Me thinks that Stephi's analysis was political - saying that Starr would not indict Hillary for political reasons. Even he knows that indictments would not be much of a legal hurdle. Funny he would make such a J when everyone says that Starr doesn't consider the political implications of his legal maneuvers in the myriad Clinton Scandals.
Here's more Clinton reality from someone who knows:
CLINTON'S SECRET POLICE IN
OVERDRIVE
By DICK MORRIS
ON Oct. 5, 1993, Bruce Lindsay told his
best friend, President Bill Clinton, the
explosive news: The Justice
Department was about to make
Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy Tucker a target
in a criminal probe over the collapse of
the Madison Guarantee Savings and
Loan. On Oct. 6, Clinton and Tucker
met for their first White House
rendezvous of the administration. The
next day, the White House secret police
appear to have swung into action.
Newly available Secret Service logs
show that on Oct. 6, 12 and 14, 1993
top Clinton damage-control specialist
Betsey Wright held a White House
summit meeting with Craig Livingstone
- the keeper of the FBI files.
Wright, a longtime Clinton confidante,
employed private detectives to check
out leads on the women and state
troopers said to be bad-mouthing
Clinton. Her operatives dug up
embarrassing information to intimidate
those witnesses into silence or to
discredit them if they went public.
Craig Livingstone's day job was to be
the liaison between the White House
and the FBI for background
investigations of potential appointees.
His apparent side job was overseeing
the illicit procurement and scrutinizing
of the FBI files of prominent
Republicans.
What did Wright and Livingstone have
to talk about? Whatever it was, it must
have been urgent. One meeting was at
midnight. Another pow-wow took place
in the offices usually used by the First
Lady's staff in the Old Executive
Building.
These three meetings of the secret
police chieftains were the only
meetings between the two that the
White House logs indicate for the entire
Clinton administration.
Word that the Resolution Trust
Corporation (RTC) had sent Justice a
criminal referral suggesting a probe of
Tucker's role in Madison was explosive
news. Special prosecutor Kenneth
Starr eventually got Tucker convicted on
13 counts in the matter - and then got
Tucker to testify against the Clintons.
That testimony is thought to be a key
element in the Whitewater probe.
Betsey Wright was a private lobbyist at
the time of these meetings. She would
have had no professional reason to
meet with Livingstone. But Betsey was
the institutional memory of the Clintons'
Arkansas years. She had been Gov.
Clinton's chief of staff, campaign
manager and general protector. In any
Arkansas-based crisis, it was natural to
contact her to learn what might come
out.
The pattern of the subsequent
Wright-Livingstone meetings suggests
that the initial Oct. 6 meeting may have
led to operational assignments for
Wright. How else to explain the White
House entry logs for Oct. 12, which
indicate that Betsey Wright was waived
in for a meeting with Livingstone at
"00:00"?
Apparently, whatever she was doing
came to a conclusion on Oct. 14, when
she met with Livingstone's sidekick,
Anthony Marceca. According to the
logs, it was her last meeting with either
man.
Was the timing of the meetings
coincidental, or were they linked to the
RTC referral? Were the conferences
part of an orchestrated effort to see
where the criminal probe might lead?
Was Wright working on buttoning up
leads which might prove embarrassing
to Clinton in the Tucker probe?
Did Livingstone share with her any
information from FBI files which might
assist her in damage control? Did any
White House higher-up suggest to
Livingstone that he bring Betsey in? At
the time, Wright was unpopular with the
White House staff; it's unlikely that he
would have reached out to her on his
own.
Perhaps coincidentally, Livingstone
also met with Carol Tucker Foreman,
the governor's sister, several hours
after her brother met with the president.
What was Craig Livingstone doing
meeting with Foreman hours after the
Clinton-Tucker chat? There may be an
innocent explanation: Perhaps the
Foreman-Livingstone meeting involved
her effort to win a top-level job. But, if
so, it was the only time White House
logs reflect a direct encounter between
a high-level job applicant and
Livingstone.
These White House entry logs,
obtained under subpoena by the
conservative group Judicial Watch,
show a clear need for further
questioning of Livingstone.
Until now, Livingstone has refused to
answer congressional inquiries, citing
his Fifth Amendment rights against
self-incrimination. Dan Burton,
chairman of the House Government
Operations Committee, should see if
special prosecutor Starr would object to
granting Livingstone immunity to in
exchange for his testimony. Starr has
jurisdiction over the FBI file scandal, but
seems more focused these days on
Whitewater and on the Lewinsky
scandal. (In fact, Livingstone's attorney
has recently boasted that his client is
out of any legal danger.) If Starr doesn't
have Livingstone in his sights, the
national interest would surely be served
by granting him immunity to gain his
testimony on the file scandal.
Some additional areas for inquiry: The
White House entry logs show that
Livingstone entered the "residence" on
Dec. 7, 1993, at 7:23 p.m. to meet with
POTUS - the president. It was evidently
not a social occasion: In another entry,
when he was waved in to attend a party,
he was listed as visiting the "state
floor," not the "residence."
On Oct. 18, 1994, Livingstone met with
the vice president at 1:42 p.m. and with
the president at 4:18 p.m. What were
these meetings about?
Each new revelation puts the
operations of the secret police - the
off-the-shelf operatives hired by the
Clinton administration - closer to the
heart of this presidency. Congressional
hearings are the only way to learn the
full scope and breadth of the secret
police's role.
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