Hillary and Watergate---Balanced perspective requested
Last edited Sat Jan 25, 2014, 06:09 AM - Edit history (3)
I see no response to Conservative websites' claims of Hillary's "fraudulent"
Watergate brief.
Is this for real? What actually happened?
Here are the claims... (taken from a couple RW websites):
"FLASHBACK: HILLARY CLINTON FIRED FROM WATERGATE INVESTIGATION FOR ‘LYING, UNETHICAL BEHAVIOR’
The now-retired general counsel and chief of staff of the House Judiciary Committee, who supervised Hillary when she worked on the Watergate investigation, says Hillary’s history of lies and unethical behavior goes back farther ... and goes much deeper ... than anyone realizes.
Jerry Zeifman, a lifelong Democrat, supervised the work of 27-year-old Hillary Rodham on the committee. Hillary got a job working on the investigation at the behest of her former law professor, Burke Marshall, who was also Sen. Ted Kennedy’s chief counsel in the Chappaquiddick affair. When the investigation was over, Zeifman fired Hillary from the committee staff and refused to give her a letter of recommendation ... one of only three people who earned that dubious distinction in Zeifman’s 17-year career.
Why?
“Because she was a liar,” Zeifman said in an interview last week. “She was an unethical, dishonest lawyer. She conspired to violate the Constitution, the rules of the House, the rules of the committee and the rules of confidentiality.”
How could a 27-year-old House staff member do all that? She couldn’t do it by herself, but Zeifman said she was one of several individuals ... including Marshall, special counsel John Doar and senior associate special counsel (and future Clinton White House Counsel) Bernard Nussbaum ... who engaged in a seemingly implausible scheme to deny Richard Nixon the right to counsel during the investigation.
Why would they want to do that? Because, according to Zeifman, they feared putting Watergate break-in mastermind E. Howard Hunt on the stand to be cross-examined by counsel to the president. Hunt, Zeifman said, had the goods on nefarious activities in the Kennedy Administration that would have made Watergate look like a day at the beach... including Kennedy’s purported complicity in the attempted assassination of Fidel Castro. "
Robert Gehl on January 12, 2014
Hillary Clinton might have a pretty hefty scandal brewing.
It turns when she was an attorney working on the Watergate investigation, she was fired by her supervisor for “lying, unethical behavior.”
Jerry Zeifman, who said he is a lifelong Democrat, was a supervisor for 27-year-old Hillary Rodham on the committee. When the investigation was complete, Zeifman said he fired Hillary and refused to give her a recommendation.
“Because she was a liar,” Zeifman said. “She was an unethical, dishonest lawyer. She conspired to violate the Constitution, the rules of the House, the rules of the committee and the rules of confidentiality.
Dan Calabrese reports:
How could a 27-year-old House staff member do all that? She couldn’t do it by herself, but Zeifman said she was one of several individuals – including Marshall, special counsel John Doar and senior associate special counsel (and future Clinton White House Counsel) Bernard Nussbaum – who engaged in a seemingly implausible scheme to deny Richard Nixon the right to counsel during the investigation.
Why would they want to do that? Because, according to Zeifman, they feared putting Watergate break-in mastermind E. Howard Hunt on the stand to be cross-examined by counsel to the president. Hunt, Zeifman said, had the goods on nefarious activities in the Kennedy Administration that would have made Watergate look like a day at the beach – including Kennedy’s purported complicity in the attempted assassination of Fidel Castro.
The actions of Hillary and her cohorts went directly against the judgment of top Democrats, up to and including then-House Majority Leader Tip O’Neill, that Nixon clearly had the right to counsel. Zeifman says that Hillary, along with Marshall, Nussbaum and Doar, was determined to gain enough votes on the Judiciary Committee to change House rules and deny counsel to Nixon. And in order to pull this off, Zeifman says Hillary wrote a fraudulent legal brief, and confiscated public documents to hide her deception.
The brief involved precedent for representation by counsel during an impeachment proceeding. When Hillary endeavored to write a legal brief arguing there is no right to representation by counsel during an impeachment proceeding, Zeifman says, he told Hillary about the case of Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, who faced an impeachment attempt in 1970.
“As soon as the impeachment resolutions were introduced by (then-House Minority Leader Gerald) Ford, and they were referred to the House Judiciary Committee, the first thing Douglas did was hire himself a lawyer,” Zeifman said.
The Judiciary Committee allowed Douglas to keep counsel, thus establishing the precedent. Zeifman says he told Hillary that all the documents establishing this fact were in the Judiciary Committee’s public files. So what did Hillary do?
“Hillary then removed all the Douglas files to the offices where she was located, which at that time was secured and inaccessible to the public,” Zeifman said. Hillary then proceeded to write a legal brief arguing there was no precedent for the right to representation by counsel during an impeachment proceeding – as if the Douglas case had never occurred.
The brief was so fraudulent and ridiculous, Zeifman believes Hillary would have been disbarred if she had submitted it to a judge.
Zeifman says that if Hillary, Marshall, Nussbaum and Doar had succeeded, members of the House Judiciary Committee would have also been denied the right to cross-examine witnesses, and denied the opportunity to even participate in the drafting of articles of impeachment against Nixon.
Of course, Nixon’s resignation rendered the entire issue moot, ending Hillary’s career on the Judiciary Committee staff in a most undistinguished manner. Zeifman says he was urged by top committee members to keep a diary of everything that was happening. He did so, and still has the diary if anyone wants to check the veracity of his story. Certainly, he could not have known in 1974 that diary entries about a young lawyer named Hillary Rodham would be of interest to anyone 34 years later."
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Assuming Conservatives' claims are not valid, then what is the best response
to their accusations on this issue?
I was not able to find a contrasting response to these GOP/Conservative charges.
If this is not legit, then we need to be able to slap it down effectively
when it comes up, as it inevitably will, when Benghazi runs out of steam.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Clearly it was Hillary Clinton who tempted Adam into eating the apple.
WITHOUT HONOR (1996)
In 1973 Jerry Zeifman, chief counsel to the House Judiciary Committee, decided to keep a diary of the "extraordinary events" surrounding the impeachment of President Nixon. Now, Zeifman draws on that diary to give us Without Honor: Crimes of Camelot and the Impeachment of President Nixon, in which he accuses government officials of obstructing the impeachment inquiry. Their reason? Not any sympathy for the besieged Richard Nixon, but a desire to protect the reputation of John Kennedy. Zeifman's book will surely excite conspiracy buffs on the lookout for sinister coverups in high places. But those wary of such unsubstantiated theories (myself included) will find Zeifman's book an unconvincing, if imaginative, tale of intrigue.
Zeifman's theory goes something like this: John Doar, Hillary Rodham, Bernard Nussbaum and other Kennedy loyalists investigating Nixon obstruct his impeachment "to cover up malfeasance in high office throughout the Cold War." The scheming starlets are abetted by Peter Rodino, a weak, corrupt chairman of the House Judiciary Committee who is afraid that Nixon might expose his own Mafia ties. Rounding out the list of conspirators is Burke Marshall, Robert Kennedy's assistant attorney general, who orchestrates the bogus investigation in the hopes of keeping Nixon in office, which will, he believes, help Ted Kennedy win the White House. Using a variety of dubious legal strategies -- still with me? -- Doar and his co-conspirators do everything they can to avoid putting the president on trial, a strategy, they hope, that will prevent Nixon's lawyers from revealing the "crimes of Camelot."
The lack of evidence makes this theory hard to swallow. Zeifman's most reliable source -- his diary -- contains few revelations and seems little more than a chronicle of his suspicions and speculations. The book's jacket cover, which promises readers "truths even more startling than those brought out in Oliver Stone's movies 'Nixon' and 'JFK', " does not help matters. Perhaps the book's publicists forgot that "Nixon" and "JFK" were, after all, only Hollywood movies.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/books/reviews/matthewdallek.htm
The Right has been peddling Zeifman's tale since he wrote that book. Hillary, and the rest of the people mentioned above, were not fired. The committee was disbanded when Nixon resigned. Zeifman claims to be a Democrat, but he peddled his book on RW media. He has written articles on RW sites like Newsmax. Here's a sample of what this "Democrat" wrote.
Democrats Should Throw Pelosi Out
As a lifelong Democrat who has written a book in opposition to Hillary Clinton, and published articles in support of Obama’s nomination, I agree with the Op-Ed news article advocating that Obama should separate himself from Nancy Pelosi and press for her removal from office.
However, rather than advocate Mrs. Pelosi’s impeachment, I recommend that her removal be part of Sen. Obama’s commitment to changing the demonizing tactics of some of our party’s current leaders.
http://www.newsmax.com/Politics/nancy-pelosi-obama/2008/06/11/id/324069
He was no fan of Ted Kennedy either:
Senator Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., has disgraced himself and our party by misusing his position on the Senate Judiciary Committee to achieve self-serving partisan ends.
Kennedy was the architect of an unprecedented tactic: using filibusters to polarize the Senate along party lines thus denying the confirmation of qualified conservative judges. In Bush's first term the Senate Democrats used that tactic successfully against at least 10 nominees for judgeships on circuit courts.
Fortunately, Kennedy has failed in his partisan attempt to deny Judge Alito a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court ...
... in a badgering cross-examination of Judge Alito, Kennedy tried to portray him as an undercover enemy of equal rights for women and minorities.
For me, Kennedy's effort to impugn Judge Alito's integrity was reminiscent of Republican Senator Joe McCarthy, who tarred his victims with the brush of guilt by association.
This also appeared on Newsmax, but there's no current link to the article.
I just wanted to be able to respond to this bs when it comes up again,
as it inevitably will.
In summary,
HC and others were not fired as claimed, but stayed on until the committee was disbanded
after Nixon's resignation. (This would be a major lie by Zeifman, if corroborated, IMO).
Basically, it is the tabloid-level rantings (with a severe lack of evidence) and
elaborate descriptions of 1 guy (Zeifman) who had a conspiracy book out in 1996,
and is a known, longtime RW shill.
OK.
Good 2 know.
Don't believe in what you read in RW sites. They always have an axe to grind. In interviews Zeifman admitted that the committee was disbanded, and no, he didn't fire Hillary. Furthermore, what he wrote in his diary was just his opinion, not facts. He accused Hillary and a few others of trying to deny Nixon right to counsel to cover nefarious acts by the Kennedy administration. The guy may call himself a "Democrat", but he's just another conspiracy theorist. His story is preposterous. The only ones who believed him, and pushed his book, were those on the Right.
I just like to be able to offer some help to others so
THEY won't be deceived.
Thanks again.
I'm continuing to look for stuff as I write this.
So far, it's all "Hillary Lied" with no counterclaims.
Nothing newer than 2008, though.
But Jerry Zeifman's claims remain unchallenged online, as far as I can find,
except for a Daily Kos thread in 2008.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/04/02/488928/-UPDATE-Hillary-was-a-liar-and-disgraced-as-an-attorney-according-to-Jerry-Zeifman
The reason I want to nail this counter-argument down is I tend to engage rightwingers a lot,
and enjoy de-bunking their biggest lies.
Hey, it's a dirty job, but somebody's got to get in their faces and do it.
