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More Clinton Fraud

  • An investigation into a federal fund to support shooting and fishing sports has turned up outrageous misappropriation by the Clinton administration.
Exclusive to The SPOTLIGHT
By Mike Blair

A congressional audit has revealed that the Clinton administration has misappropriated millions of dollars raised from excise taxes on firearms intended to promote hunting and fishing sports in order to fund "animal rights" groups and to provide junkets and huge bonuses for top federal bureaucrats.

Since 1937, the Pittman-Robertson (P-R) Trust Fund has raised more than $3.4 billion from excise taxes imposed on the sale of weapons and ammunition for dispensing to state and wildlife agencies for wildlife restoration pro jects, hunter safety training programs and firing range construction.

Suspecting misuse of the funds, last year Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) re quested that the General Accounting Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, audit P-R funding.

The GAO discovered that at the White House's direction millions of dollars have been taken from the fund and diverted to finance animal rights groups intent upon curtailing hunting and fishing in America and to pay for foreign trips and bonuses for high bureaucratic officials of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

According to the GAO report, the mismanagement of funds has involved tens of millions of dollars being taken from the trust which were raised by shooting sports enthusiasts through the sales of firearms and ammunition.

In hearings before the House Re sources Committee, one U.S. Fish and Wildlife employee revealed that he was pressured by the White House to approve hand-outs of P-R funds to animal rights groups that are "aggressively involved" in efforts to "destroy hunting."

Another employee testified that she was directed by high-level Clinton-Gore bureaucrats to "destroy computer re cords that could have shed light on these abuses and on those responsible."

"The administrative abuses uncovered by Representative Young constitute a fundamental breach of trust between America's sportsmen and their government, if not outright illegality," James J. Baker, executive director of the Na tional Rifle Association's Institute for Legis lative Action (NRA-ILA) stated.

To curb the abuses, Young has introduced H.R. 3671, a bill that would end the abuse and mismanagement of trust fund monies that have been committed to P-R for nearly two-thirds of a century.