It didn't end with Whitewater - Pres Clinton's deal with Laborers International Union of North America Pres Arthur Coia

National Review, Sept 2, 1996 by Rael Jean Isaac

IN his acceptance speech at the 1992 Democratic National Convention, Bill Clinton promised zero tolerance for those in government who "cut corners and cut deals." But less than three years later the Justice Department cut a highly questionable deal with Arthur Coia, president of the mob-ridden Laborers International Union of North America, whose 700,000 members for the most part fill low-skilled construction jobs.

Corruption in the Laborers Union is an old and open book. As far back as 1978 a Justice Department report to the White House contended that the Chicago mob dominated Angelo Posco, then president of LIUNA, and in 1986 the President's Commission on Organized Crime, pointing to the looting of union benefit funds by the mob, death threats, and murders of opposing candidates, urged the Justice Department to file civil-racketeering charges. In 1988, the FBI announced a RICO investigation of LIUNA.

On November 4, 1994, the Justice Department delivered a draft of its 212-page RICO complaint to the Laborers: the key demand, Coia must go. The complaint chronicled a massive web of corruption that had continued for decades, with capos from an assortment of crime families either running locals directly or installing their appointees. LIUNA, it said, has been "continuously and systematically controlled, exploited, and dominated in the conduct of its affairs by the Cosa Nostra."

The complaint was unsparing concerning Coia personally. Four consecutive presidents of the union, including Coia, were "controlled and influenced by organized-crime figures." Indeed, according to the complaint, Coia had tried (unsuccessfully) to replace the previous president in 1986 because he believed "that [Angelo] Fosco's conduct harmed LIUNA and the Cosa Nostra's control of LIUNA" (italics added). From 1986 to July 1994, the complaint charged, Coia had conspired with the Todaro crime family of Buffalo to transfer training funds of upstate New York locals to Buffalo, where the money would be used for the benefit of Cosa Nostra families and associates. (They were foiled when the victim-locals protested and a court upheld them against Coia.) Some of the material was old but nonetheless telling, like the 1981 indictment of Coia's father (who, as secretary-treasurer of the union, was second in command), New England mob boss Raymond Patriarca, and Coia himself for racketeering and taking bribes from an insurance swindler: it fizzled when the judge ruled the statute of limitations had expired.

Despite the damning indictment, within three months Justice had cut a deal: Coia could stay. In fact, Coia would be Justice's subcontractor to clean up the union -- giving the "appearance," in the delicate phrasing of Bill McCollum, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Crime, of putting the fox in charge of guarding the chicken coop. Why did Justice make such an unprecedented arrangement? The official explanation is that the government saved money that would otherwise have been wasted in lengthy litigation, and that Coia himself -- who was more knowledgeable? -- could root out the mob more efficiently. Indeed, Justice professed great pride in this pioneering method of dealing with union corruption, and Attorney General Janet Reno cited it as a model for future racket busting.

There is no doubt that Coia had wielded a canny combination of carrot and stick. He threatened an all-out fight in the courts if he personally were pushed out. Showing he meant business, he hired the firm of Williams & Connolly, which also represents President Clinton on Whitewater, to represent him in his negotiations with Justice. To represent LIUNA he hired Robert Luskin, himself a former Justice Department official. Luskin made an unusual offer on Coia's behalf: the union would hire him and a contingent of former FBI investigators to root out corruption. Moreover, Coia agreed to a consent decree acknowledging significant corruption in the union (which he had previously denied) that gave the Justice Department the option, until 1998, of putting LIUNA under trusteeship if it was not satisfied with Coia's progress.

Did Justice have other inducements to keep Coia in place? What has raised eyebrows is Coia's role as one of Clinton's most important political and financial allies. Coia has co-chaired a series of fund-raising dinners for the Democrats, each of which has raised millions of dollars. In 1994 alone, LIUNA contributed over a million dollars to Democratic candidates. It has become one of the largest donors of "soft money" to the Democratic Party. It even loaned $100,000 to Clinton's inaugural committee. Coia personally contributed $1,000 (the maximum permitted) to Clinton's Legal Defense Fund. He joined the board of the Back to Business Committee, where, humorously, he lent his moral authority to the committee's vigorous denials of merit in any of the "character" charges against the Clintons.

Money translated into social access. Soon the President and Coia were Bill and Arthur, eating breakfast together, exchanging gifts of specially made golf clubs. (The President's thank-you note for his arrived on Coia's desk the same day as the Justice Department's complaint.) Coia was invited to a small White House dinner where the President played the saxophone; a Judiciary subcommittee documented over 120 such contacts.