[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 74 (Wednesday, June 10, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1096]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  RICHARD MELLON SCAIFE FUNDS CLINTON CRITIC LARRY KLAYMAN'S JUDICIAL 
                           WATCH ORGANIZATION

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. JOHN CONYERS, JR.

                              of michigan

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, June 10, 1998

  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to enter into the 
Record the following new story from The Washington Post.

               [From the Washington Post, June 10, 1998]

      Scaife Foundation Gave $550,000 to Anti-Clinton Legal Group

                            (By David Segal)

       Richard Mellon Scaife, the Pittsburgh billionaire whose 
     foundations have bankrolled an array of anti-Clinton 
     activities, gave one of his largest grants last year to 
     Judicial Watch, the conservative group suing the Clinton 
     administration in 18 separate matters, newly released records 
     show.
       Scaife gave Judicial Watch $550,000, according to documents 
     disclosed by the Carthage Foundation, one of four 
     philanthropies underwritten by Scaife. That sum is nearly 
     nine times as large as the $60,000 in outside contributions 
     Judicial Watch said it received in 1996.
       ``It's a minority of our support and we're very proud to 
     receive it,'' Judicial Watch founder and president Larry 
     Klayman said yesterday before refusing further comment. In a 
     recent interview, Klayman would not confirm the Scaife grant 
     and deflected financing questions by saying, ``Basta! . . . 
     that means `stop it' in Italian.''
       Scaife's foundations last year gave away a total of $25 
     million to conservative groups as well as academic 
     institutions such as Boston University and Carnegie Mellon 
     University. The scion of the Mellon banking family, Scaife 
     has become a major financial resource for those eager to 
     probe Clinton administration controversies, from the Monica 
     S. Lewinsky case to the death of White House deputy counsel 
     Vincent W. Foster.
       Independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr had once planned to 
     accept a Scaife foundation-financed deanship at Pepperdine 
     University, leading Clinton allies to criticize the 
     prosecutor's conservative movement ties.
       The recipient of the largest single Scaife grant last 
     year--for $1.5 million--was the Free Congress Research and 
     Education Foundation Inc., a think tank run by conservative 
     activist Paul Weyrich. Free Congress is part owner of 
     America's Voice, a TV network formerly known as national 
     Empowerment Television.
       The American Spectator magazine took in nearly $1 million 
     last year from two Scaife foundations--Carthage and the Sarah 
     Scaife Foundation. Part of that money paid for the so-called 
     ``Arkansas Project,'' an investigation of alleged Clinton 
     skulduggery in his home state. The project was criticized by 
     several Spectator staffers and has given rise to an 
     investigation into whether some Scaife money improperly went 
     to pay a key Starr witness.
       But the financial relationship between the magazine and 
     Scaife's foundations is over. ``Let's just say that the 
     Spectator had Scaife foundation money in the past [but] they 
     decided to quit contributing this year,'' said publisher 
     Terry Eastland.
       The Landmark Legal Foundation, a Herndon group that has 
     pounded Pentagon officials for allegedly leaking data from 
     Linda R. Tripp's personnel file, took in $525,000 from 
     Scaife. ``We have a hard and fast rule here,'' said Landmark 
     president Mark Levin. ``We don't accept money laundered 
     through Indian tribes or Buddhist nuns.''
       The award to Judicial Watch is in some ways the most 
     notable of the Scaife grants, representing a huge financial 
     boon for a group that barely registered on Washington's radar 
     screen until recently. In 1996, the group's largest 
     benefactor was Klayman himself, a formerly obscure 
     international trade attorney; he kicked in about $110,000 of 
     his own money and took in just $60,000 in outside 
     contributions.
       Scaife foundation officials did not return calls about why 
     they decided to start giving to Judicial Watch.
       Klayman first gained notice when he took a deposition from 
     Democratic fund-raiser John Huang in 1996, just as the 
     controversy about Democratic campaign financing was breaking. 
     By last year, Klayman was becoming a regular on TV chat shows 
     such as ``Rivera Live'' as he subpoenaed a parade of Clinton 
     allies for depositions in various lawsuits. Klayman has 
     turned up such disclosures as a pentagon official's admission 
     that he authorized the Tripp information leak. But Judicial 
     Watch's advertising also has featured far-fetched theories, 
     including that the late Commerce Secretary Ron Brown might 
     have been shot in the head by top White House officials.
       Klayman is deposing witnesses for three lawsuits against 
     the Commerce Department and one against the Justice 
     Department, among others, and he represents Republicans whose 
     FBI files were obtained by White House officials.

     

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