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Date Posted: 21:59:39 01/06/09 Tue
Author: Bob O. Link
Subject:

RICO IN PARADISE presents...LEON PANETTA

RICO IN PARADISE

presents...

LEON PANETTA

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January 5, 2009

Obama picks Leon Panetta to head CIA

By NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON � Two Democratic officials say President-elect Barack Obama has chosen former Clinton White House chief of staff Leon Panetta to run the CIA.

Panetta was a surprise pick for the post, with no experience in the intelligence world. An Obama transition official and another Democrat disclosed his nomination on a condition of anonymity since it was not yet public.

Panetta was director of the Office of Management and Budget and a longtime congressman from California.

He served on the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan panel that released a report at the end of 2006 with dozens of recommendations for the reversing course in the Iraq war...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090105/ap_on_go_pr_wh/cia_director

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November 19, 1999

Estate lobbied White House

Ex-Gov. John Waihee urged
officials to kill legislation that would
penalize charities' trustees
for excessive pay

By Rick Daysog, Star-Bulletin

Ousted trustees of the Bishop Estate paid former Gov. John Waihee to lobby top White House officials in an effort to protect their hefty paychecks, according to internal trust documents obtained by the Star-Bulletin.

Waihee met with President Bill Clinton's then-deputy chief of staff, Erskine Bowles, at the White House in late 1995 to discuss the so-called intermediate sanctions law, which penalizes trustees of charitable trusts who receive excessive pay.

Waihee, a longtime Clinton supporter, also contacted then-Treasury Department Deputy Lawrence Summers on the trustees' behalf while his law partner, former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, approached Clinton's then-chief of staff, Leon Panetta.

The trustees' congressional lobbying had been controversial for several years. But until now their efforts to influence the intermediate sanctions legislation at the White House level, along with Waihee's role in the campaign, have been largely unknown.

And while the trustees' lobbying eventually fizzled, critics said it demonstrates the lengths to which the ousted trustees went to protect their compensation, and lays bare the 115-year-old charitable trust's political connections in the nation's capitol.

"It's almost unbelievable that they would spend this much money and go through these efforts to serve their personal interests at the expense of the interests of the trust's beneficiaries," said Randall Roth, University of Hawaii law professor and co-author of the 1997 "Broken Trust" article which prompted Gov. Ben Cayetano to order a state investigation of the estate....

The estate previously disclosed that it paid Waihee's firm -- Washington, D.C.-based Verner Liipfert Bernhard McPherson and Hand -- more than $900,000 between 1995 and 1998 to lobby Congress on the intermediate sanctions measure....

The interim board has cited the ousted trustees' lobbying as one of several alleged breaches of trust in its suit to permanently remove Wong and Henry Peters from the multibillion-dollar estate.

The temporary trustees have charged that Peters and Wong jeopardized the estate's tax-exempt status by taking excessive pay and by neglecting the trust's core educational mission.

The interim trustees are retired Adm. Robert Kihune, American Savings Bank executive Constance Lau, former Iolani School headmaster David Coon, retired Honolulu police Chief Francis Kealoa and local attorney Ronald Libkuman.

Probate Judge Kevin Chang removed Wong and Peters on an interim basis May 7 after the Internal Revenue Service threatened to revoke the estate's nonprofit status.

According to internal documents obtained by the Star-Bulletin, the former trustees' lobbying was more extensive than previously disclosed.

The documents also show that ousted trustees sought to eliminate the intermediate sanctions law, contradicting their public statements that they supported the legislation.

'Everyone but the pope'

A Sept. 22, 1995, memo from Waihee and Verner Liipfert staffer Denis Dwyer indicated that the estate initially sought to "kill" the bill but was unable to do so due to a barrage of negative stories about nonprofits in the national media. That year, longtime United Way President William Aramonywas convicted of defrauding the charity. Waihee and Dwyer later developed a backup position to "minimize the adverse impacts" on the estate....

According to the estate's documents, Verner Liipfert's lobbying team consisted of 15 lawyers and consultants, including Waihee and former state official Norma Wong.

The campaign included dozens of telephone calls, letters and meetings with Sens. Robert Dole, William Roth and David Pryor and House Ways and Means chairman Bill Archer.

The Verner Liipfert team also enlisted the assistance of Goldman Sachs Group to lobby former New York Sen. Alfonse D'Amato. Bishop Estate is a large shareholder in the Goldman Sachs investment banking firm.

"It appears that the former trustees lobbied everyone but the pope himself on this issue," said Deputy Attorney General Hugh Jones...

Legislation's sole opponent

At times the Bishop Estate's hard-sell approach appeared to backfire. After Waihee placed a telephone call to former Treasury Deputy Secretary Summers, staff attorney Kathy Livingston abruptly told the lobbyists that the department would not support the estate's position on the intermediate sanctions bill, according to a February 1996 memo by Dwyer.

Summers' boss at the Treasury Department was former Goldman Sachs manager Robert Rubin, whose stock in Goldman Sachs was insured by Bishop Estate. Summers succeeded Rubin as head of the Treasury Department in July.

The estate failed to halt the legislation because it was the only charity that opposed the measure. Stung by the United Way controversy, the mainland philanthropic community banded together and urged passage of the intermediate sanctions legislation because such a law would help restore public confidence.

The bill was signed by Clinton in July 1996...

http://archives.starbulletin.com/1999/11/19/news/story1.html

# # #

A Chronology: Key Moments In
The Clinton-Lewinsky Saga

1995

June 1995: Monica Lewinsky, 21, comes to the White House as an unpaid intern in the office of Chief of Staff Leon Panetta.

November 1995: Lewinsky and President Bill Clinton begin a sexual relationship, according to audiotapes secretly recorded later by Linda Tripp.

December 1995: Lewinsky moves into a paid position in the Office of Legislative Affairs, handling letters from members of Congress. She frequently ferries mail to the Oval Office....

1997

August 1997: Tripp encountered Kathleen Willey coming out of Oval Office "disheveled. Her face red and her lipstick was off." Willey later alleged that Clinton groped her. Clinton's lawyer, Bill Bennett said in the article that Linda Tripp is not to be believed....

October 1997: Lewinsky interviews with U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Bill Richardson for a low level public affairs position.

December 1997: Lewinsky leaves the Pentagon.

Dec. 8: Betty Currie, Clinton's personal secretary, asks presidential pal Vernon Jordan to help Lewinsky find a job in New York....

January 1998

Jan. 7, 1998: Lewinsky files an affidavit in the Jones case in which she denies ever having a sexual relationship with President Clinton.

Jan. 9: Tripp delivers the tapes to her lawyer, Jim Moody.

Jan. 12: Linda Tripp contacts the office of Whitewater Independent Counsel Ken Starr to talk about Lewinsky and the tapes she made of their conversations. The tapes allegedly have Lewinsky detailing an affair with Clinton and indicate that Clinton and Clinton friend Vernon Jordan told Lewinsky to lie about the alleged affair under oath.

Jan. 13, 1998: Tripp, wired by FBI agents working with Starr, meets with Lewinsky at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel bar in Pentagon City, Va., and records their conversation....

Jan. 16, 1998: Starr contacts Attorney General Janet Reno to get permission to expand his probe. Reno agrees and submits the request to a panel of three federal judges. The judges agree to allow Starr to formally investigate the possibility of subornation of perjury and obstruction of justice in the Jones case. Tripp and Lewinsky meet again at the Ritz-Carlton. FBI agents and U.S. attorneys intercede and take Lewinsky to a hotel room, where they question her and offer her immunity. Lewinsky contacts her mother, Marcia Lewis, who travels down from New York City by train. Lewis contacts her ex-husband, who calls attorney William Ginsburg, a family friend. Ginsburg advises her not to accept the immunity deal until he learns more....

Jan. 19, 1998: Lewinsky's name surfaces in an Internet gossip column, the Drudge Report, which mentions rumors that Newsweek had decided to delay publishing a piece on Lewinsky and the alleged affair.

Jan. 21, 1998: Several news organizations report the alleged sexual relationship between Lewinsky and Clinton. Clinton denies the allegations as the scandal erupts....

Continues at...

http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1998/resources/lewinsky/timeline/

# # #

From "RICO IN PARADISE presents...LEON PANETTA" at:
http://www.kycbs.net/RIP-Leon-Panetta.htm

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