Host Indicted, Clinton Fund-Raiser Canceled (Hillary pal “Dickie” Scruggs is Lott's Brother-in-Law)

[jefferson_dem]

Host Indicted, Clinton Fund-Raiser Canceled
Mary Jacoby reports on the presidential race.

A Dec. 15 fund-raising event for Hillary Clinton at the home of prominent Mississippi trial laywer Richard “Dickie” Scruggs is off, now that Scruggs has been indicted for bribery.

Attorney Richard “Dickie” Scruggs (left) leaves the federal courthouse in Oxford, Miss., Wednesday.

Bill Clinton was set to be the star attraction at the event at Scruggs’s Oxford, Miss., home. Hillary Clinton wasn’t scheduled to attend. It was the first event that Scruggs, who made a fortune suing the tobacco industry in the 1990s, had offered to host for Clinton, a campaign spokesman said. It was canceled on Wednesday, after the Federal Bureau of Investigation raided his home and the federal indictment was announced.

Unlike Norman Hsu, the apparel executive who raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the campaign before it was revealed he’d been charged in California with fraud, Scruggs was not a Clinton “bundler” funneling donations from friends and associates, the campaign said.

Over the years, Scruggs has been a generous donor to Democrats, but he’s also given money to Republican candidates. He gave $4,200 to Clinton’s Senate campaign in 2005 but hadn’t made a donation yet to her presidential bid. Scruggs’s brother-in-law is Sen. Trent Lott (R., Miss.), who just announced his intention to leave the Senate before the end of the year.

Federal prosecutors in Mississippi have alleged that Scruggs tried to pass a $40,000 bribe to a state-court judge who was hearing a dispute between Scruggs and another lawyer over fees related to Hurricane Katrina litigation. Four others were indicted as well, including Scruggs’s son, Zachary, and another lawyer in the Scruggs law firm. Read more.

<SNIP>

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2007/11/29/host-indicted-clinton-fund-raiser-canceled/