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| For Immediate Release | |
| Mar 3, 1999 | Contact: Press Office 202-646-5172 |
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Tom Flocco is a school teacher in Pennsylvania. He is the client of Judicial Watch who sued State Farm for paying the Clinton’s legal fees without an alleged reasonable basis or policy coverage PENNSYLVANIA TALK RADIO AIRWAVES HAVE BEEN AWASH WITH FUROR OVER SPECTER REMOVAL VOTE SELLOUT IN THE SENATE AS CALLERS QUESTION SON’S POSSIBLE UNCHARGED FELONY AND CLINTON TIES TO PHILADELPHIA U.S. ATTORNEY’S OFFICE; PRESS CITINGS OF CLINTON PRE-IMPEACHMENT It all started when Arlen Specter announced on Wednesday before the vote to remove William Jefferson Clinton on Friday in the Senate that he would follow the Scottish rule of law and vote"not proved" because the Senate had conducted a sham trial. No one seemed to question that we are not in Scotland and many keystone state citizens began to smell a rat as the Friday vote approached. You see, Arlen Specter gained a statewide reputation as a tough district attorney in Philadelphia before his Senate stint and the whole country took notice of his tough questioning of Anita Hill in the Senate Judiciary Hearings which resulted in the confirmation of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court. And no one on television except John McLaughlin questioned why Specter did not take to the airwaves on a daily basis protesting the fraudulent trial stunt perpetrated by the Senate if he felt so strongly about it that he would desert his party and acquit the president. But the fact is that the senator waited until a couple days before the final vote to warn us that he was becoming a Scotsman in order to support his president--a president that had been connected to a variety of schemes, appointments and legal oversight laxity which benefited them both. And it will be the choice not to disguise his reason to acquit by publicly protesting his sham trial that has led citizens to find some of the real reasons for his action. The Friday drive-time WPHTam-1210-Philadelphia radio show hosted by the imminently fair and impartial attorney, Michael Smirconish, had been slammed the previous evening with protest calls regarding Specter, as had been the Rollye James-hosted 10 till 1 radio show on WWDBfm-96.5. However, Specter received word from his friends in Philly that he was taking a beating on the airwaves so he decided to take calls on Smirconish’s show at 5:45 pm. It lasted just a few minutes as the host relayed very tough questions with Specter literally being hooted off the air with the "weasel" and "spineless" epithets. During the broadcast, callers mentioned Specter’s son not being charged in a hushed up felony charge involving the fencing of stolen goods and whether some high judicial influence was exerted in keeping it quiet so as not to embarrass the senator with such an important vote approaching. Smirconish acknowledged that there had been talk but quickly changed the direction of the conversation. But that was not the only thing. For a simple inspection on computer search engines reveals other strange and highly dubious machinations involving Senator Specter which, on the face, might have been problematic enough to warrant a "Scottish shading" of his vote of conscience to support his hidden-but-connected benefactor, William Jefferson Clinton--the slickest political operator this republic has ever known. But then he had so many elections to learn and then ply his trade! On May 22, 1998, at the apex of the Lewinsky scandal, President Clinton announced his intention to nominate Joan Specter, the senator’s wife, to a political job as a member of the National Council on the Arts (NCA). The Council advises the Chairperson of the controversial National Endowment for the Arts on policies, programs and procedures for carrying out the agency’s functions, duties and responsibilities. On the surface, one would consider this a borderline conflict; however, the president made this job appointment just nine days before Specter underwent a life or death heart bypass operation on June 1, 1998 from which he fully recovered. So we have a Republican Senator’s wife receiving an appointment from the president of the United States, a Democrat, just before the commencement of his impeachment trial about which Senator Specter would ultimately have to vote whether to acquit or remove that same president from the opposing party. But no one will mention that on February 16, 1998, Senate Minority Leader, Tom Daschle, appointed Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) as a member of the NCA, the same committee upon which Joan Specter sat. That there are 5 or 6 other congressmen and senators on the committee could also draw questions as to whether Mrs. Specter could have received any presidential influence at meetings and/or social gatherings. Will anyone question these activities? Very little has been discussed regarding Senator Specter’s recent ties to the Clinton/Labor axis. Justice Department prosecutors called International Laborers Union chief, Arthur Coia, a "mob puppet." And according to an April 1997 American Spectator article, Coia spent millions of his union’s money to buy Bill Clinton’s friendship. Moreover, the Byron York piece says new information suggests Clinton repaid the favor by calling off Janet Reno’s politically conflicted Justice department investigators. And Arlen Spector also received $8,000. from Coia and his Laborers union. The Spectator piece notes that "a study by Kenneth Weinstein of the Heritage Foundation revealed that in fiscal year 1994, the union pocketed $11.4 million in grants from the Departments of Labor, Housing and Urban Development and Health and Human Services, among others. And according to figures compiled by Heritage researchers, THE LABORERS RECEIVED EVEN GREATER REWARDS AS THEIR CONTRIBUTIONS GREW; the union took in a total of $18.3 million in federal grants in fiscal year 1995." For example, Coia’s Laborers Training Center in Connecticut received $2.3 million from HHS to train Superfund cleanup workers in 1994; the Center received $9.3 million in 1995; $750 thousand from HUD for union activities in find housing for poor families in Columbus, Ohio and $445 thousand for the same thing in Jacksonville, Illinois. Added up, Coia’s Labor Union gave $3.6 million in political contributions to legislators, mostly Democrat--except for Arlen Specter and a few others. In July, 1996, the House Judiciary Crime Sub-Committee held hearings on the government’s handling of the Laborers union and their suspect presidential influence. The sub-committee reported that "while the facts gathered to date do not reveal a direct connection, serious concerns exist about the propriety of the White House’s extensive dealings with someone (Arthur Coia) who was simultaneously battling federal prosecutors. And because so many campaign finance conflicts exist on both sides of the aisle, Republicans "failed to fully explore the serious issues in the case. Arthur Coia did not testify. No questions were asked of the president or first lady; in fact, no one from the White House testified. No other union official testified." (American Spectator, April, 1997) It is almost as though this corruption was allowed by both sides of the aisle. |
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