Hillary's Having a Bad Week: Part I

So, first, Senator Clinton has a major fundraiser from her 2000 senatorial campaign indicted for campaign fraud (an incorrect filing with the election commission) earlier this week. That's damning enough, even if it were some kind of mistake or some mis-filing that had no real effect on anything. But it looks like the fraud may have been enought to win her the election.

Remember the situation in the summer of 2000. Hillary Clinton was running against Republican Rick Lazio. Hillary had no problems with soft money...but had always said that soft money was a bad thing. She also did not have nearly as much in hard money. Rick, on the other hand, was just awash in hard money. Not from New Yorkers, but people all over the country really didn't want another Clinton in a national office. And all of the Clinton-haters sent checks of $1000 each.

So Rick made a bold move...he challenged Hillary to 'put her money where her mouth was' and ban soft money for the remainder of the campaign. After all, he was in the better position if he got her to agree.

Eventually, she did agree. But, as is now coming out in the wake of the indictment, soon after she agreed, she suddenly had access to $280,000 of hard money due to her aide's undereporting of the actual cost of a major event. The law states that 40% of an event of this type's cost must be paid with hard money. Had he reported the event's actual cost of $1.2 million rather than the underreporting of $400,000, Hillary would have been in a tough position, financially (a reminder...in a senate campaign $280,000 is a lot of money).

Hillary must know that the indictment, while not directly at her, definitely implies that she had knowledge of the fraud. As anyone in politics knows, $280,000 campaign decisions are not made without the candidate's knowledge. Hillary is probably having trouble sleeping due to worries about any evidence that might legally implicate her.