Chelsea Clinton’s father-in-law a convicted felon

While news media outlets search high and low for negative stories about GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump, they’ve ignored an interesting factoid about the people whom they hope to call America’s First Family, the Clintons: Chelsea Clinton’s father-in-law is an ex-convict.

When Chelsea married Marc Mezvinsky, the news media fawned over the young couple and characterized Chelsea’s husband as a modern day Prince Charming who is the son of a former Democratic Party stalwart, U.S. Congressman (See video at end of column).

Unfortunately, as has occurred with her own parent, Chelsea’s father-in-law was involved in a huge scandal that caught the attention of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and prosecutors at the Department of Justice  and led to his being locked up in a federal penitentiary

According to the FBI, through a “Nigerian” email scam and several Ponzi schemes, Congressman Mezvinsky illegally obtained upwards of $10-million. The scams are familiar to most Americans especially those that are generated on the Internet through bogus emails promising huge sums of money.

The elder Mezvinsky was convicted in 2001 of 31 counts of fraud and served a mere five years in federal prison. Originally he was facing 69 counts of fraud that included bank and mail fraud, as well as criminal activity that included phony oil and trade deals in Nigeria.

The former Democratic member of Congress — from Iowa’s 1st Congressional District served two terms, from 1973 to 1977. He reportedly knew Hillary Clinton when he served on the House Judiciary Committee that investigated President Richard Nixon and Hillary worked as one of the investigating attorneys. Mrs. Clinton was fired from the investigating committee because of her leaking of confidential information on the Nixon case.

Ed Mezvinsky had been a vocal critic of President Nixon. He’s on record for calling Nixon “crooked Dick” and said that the president was “a disgrace to politics and the nation.” The hypocrite also called for Nixon’s impeachment.

After serving in Congress, Mezvinsky was appointed by President Jimmy Carter as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights from 1977 until 1979. He later became chairman of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, and made a run for state attorney general in 1988. After winning the Democratic primary he lost the general election to Republican Ernie Preate.

Federal prosecutors at the time told reporters that Rep. Mezvinsky habitually dropped the Clintons’ names and boasted of their friendship during the 1990s while he was bilking friends, family members and institutions out of more than $10 million.

While now a free man, the scam artist still owes over $9.4 million in restitution to some of his willing victims.