The Whitehouse Secret Police
The Political Life The White House secret police?
By Dick Morris
Once, presidents had the FBI, IRS and CIA to do their dirty work by investigating political opponents. No more. Like the vogue of the moment, investigation has been privatized. Now, it seems, Bill Clinton has Terry Lenzner, Jack Palladino and a ragtag band of private eyes, acting as secret police - without public accountability.
These investigators have been seen on the trail of Kenneth Starr and his prosecutors, Sen. Don Nickles (R-Okla.), former Gov. Mario Cuomo (R-N.Y.), and other enemies of the administration. But have federal campaign funds been used to fund these spy operations on private citizens? If the answer is yes, have they been reported as such on the Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings? If no, who paid for these invasions of privacy? Were they backed by outside funds, beyond the reach of FEC disclosure, and were these funds illegal vehicles to circumvent FEC regulations?
The public record indicates that Betsey Wright, chief-of-staff to then-Gov. Clinton, led a "bimbo patrol" in 1992, presumably funded with federally regulated and subsidized campaign funds. With the aid of Palladino, she stayed one step ahead of the press by persuading women rumored to have had affairs with Clinton not to confirm the rumors.
Some reports have even indicated that this persuasion may have included investigation of their private lives. There have even been claims that several of these women signed affidavits denying any relationship with Clinton before any accusations had been leveled at them. Who paid Palladino? Were federal funds involved? What did he do for the money?
This noir side of the Clinton enterprise began, in retrospect, with the investigation of former Arkansas Attorney General Steve Clark in 1989. A rival to Clinton for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in 1990, he was knocked out of the race - and out of public life - when it was revealed that he had misused his state credit card to charge private expenses. Many speculated that it was the Clinton operation that unearthed these allegations and leaked them to the press. In that same election, the Arkansas Public Service Commission held public hearings to investigate the management of an Arkansas utility by Sheffield Nelson only two months before he faced Clinton as the Republican nominee for governor in 1990.
According to the New York Post, Lenzner was hired in 1991, by the Clinton campaign (prior to Clinton's announcement of his candidacy for president) to spy on then-Gov. Cuomo.
Lenzner next surfaced when he was reported to have visited the White House twice for meetings with Harold Ickes in April and May of 1996. Howard Shapiro, Lenzer's attorney, said the meetings were to discuss work that never materialized. What was that work and why was the president's deputy chief-of-staff discussing potential spy operations down the hall from the Oval Office? Later, Lenzner was also reportedly retained to investigate donations to the Clinton legal defense team through Charlie Trie.
This same Lenzner was awarded a no-bid contract for hundreds of thousands of dollars by the State Department to train Haitian police and supervise the international police monitoring the democratic process in Haiti. The State Department claimed it was awarded without competitive bidding because it was urgent to get a top lawman into Haiti.
After he was approached by Cody Shearer, a long time Clinton ally, Lenzner offered to help an Oklahoma Indian tribe, rejected for a gambling license, investigate the private life of Nickles and his family.
Meanwhile, Palladino worked for Teamsters Union President Ron Carey in his reelection effort, investigating his opponents. In this capacity, he was employed by current White House Counsel Charles Ruff, who had been hired by the union to administer its ethics program. Ruff worked at the time for the law firm of Williams and Connolly, home of Bill and Hillary's criminal defense lawyers.
Williams and Connolly, the law firm of David Kendall, is said to have employed Lenzner for investigative duties, including possible probes into the private lives of Starr prosecutors and journalists.
If ever a subject cried out for a congressional investigation, this one does. We need hearings to establish the roots, funding, depth and purpose of this extensive use of private investigators. Congress should consider legislation barring the use of campaign funds for investigations into the private lives of political adversaries or potential witnesses.
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