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Sunday, May 15, 2005 4:55 p.m. EDT
Indictments Mount for Hillary Aides
A mounting number of aides, advisers and fund-raisers for New York Sen. Hillary Clinton have faced criminal prosecution in recent months, conjuring up memories of her ethically challenged past just as Democrats begin to focus on the former first lady as their probable 2008 presidential nominee.
Though press coverage of the trial of Sen. Clinton's finance director, David Rosen, was sparse last week, the case has brought attention to the prosecutions of at least three more Clinton fund-raisers.
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And that's on top of the plea bargain reached with the Justice Department in March by a senior foreign policy adviser to the former first lady.
Five members of Mrs. Clinton's inner circle now face indictment or trial, or have pleaded guilty to an array or crimes, with the news of the prosecutorial deluge emerging in just the last few months.
David Rosen, who served as Mrs. Clinton's finance director, is currently on trial in Los Angeles on charges that he cooked the books for her 2000 Senate campaign. If convicted on the three counts of fraud cited in his indictment, Rosen faces 15 years in jail and/or $250,000 in fines.
James Levin, who was a top fund-raiser for Mr. and Mrs. Clinton and served as the White House liaison for other fund-raisers during Mrs. Clinton's 2000 Senate race, revealed on Thursday that he was cooperating with prosecutors in Rosen's case after being accused of defrauding the Chicago public school system.
Raymond Reggie, who helped raise $100,000 for Mrs. Clinton 2000 Senate campaign, was indicted in April on bank fraud and conspiracy charges. In exchange for leniency, Reggie agreed to tape-record Clinton campaign insiders about illicit fund-raising activities. He faces up to five years in jail and fines.
Aaron Tonken, who helped organize several fund-raisers for Mrs. Clinton that collected over $1.5 million, agreed in 2002 to cooperate with the FBI investigation into her Senate campaign.
Called "my good friend" by Mrs. Clinton in a video Tonken used to impress celebrities, the key witness lavished gifts on aides to the former first lady and visited the White House seven times in 2000 alone. Mr. Tonken is currently serving a 63-month jail sentence. The Justice Department has yet to release other details of his plea arrangement.
Sandy Berger, who served as Mr. Clinton's national security adviser and who continues to advise Mrs. Clinton, pleaded guilty in April to the theft and destruction of top secret documents related to the 9/11 Commission investigation. Because of the political sensitivity of Berger's crime, he was let off with a $10,000 fine and a three-year suspension of his security clearance.
As recently as February, Berger was advising Mrs. Clinton, with the New York Times revealing that he helped her prepare an address to a national security conference in Germany.
Since taking office, Sen. Clinton's star had been on the rise, with Democrats encouraged over polls suggesting she had shed her reputation for ethical controversy. But the renewed swirl of scandal, punctuated by one indictment after another, "has some top party bosses feeling nervous," the U.K. Observer reported on Sunday.
"This sort of thing just serves to remind people of the Nineties scandals like Whitewater and the Monica Lewinsky affair," University of California political scientist Shaun Bowler told the paper.
Bowler added, "Some Democrats have short memories - but I don't think that a lot of American voters do."
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