The Truth In Arkansas Politics

Tim Griffin, former US Atty, in little rock and his wife Elizabeth Griffin are featured in the november southern living in a 3 page recipe filled Christmas article. Tim is joined in a picture by boyd and lynn corley of little rock. Boyd is the owner of bell-corley construction. We found it on page 120.

AR Dem Gaz: McDaniel calls request 'cheap shot'; He says GOP chairman baiting him with call for Hillary Clinton inquiry

NOTE: Milligan replied that McDaniel “might be too blinded by his role as Clinton’s campaign guru to recognize her calculating political motives, but voters in Arkansas are not.”

“The fact that Hillary is willing to listen to conversations by political opponents instead of conversations by terrorists plotting to kill Americans is inexplicable,” Milligan said. “If McDaniel wants to have a debate on Hillary Clinton’s weakness with national security, we welcome it.”

McDaniel calls request ‘cheap shot’He says GOP chairman baiting him with call for Hillary Clinton inquiry
By Michael Wickline (Contact)

LITTLE ROCK — Attorney General Dustin McDaniel said the state Republican Party chairman took “a cheap shot” in asking him to investigate whether then-first lady Hillary Clinton violated state law during her husband’s presidential campaign in 1992 by listening to a recording of a phone conversation.

McDaniel, a Democrat who is co-chairman of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign inArkansas, said GOP Chairman Dennis Milligan “wanted ... to get me to make some sort of comment that in some way blurred the lines between my job as attorney general and the fact that I am supporting Hillary.

“They know that this was a bogus allegation of doing something that wasn’t against the law at the time it happened, if it happened,” he said Wednesday in an interview after he spoke to the Political Animals Club at the governor’s mansion in Little Rock.

“If it was against the law, the statute of limitations ran [out] 17 years ago and, if the statute of limitations hadn’t run [out] 17 years ago, the prosecuting attorney is the one to handle it,” McDaniel said. “So it was either gross incompetence or a calculated political move to send it to me in a press release and I was not going to take that bait, even if I just did.”

Milligan replied that McDaniel “might be too blinded by his role as Clinton’s campaign guru to recognize her calculating political motives, but voters in Arkansas are not.”

“The fact that Hillary is willing to listen to conversations by political opponents instead of conversations by terrorists plotting to kill Americans is inexplicable,” Milligan said. “If McDaniel wants to have a debate on Hillary Clinton’s weakness with national security, we welcome it.”

In a news release Tuesday, Milligan of Bryant pointed to one paragraph in the book Her Way: The Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton, by The New York Times reporters Don Van Natta Jr. and Jeff Gerth.

“Hillary’s defense activities ranged from the inspirational to the microscopic to the down and dirty,” the book stated. Among other things, the book said that, “she listened to a secretly recorded audiotape of a phone conversation of Clinton criticsplotting their next attack,” the book stated.

The complaint offered no more details about the purported conversation or the circumstances of the purported taping or the purported listening.The GOP’s news release referred to an Arkansas law enacted in 1993 that says certain actions are Class A misdemeanors, which are punishable by up to one year in jail or a fine of up to $1,000. Pulaski County Prosecuting Attorney Larry Jegley said the statute of limitations for such misdemeanors is one year.

Jegley, also a Democrat, said late Wednesday that his office has not received a complaint.

That law, Arkansas Code Annotated 5-60-120, says, “It is unlawful for a person to intercept a wire, landline, oral, telephonic communication, or wirelesscommunication, and to record or possess a recording of the communication unless the person is a party to the communication or one (1) of the parties to the communication has given prior consent to the interception and recording.”

McDaniel told the Political Animals Club that he’s proud to be co-chairman of Clinton’s campaign in Arkansas.“

I believe when I look at my little girl it’s important that we have a president who cares about the future, who has a vision for improving America, someone who knows that surpluses are better than deficits, someone who knows that peace is better than war, somebody who knows that hope is better than fear, someone who knows how to pronounce nuclear,” he said.

He said it’s important that the state’s Democratic elected officials feel connected to Clinton in her bid to carry Arkansas.McDaniel recalled that when he was running for the state House in 2004 “people would say to me all the time, ‘I am voting for you, but I am not voting for that [Democratic presidential nominee] John Kerry.”

He said he and Rep. Ray Kidd, D-Jonesboro, looked at such people and said, “‘Fine with us.’ We were worried about our own hide.” Both men were elected in the state House in 2004. Kidd was re-elected last year while McDaniel was elected attorney general.McDaniel referred to the GOP allegation as “these bogus allegations.”

“There has never been anybody that has been more investigated or more thoroughly vetted for anything than Hillary Clinton,” he said.

This article was published Thursday, October 18, 2007.Arkansas, Pages 13, 22 on 10/18/2007