Digg



del.icio.us



Newsvine



Reddit



Facebook LAS VEGAS (AP)  Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday that she followed all Senate rules when she accepted rides on a private jet from a longtime benefactor. "Whatever I've done, I complied with Senate rules at the time. That's the way every senator operates," the Democratic presidential contender said in an interview with The Associated Press during a campaign stop in Las Vegas. The travel and consulting fees paid to Clinton's husband have come to light recently in a lawsuit against Vinod Gupta, a Clinton contributor and chief executive of the data company, InfoUSA Inc. The lawsuit by company shareholders accuses Gupta of excessively spending millions of dollars, including $900,000 worth of travel on the Clintons. Sen. Clinton, who complained about corporate America's largesse and skyrocketing executive pay during campaign events Wednesday, said she did not believe her message was undermined by her acceptance of the private flights. In line with Senate rules then in effect, Clinton's campaign has said she reimbursed Gupta at the cost of a first-class flight, typically a significant discount off the expense of a private jet. "Those were the rules. You'll have to ask somebody else whether that's good policy," she said. The Senate earlier this year voted to change the rules to require senators, their staff and candidates for federal office to pay the charter rate for flights on corporate jets. All the presidential candidates serving in the Senate, including Clinton, voted for the change. Clinton struck several populist notes Wednesday in a speech at a union hall and at a town hall appearance at a North Las Vegas high school with large number of minority and low-income students. The senator told members of the Culinary Workers Union, a group that represents casino and hotel workers, that it should be made easier for unions to winning Nevada's Jan. 19 caucus. The senator made light of her own personal wealth. "I know a lot of rich people. My husband and I never had any money ... now all the sudden we're rich," Clinton said. "I have nothing against rich people. ... but what made America great is the American middle class." Clinton won her loudest applause with her promise to end the war in Iraq. In the AP interview, she defended her vote against an Iraq war funding bill, saying she believes that President Bush will begin withdrawing troops from Iraq soon and she doesn't want to back his strategy any longer. Clinton said she came to the conclusion while watching the president's Rose Garden news conference last week in which he referred to the bipartisan Iraq Study Group report. "He talked about it favorably for the first time I've ever heard him talk about it," Clinton said. "That was to me a big signal that starting in the fall and toward the end of the year we're going to start seeing troops withdrawn from Iraq. "My argument is, why wait?" Among other things, the Iraq Study Group warned against sending more troops for long stints in the war zone and initially called for withdrawal by early 2008. Clinton and her chief rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, voted against the funding bill last week in the face of strong pressure from liberal groups who wanted Democrats to use the bill to force a change of course. Clinton earlier supported a bill calling for a withdrawal timeline, which was vetoed by the president. Clinton initially opposed cutting off funding for the troops, but said Wednesday that she believed last week's vote was cast in support of soldiers abroad. "The best thing I can do to continue my very vigorous support of the troops is to begin to bring them home," she said. Clinton declined to comment on two unreleased biographies that, according to press accounts, describe the former first lady's road to her candidacy in unflattering terms. She said she wasn't familiar with the books. Clinton acknowledged an assertion reportedly contained in one of the books: that she did not read a National Intelligence Estimate before voting to authorize the president to go to war in Iraq. "I don't believe that I did or that vast majority of my colleagues did because we were briefed repeatedly about everything that was in it," she said. Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Share this story: Digg del.icio.us Newsvine Reddit Facebook Enlarge By Isaac Brekken, AP Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton delivers a speech at Canyon Springs High School in Las Vegas. Conversation guidelines: USA TODAY welcomes your thoughts, stories and information related to this article. Please stay on topic and be respectful of others. Keep the conversation appropriate for interested readers across the map.