation. Undoubtedly, their net worth took a hit when Bill had to pay Paula Jones $850,000 to go away—this one Hillary couldn’t make disappear without a settlement.
Yet Hillary had, prior to their departure, negotiated a $6 million book contract. Bill had already declared his intention to hit the speaker circuit for fees estimated in the $50,000 to 100,000 range. Hillary’s statement about being broke was derided, and rightly so.
Since they left the White House, however, the Clintons have increased their wealth at warp speed. They have gone from zero to $200 million in just a few years. Their foundation—which is basically an extension of the Clintons—has accumulated much more much faster.
How did the Clintons get all this money? They didn’t invent anything or start any businesses. They’ve been in politics all their lives, and government salaries aren’t that lucrative. Book contracts and speaking fees can hardly account for this kind of wealth. So where did it come from?
AN EARLY START
It came from cronyism, corruption, and theft, something the Clintons have practiced, with greater or lesser success, over the entirety of their political lives. The stakes may have been less in Arkansas, but that’s where they polished their skills, honing them even further at the White House. Let’s briefly review some of the early Clinton cons before focusing on their more recent corruption schemes at the Clinton Foundation.
Remember how Hillary invested $1,000 in 1979 in cattle futures and promptly netted $100,000? That’s a 10,000 percent profit in nine months! Hillary had no experience investing in commodities. Most people who make such investments lose money. Hillary explains her extraordinary success by saying “she followed the markets closely” and “did my best to educate myself about cattle futures and margin calls.”10
But in fact she didn’t make any margin calls. Rather, Robert “Red Bone,” a Chicago-based broker who previously worked for—and was closely connected to—Tyson Foods, handled her brokerage account. Red Bone was a slippery character; just a year earlier, he had had his brokerage license pulled for a year by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange for allocating trades to investors after determining the winners and losers, a corrupt practice known as “straddling.”
This is how Red Bone seems to have orchestrated Hillary’s big score. Moreover, there was something very odd about Hillary’s mode of investing with Red Bone. Normally investors are required to keep a minimum amount of cash in their accounts so that they can cover declines in the prices of the commodities futures they own. Hillary’s $1,000 investment was well below the $12,000 deposit required by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. In effect, Red Bone was covering for her so Hillary made money while taking no risk.
With the Clintons, there’s always a payback. Here the payback went to Red Bone’s former employer, “Big Daddy” Don Tyson, the chicken mogul of Arkansas. Tyson is the one who connected Red Bone and Hillary. And Tyson had important business before her husband, who had just been elected governor. During Clinton’s gubernatorial tenure Tyson benefited from millions of dollars in tax breaks, state loans, and the relaxation of environmental regulations.
In short, the $100,000 payoff to the Clintons was a bribe. Tyson wanted something from Bill, so they figured out a way to get money to Hillary. Now $100,000 may not seem like a very big payoff, but it was a handsome sum for the Clintons, representing more than their joint income for that year. So Tyson made off like a bandit, and the Clintons got their first taste of how to profit handsomely from their political influence.11
Once the Clintons got to the White House, they put up just about everything in there for sale. Want a job? How much will you give us for it? Want to jump up and down on the bed in the Lincoln Bedroom? Here’s our price. If you’re willing to fork over an appropriate sum, you can sit at the president’s table at the next state dinner or go jogging with him. Want a presidential pardon for your drug conviction or tax evasion? How much are you willing to pay?
Throughout the Clinton presidency, donors to the Clinton campaigns, the Clinton Foundation, or the Democratic Party were offered such perks as: two seats on Air Force One; six seats at private White House dinners; seats to White House events and ceremonies; spots on official delegations abroad; appointments to boards and commissions; dinners in the White House mess; and overnight stays in the Lincoln Bedroom. People who had never previously met Bill could, for an appropriate sum, dine at his table or go running with him.
Now it is customary for presidents to invite friends and donors to the White House. The Clintons, however, took this practice way beyond acceptable boundaries. Commerce Secretary Ron Brown frequently complained that he had become “a m*th*rf*ck*ng tour guide for Hillary” because foreign trade missions had become nothing more than payback trips for Clinton donors. The Clintons arranged for one fat-cat donor without any war experience to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery.12
They essentially converted White House hospitality into a product that was for sale. They had unofficial tags on each perk, and essentially donors could decide how much to give by perusing the Clinton price list. In a revealing statement, Bill Clinton said on March 7, 1997, “I don’t believe you can find any evidence of the fact that I changed government policy solely because of a contribution.”13 Here we see the business ethic of the man; he seems to think it perfectly acceptable to change policy as long as it is only partly because of a contribution.
Remember Travelgate? In May 1993, the entire Travel Office of the White House was fired. The move came as a surprise because these people had been handling travel matters for a long time. The official word was that they were incompetent. But a General Accounting Office inquiry showed that the Clintons wanted to turn over the travel business to her friends the Thomasons.
Once the scandal erupted, Hillary, in typical Clinton evasive style, claimed to know nothing about it. She said she had “no role in the decision to terminate the employments,” that she “did not know of the origin of the decision,” and that she did not “direct that any action be taken by anyone with regard to the travel office.�
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But then a memo surfaced that showed Hillary was telling her usual lies. Written by Clinton aide David Watkins to chief of staff Mack McClarty, the memo noted that five days before the firings, Hillary had told Watkins, “We need those people out—we need our people in—we need the slots.” Watkins wrote that everyone knew “there would be hell to pay” if they failed to take “swift and decisive action in conformity with the First Lady’s wishes.”14
Independent counsel Richard Ray concluded after his investigation that Hillary had provided “factually false” testimony to the GAO, the Independent Counsel, and Congress. He decided, however, not to prosecute her. This would be the first, but not the last, time Hillary’s crimes would go unchecked by the long arm of the law. Just as Bill kept up his predatory behavior toward women because he was never arrested for it, Hillary kept up her moneymaking crime schemes because she was never indicted for any of them. In essence, the Clintons’ behavior was encouraged by lack of accountability.
THE GREAT PARDON SALE
In the waning days of the Clinton administration, Bill pardoned a long list of drug traffickers, fugitives, tax cheats, relatives, and friends who had fallen afoul of the law. The details can be found in Barbara Olson’s The Final Days. As Olson documents, some of these crooks were longtime Clinton and Democratic Party donors. Others became new donors—following their exoneration, they turned around and dispatched large sums of cash to the Clintons, the Clinton Library, or other Clinton causes.
The Clintons, for example, pardoned drug kingpin Carlos Vignali and also Almon Glenn Braswell, an herbal remedy magnate convicted of mail fraud and perjury. Braswell was a millionaire who supported Democratic Party projects, and Vignali’s family had funneled large amounts of money to the Democratic Party since Carlos’s imprisonment in 1994. Moreover, Hillary’s brother Hugh Rodham pressed for the pardons and received $400,000 in fees for helping to secure them. Hillary said she had no idea that Hugh stood to gain from the deal. She called on him to return the money, but Hugh didn’t think that was a good idea.
Hillary's America: The Secret History of the Democratic Party Page 26
