| Printed from JudicialWatch.org Dec 4, 1997 |
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CLINTON COMMERCE SECRETARY WAS SLATED FOR DEPOSITION WEEK THAT HE DIED PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW REVEALS EVIDENCE THAT WOUND FOUND ON BROWN'S HEAD WAS UNEXPLAINED Friend Nolanda Hill Believes Death Needs to Be Investigated Judicial Watch, the only entity that has, in its case, taken the sworn testimony of John Huang, which sparked the campaign finance scandal, had also asked the Court to depose Ron Brown, the former Clinton Commerce Department Cabinet Secretary who orchestrated the sale of seats on trade missions in exchange for large campaign contributions to the Democratic Party and Clinton-Gore campaigns, among other illegal acts. The Court in the lawsuit which exposed the scandal has stated that had Ron Brown lived, he would have been deposed by Judicial Watch. Ironically, Judicial Watch had inadvertently noticed Brown for deposition the week that he was to travel to and later die in Bosnia-Croatia, but the Reno/Clinton Justice Department, which represents the Commerce Department in Judicial Watch's case, asked for a delay, which was granted as a courtesy to a cabinet secretary. Judicial Watch did not object to the postponement. " In a twist of fate, had Brown been ordered to be deposed that week, he might still be alive," stated Larry Klayman, Chairman of Judicial Watch. Nolanda Hill, the former business partner and close friend of Brown, has told major news networks that she believes that "Ron's" death needs to be investigated, based on two facts. First, Page 1 of 2 Pagesshe related that two weeks before Brown died, he had a meeting with Clinton in the White House, where he told the President of his intentions to cut a plea agreement with the independent counsel that had been investigating him and his son, Michael Brown, for bribery and other offenses. The plea would have meant cooperating to tell everything Brown knew about the scandals. Clinton, accordingly to Hill's account of what Brown told her, reacted with a terse, "that's nice," sitting in an armchair, bare feet up on a stool and arms folded. Second, after Brown's plane went down, she was called by Togo West, the Secretary of the Army, Brown's friend, and told "the military was looking for the bodies in the water (i.e., Adriatic Sea)." The official explanation has been that the plane hit a mountain. Hill believes that the death should be investigated, given these occurrences. Yesterday, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review revealed that a Lieutenant Colonel and forensic pathologist in the U.S. Air Force has evidence that the wound found on Ron Brown's head is the shape of a .45 caliber bullet. The body of Ron Brown, contrary to normal Air Force procedures, was never autopsied. When Ron Brown died he was subject to an independent counsel investigation, which was then closed. The case was transferred to the Reno/Clinton Justice Department. After reports on PBS's "Frontline" and the New Yorker magazine that Ron and Michael Brown were part of a bribery scheme of the former cabinet secretary, Reno then struck a plea agreement with Michael Brown, allowing him to plead only to a misdemeanor, with 3 years probation. The only cooperation that Reno asked for, and received from Michael Brown, according to the Associated Press, was an agreement to testify against Nolanda Hill, who had also been implicated in alleged illegality with Ron Brown. Judicial Watch challenged this plea, and has appealed the lower court's acquiescence to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. "As a result of what would appear to be a sham plea agreement with Michael Brown -- where he was not charged with serving as a conduit of bribes to his father, but let off the hook only with a promise to help effectively silence Nolanda Hill (who has expressed her willingness to reveal everything she knows about the Clinton scandals), and this new evidence from a U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel and forensic pathologist, it is clear that the independent counsel investigation of Ron and Michael Brown should be reopened to investigate the circumstances around Ron Brown's death. Had he lived, Ron Brown would have likely provided key evidence about one of the two biggest Clinton Administration scandals (Filegate is the other), the campaign finance scandal," stated Larry Klayman, Chairman of Judicial Watch. "Reno and the Clinton Justice Department are obviously not interested in revealing this evidence, but instead with suppressing it," concluded Klayman. This same conclusion has been reached by many others, including The New York Times editorial page, The Wall Street Journal editorial page, Investor's Busniness Daily, Bob Woodward of The Washington Post, and William Safire, among a growing number of experts who now see an apparent cover-up at the Reno/Clinton Justice Department. | |