Dem Insider: Hillary ‘Unfit’ for Presidency

An upcoming book by a longtime Democratic insider asserts that Sen.
Hillary Clinton is “ethically unfit” to hold public office.The author
of the book is Jerry Zeifman, who was counsel to the House Judiciary
Committee for 17 years. He was chief counsel to the committee during
the Watergate episode, a role he chronicled in an earlier book,
“Without Honor: The Crimes of Camelot and the Impeachment of President
Nixon.”Hillary was a committee staffer at the time. And Zeifman’s new
book “Hillary’s Pursuit of Power” is based in large part on his
personal experiences with Hillary.A press release about the book
states: “This book describes and documents unethical practices of
Senator Hillary Clinton . . .“In 1974, [Zeifman] had supervisory
authority of a staff that included Hillary Rodham, who was then engaged
in a variety of self-serving unethical practices in violation of House
rules.“In 1998, as consultant to a member of the Judiciary Committee
that impeached President Clinton, he gained extensive personal insights
into the unethical practices of Hillary Clinton in her White House
‘west wing’ office. “A lifelong Democrat, Jerry Zeifman has concluded
that Hillary Clinton is ethically unfit to be either a senator or
president – and if she were to become President, the last vestige of
the traditional moral authority of the party of Roosevelt, Truman and
Johnson will be destroyed.”

Zeifman provided more details about his dealings with Hillary in a
letter he wrote to the New York Post in August 1999. It read in
part:“In December 1974, as general counsel and chief of staff of the
House Judiciary Committee, I made a personal evaluation of Hillary
Rodham (now Mrs. Clinton), a member of the staff we had gathered for
our impeachment inquiry on President Richard Nixon. I decided that I
could not recommend her for any future position of public or private
trust.“Why? Hillary's main duty on our staff has been described by her
authorized biographer as ‘establishing the legal procedures to be
followed in the course of the inquiry and impeachment.’ A number of the
procedures she recommended were ethically flawed. “And I also concluded
that she had violated House and committee rules by disclosing
confidential information to unauthorized persons… “During my … tenure
with the House Judiciary Committee, I had supervisory authority over
several hundred staff members. With the exception of Ms. Rodham,
[special counsel John] Doar and [senior associate special counsel
Bernard] Nussbaum, I recommended all of them for future positions of
public and private trust.”