HARRISBURG -- A convicted felon who raised campaign money for Hillary Clinton's Senate campaign said Friday he intends to depose Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, the former Democratic National Committee chairman, and question him under oath.
Peter F. Paul of Asheville, N.C., contends in court documents that after The Washington Post pursued a story disclosing his felony convictions, Rendell asked him to lie in 2000 to cover up Paul's role in a Hollywood fundraiser he helped sponsor for Clinton.
"He will be deposed. He's a material witness," Paul told the Tribune-Review in a telephone interview.
Court documents allege in a civil lawsuit pending in Los Angeles County Superior Court that "Rendell, on Hillary Rodham Clinton's behalf, asked Paul to lie about the fact Paul had personally paid for the (fundraiser)," and to say that he had not contributed to her campaign.
"The governor did not ask or tell Mr. Paul to lie in any manner, shape or form," said Rendell's spokesman Chuck Ardo. "Mr. Paul's legal history was not known to the governor until it surfaced in media reports."
Although Clinton's campaign has said she didn't know about Paul's convictions, he told the Trib, "Of course she knew about it." In court papers, he said it was "impossible" for the Clintons and "their agent" Rendell not to have known about his criminal past, since the Secret Service and the Democratic Party investigated his past.
The Wall Street Journal yesterday cited Paul's case as evidence of how long campaign finance problems can haunt a public official.
Like other Democratic candidates, Clinton and Rendell received campaign donations from Democratic fundraiser Norman Hsu while he was on the lam from a 1991 business fraud conviction. Rendell said last week he would donate Hsu's $37,000 to charity. He and other candidates said they were unaware of Hsu's no-contest plea in California 15 years ago and his failure to appear for sentencing. Hsu recently skipped bail but was caught by the FBI and faces a hearing next week.
Paul accuses Sen. Clinton and former President Bill Clinton of deceiving him into spending more than $1 million on a 2000 Hollywood fundraiser for her Senate campaign. He contends the Clintons falsely promised that Bill Clinton would become his business associate after leaving office in January 2001 -- and that Rendell, in effect, was an intermediary.
Clinton's attorney David Kendall told the Journal there was no business arrangement discussed or contemplated, and called Paul "the Picasso of con artists." Hillary Clinton was dismissed from the lawsuit. It is pending against the former president.
Neither Kendall nor the Clinton campaign returned calls from the Tribune-Review.
In the 1970s, Paul was convicted for cocaine possession and conspiracy in a financial swindle that he says was aimed at Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Paul pleaded guilty in 2005 to securities fraud in New York.
Rendell "is a key witness" in his case against the Clintons, Paul told the Trib.
In a court statement, Paul alleged that "Rendell reported to me that Bill Clinton said the best way he could justify spending private time with me before he left office, and thereby consider a post-White House business relationship with me, would be if I became a major supporter of Hillary Clinton's Senate campaign."
"Absolutely not," Ardo said. "Mr. Paul and the truth seem to have a very fleeting acquaintance."
