When former K Street mogul Jack Abramoff struck a deal with the Department of Justice, he unwittingly supplemented a famous piece of Watergate advice with the following corollary: “To follow the money, trail the lobbyist.” Unfortunately, investigative reporters of the elite media have so overreacted to this useful counsel that they periodically succumb to wild fits that send them chasing a photo of a lobbyist sipping eggnog with bigwig holiday revelers, an act that only a gotcha-obsessed mind interprets as the most awful of Washington’s lobbyist shenanigans.

Despite these momentary lapses of purpose (attributable to Pack Mentality Disorder), investigative reporters are to be respected for their dogged dedication to work that is essential to the nation’s well being. With that fact in mind, you would think they’d go gaga over a scandal involving big money; a lavish, celebrity-studded Hollywood gala/political fundraising event; a settlement regarding alleged violations of Federal election law; and a civil lawsuit, all involving Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, the presumptive front-runner for the 2008 Democratic Presidential nomination and recipient (among numerous other awards) of the 2004 German Media Prize honoring her as “a model politician for millions of women around the world.”

Yes, you would think such a story would motivate investigative reporters to get hot on Mrs. Clinton’s trail. But you would think wrong; for the truth is that except for a 2001 ABC 20/20 piece by Brian Ross (which Peter F. Paul, the plaintiff in the aforementioned lawsuit, criticizes for serious omissions) and April Witt’s “House of Cards,” published in the Washington Post, October, 2005, (which omits important topics that reflect negatively on Mrs. Clinton), the major media have been nearly as silent about the scandal as Mrs. Clinton has.

But in a time when money has corrupted politics so much that politicians were moved to “reform” political campaigns by restricting the free speech of ordinary citizens, it is essential that the public be informed about a scandal that involves not only the most prominent face of the Democratic Party but also the most prolific fundraiser among all politicians. (Doubters of Mrs. Clinton’s mania for money should know that in 2005, she collected more than $21 million, triple the amount raised by a Senator as well connected as Virginia’s George Allen.)

To fulfill its purpose of helping the public understand the legal aspects surrounding Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, et al. and the Hollywood gala/fundraiser named “Event 39,” this piece will divide them into two broad categories: those that pertain to Federal Election law and those that pertain to Mr. Peter F. Paul’s civil suit. Although the two categories are inextricably intertwined, separating them will help readers to understand each more easily and to “follow the money” in the broadest sense of that term.

Then, readers can decide for themselves whether this latest of Mrs. Clinton’s scandals is best characterized by “house of cards” or “little crooked house,” an image derived by taking a moral rather than a geometric lesson from the appropriate Mother Goose rhyme.

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The Fraudulent Senator...

The Fraudulent Senator is a new media investigation into the political and criminal aspects surrounding a star-studded fundraising event and concert coordinated, underwritten and produced by West Coast businessman Peter Paul, an event the Federal Election Commission has come to call "Event 39" in its documents of record.

As Hillary Clinton quests for the White House, find out why she shouldn't even be in the Senate...