Who's Hugh?
Wednesday's revelation that Hugh Rodham, Hillary Rodham Clinton's brother, received around $400,000 for lobbying for a pardon and a prison commutation is not the first time he’s been embroiled in controversy.
Most recently, in 1999, Rodham - a frequent golf partner of the former President Clinton - and his brother, Tony, attempted a business venture in the former Soviet republic of Georgia. Their plan to export hazelnuts from the country got them involved with an opponent of Georgia’s president, Eduard Shevardnadze. That drew the ire of not only Shevardnadze but of Mr. Clinton and National Security Adviser Sandy Berger. After pressure from Mr. Clinton, Hugh Rodham bailed out of the deal, although Tony pressed on for several months afterwards.
The 50-year-old Hugh Rodham, a former public defender in Miami, was also criticized for his role as one of the class-action lawyers involved in several lawsuits against the tobacco industry.
In 1995, Rodham was invited to join the Castano group, a team of attorneys pursuing a federal class-action suit. When that suit fell through in 1996, the group allied itself with several state attorneys general and their suits against tobacco companies. It was during this time that the lawyers met several times with deputy White House counsel Bruce Lindsey. (Lindsey, by the way, is who Rodham reportedly lobbied about the Carlos Vignali prison commutation case.)
Critics charged that Rodham was underqualified to join the lawyers’ group and was only invited because of his White House ties. Republicans attacked him on the floor of the Senate for his role, his connections to Clinton and his potential financial windfall from a settlement.
But Rodham told Time in 1997 that he was asked to join by an old friend and that he had to pay $100,000 to get in.
And another lawyer involved in the group played down Rodham’s influence in 1997. Attorney Russ Herman told the New York Times: "The meetings at the White House would have taken place without him. He has been helpful to us because Hugh has credibility on the issue, and he is well known. But there are other people involved with significant profiles."
In the end, Rodham wound up with nothing, as the $368.5 billion settlement the group negotiated fell apart in Congress.
After that, Rodham and the Castano group turned their attention to the gun industry, filing class-action lawsuits on behalf of five cities against firearm manufacturers. Again, Rodham’s White House connections came into question as the group wound up conducting meetings with Lindsey again. This time, the former head of the Castano group, Robert Ricker, admitted to Time that Rodham was "a serious player" in the White House meetings.
America first took note of Rodham in 1994, when he mounted a Senate challenge to popular incumbent Republican Sen. Connie Mack. During and after the campaign, Roham complained bitterly that he couldn’t get his message out because the media fixated on the fact that he was Clinton’s brother-in-law.
It seems, however, that Rodham had more than the media to blame for his poor showing. Florida Democrats weren’t happy with his candidacy from the start, blaming the White House for not persuading Rodham to abandon his run. And probably because of that, Rodham had trouble raising money. Mack wound up spending $5.7 million on the race while Rodham only spent $600,000.
Also during the campaign, Rodham came clean about a couple of embarrassing personal revelations. He said that he had never voted until his brother-in-law ran for president in 1992. In addition, he admitted that he failed the Florida Bar exam "a bunch of times" after graduating from the University of Arkansas in 1980. He eventually passed the Bar in 1985.
By the way, Rodham wound up getting trounced by Mack, 71 percent to 29 percent.
By Steve Chaggaris
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