More information on the squirrely events which led to Maurice Larry Lawrence being sent to Switzerland as the U.S. Ambassador: one of the possible tie-ins with Marc Rich is Lawrence's status as a major supporter of certain Jewish organizations, and charities; and secondly, Lawrence's near-continuous problems with the Internal Revenue Service (which, however, did not lead him to bolt the U.S.), put him in the "Rich" class --

[author] Arriana Huffington

Paula Jones, Monica Lewinsky, Shelia Lawrence, and the President

Filed January 22, 1998

A bad settlement, so the saying goes, is better than a good trial. Never more so than in the case of Paula Corbin Jones vs. William Jefferson Clinton.

Ironically, what moved the Monica Lewinsky story, and will soon move other stories, from the pages of the tabloids into the realm of legitimate journalism is the very case that all the presidents' men have for the past three-and-a-half years tried to dismiss as tabloid trash. Because of the unanimous Supreme Court decision that allowed the Jones case to proceed, her lawyers have a power no journalist has -- the power of subpoena. Women -- who for years have not talked except to friends and intimates -- are now talking under oath.

Now, Jones' lawyers are poised to subpoena a key player from a different scandal -- Shelia Lawrence, Larry Lawrence's merry widow. Suddenly, two widely divergent scandals are converging. The new story involves allegations about an affair, which was supposed to have begun in 1992. Rumors about this have been widely circulating both among media folk in Washington and social folk in San Diego.

Clinton spent so much time in San Diego -- staying in Lawrence's Hotel del Coronado -- in 1992 that there was talk that he intended to establish a Western White House.

But, of course, allegations of a mere affair are of no interest in the Jones case. What is of interest, however, is the question: Was there a payoff?

Shelia Lawrence was named the U.S. special representative to the World Conservation Union, clearly not on the strength of her resume -- which, like her late husband's, is notable chiefly for its omissions, enhancements and outright fabrications. The real political payoff, however, was not her appointment but her husband's nomination as U.S. ambassador to Switzerland. And that's where the Lawrences catch up with the Joneses.

Since I first started delving into the Lawrence saga, scarcely a day has gone by that I haven't been given more reasons to ask: Why did the president go so far out on a limb to ensure that Larry Lawrence was appointed ambassador to Switzerland? Presidents of both parties -- sad to say -- have from time to time appointed unqualified men and women to diplomatic and other posts, mostly as a fund-raising payoff. But lack of qualifications was the least of Lawrence's problems:

-- From 1989 to 1991, Lawrence had two dozen disputes with the Internal Revenue Service, more than all but three other taxpayers during that period. In IRS settlements, he conceded that he under-reported income by as much as $13 million and over-reported deductions by as much as $5 million. At the time of his nomination in 1993, he stood accused of gift-tax fraud.

-- The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in an unusual tie vote, refused to recommend Lawrence for ambassador with three Democratic senators, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Paul Sarbanes and Russ Feingold, voting against Clinton's nominee. -- Both the American Foreign Service Association and the American Senior Foreign Service Association expressed unprecedented opposition to the Lawrence nomination. -- The State Department had in its files information about Lawrence attending college in Chicago at the time when he claimed he was serving in the merchant marines during World War II.

-- Norma Nicolls, Lawrence's longtime assistant, will testify under oath next Wednesday at a congressional Veterans' Affairs Subcommittee hearing that she told an FBI investigator, interviewing her as part of Lawrence's background check, that she had helped research the merchant marine information that Lawrence used to fabricate his military record.

Sources close to the congressional investigation told me that given all this evidence, they will be looking at whether there was criminal intent to sanitize Lawrence's vetting files. Is someone at the congressional hearing going to ask the assistant secretary of state for diplomatic security -- who will be present -- exactly who made the decision to overlook all this evidence and proceed with Lawrence's confirmation?

"Lawrence wanted Switzerland," a close friend of Lawrence's told me, "not just any ambassadorship, but Switzerland. And he pressured Clinton until he got it. His greatest leverage was having turned a blind eye toward Clinton's affair with his own wife."

If we ever find out exactly what financial dealings our man in Bern engaged in while ambassador, we'll know why he wanted Switzerland instead of Fiji or even the Court of St. James. Part of the answer to what Lawrence was up to in Bern is in three full boxes that Christina Marie Alexandre, then a State Department employee assigned to the Lawrences, handed over to the investigators when she charged Lawrence under the Fraud, Waste and Mismanagement Act. Clearly, access to these papers is critical to bringing the Lawrence scandal to closure, and Alexandre has signed a privacy release to expedite my Freedom of Information Act request for the contents of the boxes. "In November 1995," Alexandre told me, "they called me from the State Department and told me that because of the nature of the evidence I had given them, my charge, which originally had been administrative, had turned criminal. Soon after that, Brian Rubendall, a State Department investigator, came to interview me. Three weeks later, I was called and told that Lawrence had died and the case was being closed." In her resignation letters, she wrote of Shelia Lawrence's "vindictive nature" and said, "Employees of the Foreign Service are fearful for their position."

Indeed, again and again, I came across people afraid to talk because of Shelia's threats. Vince Kraeger, for example, was residence manager at the Lawrence home in San Diego and also managed the residence in Bern. "I had my last payment withheld by Shelia Lawrence," he told me, "until I signed a confidentiality agreement even more stringent than the one I signed when I was hired."

The president's six-hour deposition in the Jones case, with the accompanying media attention, created a fertile ground for the truth about his relationships with other women to emerge.

The question that will now have to be painstakingly explored is: How far was the president prepared to go to achieve the secrecy his job required? As far as urging a young woman to perjure herself? As far as nominating the wrong man -- and covering up just how wrong he was?

....

It is my opinion that Larry Lawrence was exactly the right man for the Swiss job, in that there now appears to be a "lover's link" to his fourth wife, Shelia and William Jefferson Big Creep.

reposted courtesy of the Free Republic