Reply #10: Swiftboating Bill Clinton: Paula Jones' mysterious 501(c)3 benefactor = secret $50,000

[L. Coyote]

Paula Jones' mysterious benefactor
Who's behind a secret $50,000 donation to the legal fund of Clinton's accuser?
BY JONATHAN BRODER AND MURRAY WAAS
http://www.salon.com/news/1998/03/cov_12newsb.html

... a secret $50,000 contribution ... to Jones' legal war chest came from the Washington, D.C.-based Fund for a Living American Government, or FLAG ... William Lehrfeld, refused to confirm or deny ... "I think that individuals and organizations should be able to support Ms. Jones with their privacy being assured,"

... however, FLAG is required by law to allow public review ... the year that the organization secretly contributed $50,000 ... disclosure statement said only that the organization had paid out a total of $175,000 that year "in support of human and civil rights, secured by law via payments to lawyers and law firms." The disclosure statement said FLAG's primary goals were "to assist the Heritage Foundation" -- a Washington-based conservative think tank -- and also to promote the "ideals of limited government."
... Lehrfeld has built a career out of doing tax-related legal work for a number of conservative foundations and political organizations, including the Sarah Scaife Foundation -- controlled by Pittsburgh newspaper publisher Richard Mellon Scaife ...

The secrecy surrounding FLAG's $50,000 donation to Paula Jones raises questions about the identities of the people or groups that are contributing to Jones' legal fund and whether they may be using middlemen to funnel money tax-free to Clinton's accuser. The organization's 501(c)3 tax-exempt status allows contributors to make donations tax-free. ...

Jonathan Broder is Salon's Washington correspondent. Murray Waas is a Washington reporter whose articles have appeared in the New Yorker, the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times and the New Republic.