Holy Fraudulent Legal Briefs, Batman!

Here is a link to Zeifman's own site. It seems credible to me and reinforces the notions of Clinton's penchant for secrecy, desire to win, and dishonesty.

http://www.jzeifman.com/

It's an interesting story, and quite damaging if true, but it does seem that this would need confirmation by a more mainstream and reputable news source to be considered a real story. The lack of such coverage means that the mainstream news organizations either 1) don't know about this story or 2) have investigated and find it without merit. In the case of 2), unfortunately, they don't usually write a story just to say a story is without merit (unless they are the Washington Post). Perhaps you should send it to factcheck.org or someone similar and ask them to investigate.

This has to be presumed false until proven true.

The timing and tone make it sound like one of those artful right-wing hit jobs.

Why did we never hear of this before?

What reason do we have to believe this source? How is it the Republican hit machine failed to turn this up when trying to destroy Hilary in the 1990s?

Even if the claim truly is--and I'd assume it's not--from a person who was once Hilary's boss, how do we know he wasn't embittered by, perhaps, seeking high appointment from Bill Clinton and getting turned down?

I'm for Obama, but we must be very wary of hatchet jobs on all our candidates, Hilary included. Presume Hilary innocent until evidence shows otherwise. And the evidence will have to come from credible sources such as colleagues who served with her on the Watergate committee and have direct experience of her performance then.

Freepers. National Review. Newsmax. If they believe these charges, we have every reason to doubt them.

What's needed is for mainstream media to interview Hilary's colleagues from the Watergate Committee.

Remember Nixon had friends on the Watergate Committee, including Fred Thompson, who leaked information to the White House. Sources who served on the Watergate Committee are not necessarily reliable.

The searches that might be most profitable would identify members of the committee staff and track them down for first-hand accounts.

More impropriety:

Hillary attacked 12-year-old's credibility in rape case

newsday.com — But there is a little-known episode Clinton doesn't mention in her standard campaign speech in which those two principles collided. In 1975, a 27-year-old Hillary Rodham, acting as a court-appointed attorney, attacked the credibility of a 12-year-old girl in mounting an aggressive defense for an indigent client accused of rape in Arkansas...

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/ny-usark245589997feb24,0,2934440,print.story

Check out Calabrese's other columns.

One attacks Obama and Hilary for aiding terrorists.

Another endorses McCain.

Don't be taken in.

Oh, yes ... folks should definitely "proceed with caution" on this one.

Zeifman's own blog is quite, um, sketchy. The most resent post being a 'dream interview' with Eleanor Roosevelt attacking the Black Caucus and including sentences like this one: "If Senator Baraka were to advocated it
today he would alienate so many special interest groups that he would probably lose
the Democratic nomination."

That's not to say that he didn't hold the position he says or even that his account may not be true (although why all of the anti-Hillary folks over the years wouldn't have gotten it is a huge mystery?), but based on Zeifman's current statements, it would really require some credible corroboration from more **currently**-reliable source.

If Obama were using a kitchen-sink strategy, something like this would be dandy ..... but THANK GOD, he's not. No one, even Hillary, should be hit with accusations like this unless they appear to be valid.

This stuff is pointless. We do not need to go back when she was a very young person. Who knows what happened. Let us stick to the present.

We know that she is a habitual liar. Her Fairy Tale about her being the death defying Heroine of Tuzla, who fended of deadly snipers is all the proof we need. Of course we all know that she always hated NAFTA, and she despised the Puppet Master of The Right Wing Conspiracy, and Rupert Murdoch, Right. Well we do believe her on those claims, don't we!

No need to try and gild the lily with ancient rumors.

What's kinda funny is that there is all of this information out there about the Clintons. Does anyone believe, based on the behavior that we have all seen, that this would NOT be true? I call a spade a spade and everything I have seen with my own eyes is proof enough for me. All character issues with the Clintons. Its difficult to be a whistle blower, usually they get demoted and discredited trying to tell the truth! It happens daily in Washington.

In 1973 and 1974, Senator Kennedy and Professor Marshall supposedly used their clout to position and control Ms. Rodham on the committee staff? She did what they wanted, and she knows it?

1n 2008, Senator Kennedy and most of his clan feel free to come out against Senator Clinton?

I don't think those pieces go in the same conspiracy.

I would be glad to see the candidate's record in her Watergate work checked out, but I don't think this source counts as providing that vetting.

I agree with most people.

I have asked TPM to delete the diary since I don't have that power to do it on my own:

Hey TPM:

I should have looked into the author of this article a little further than I did, and as many of the commenter have pointed out, this story looks to be a right-wing fantasy which has no basis in reality. I made a mistake in posting it.

I’m not a fan of HRC, but the truth should be what takes her down.

Any chance you can delete this diary?

Again, my apologies.

I didn't do my homework on this one.

Ok,
But how refreshing is it to see Obama supporters, en masse, NOT jump on a story about Clinton?!

I haven't seen the same restraint or reason from many fervent Clinton supporters, who seem to jump on the slightest hint of something bad about Obama.

Bravo guys! Taking the high road is certainly the intellegent thing to do.

Thanks thejoshuablog for being honest about this.

Now if only certain Clinton boosters would be honest about those lists of "OBAMA LIES" and other crap they cut 'n' paste from journalistically dubious sites.

The veracity of the Zeifman claims was taken up by Ron Rosenbaum in his Slate.com piece, "Hillary I vs. Hillary II: Richard Nixon returns from the grave to haunt Clinton and remind us of the costs of unresolved history."

http://www.slate.com/id/2184373/

It's an interesting discussion of Nixon, the legacy of JFK, and circumstances surrounding Watergate.

Newsday has an excellent article up today on HRC and the Watergate committee:

"During Watergate probe, a 'star' on the rise"

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/politics/ny-uswate0302,0,4608515,full.story

It provides some interesting comments on her work ethic and character from some of the people that worked with her at the time. Some great quotes, too.

John Labovitz is quoted in the Newsday article from March 2:

"Nowadays, a lot of what we did would be done with a computer," says John Labovitz, who researched constitutional issues for the committee. "But back then it was all collected on white index cards ... You had to be objective, not to color the facts, and her job was to reconcile all those index cards into "proposed statements for inclusion" that would be put in binders for the committee members. She had a supervisory role."

He's the one that Zeifman mentions:

"John Labovitz apologized to me for the fact that months ago he and Hillary had lied to me [to conceal rules changes and dilatory tactics.] Labovitz said, "That came from Yale." I said, "You mean Burke Marshall [Senator Ted Kennedy's chief political strategist, with whom Hillary regularly consulted in violation of House rules.] Labovitz said, "Yes." His apology was significant to me, not because it was a revelation but because of his contrition."

I would imagine that Labovitz would be the one to talk to about whether Zeifman's account is credible.

WATERGATE STORY ABOUT HILLARY'S UNETHICAL BEHAVIOR DURING INVESTIGATION NOT BOGUS!!

PUBLISHED IN THE TIMES:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article1719879.ece

CARL BERSTEIN, the reporter who BROKE the Watergate Scandal, has published a 640page biography of Hillary alledging unethical behavior on her part during the Watergate investigation.

HILLARY-WATERGATE NOT BOGUS!!!

I think J. Zeifman, is more accuratly describing the current Geo Bush. Don't know if he "misspoke" or misremembered.

I also agree that he is a Ann Colter wannabee, but doubt his book will sell.

The termites are coming out of the woodwork.

P.s there are no Obama lies, just misrememberances.

FYI: Here's a 1996 article from the Washington Post describing an earlier book from Zeifman:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/books/reviews/matthewdallek.htm

WITHOUT HONOR
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.