President, top aides violated privacy of Clinton accuser
Release of Kathleen Willey's letters
was violation of federal law, ruling says
ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON, March 29 A federal judge on Wednesday ruled that President Bill Clinton and several top aides violated the privacy of presidential accuser Kathleen Willey by releasing private letters she had sent to Clinton.
"This court finds that the plaintiffs have presented facts that establish a criminal violation of the Privacy Act."
ROYCE LAMBERTH
U.S. District judge
U.S. DISTRICT JUDGE Royce Lamberth ordered White House lawyers to answer questions they previously refused in a lawsuit brought by the conservative legal group Judicial Watch, which has filed numerous suits against the Clinton administration.
"This court finds that the plaintiffs have presented facts that establish a criminal violation of the Privacy Act," Lamberth ruled.
The judge, a Republican appointee, added that
evidence in the case "established that the president had the requisite intent for committing a criminal violation of the Privacy Act" when he authorized the release of the letters in the midst of the criminal investigation that led to his impeachment and acquittal.
A violation of the Privacy Act is a misdemeanor under federal law.
LETTERS RELEASED AFTER INTERVIEW
The White House released Willey's letters the morning after her dramatic 1998 TV appearance in which she alleged the president made an unwanted sexual advance next to the Oval Office in 1993.
Presidential aides used the letters to cast doubt on Willey's allegations, saying the letters showed she remained friendly with Clinton after the alleged incident. Clinton has denied any wrongdoing.
Lamberth's ruling comes in a lawsuit over the White House gathering of hundreds of FBI background files on Republican appointees. The judge allowed Judicial Watch wide latitude in exploring the issue of whether the White House routinely gathered and released damaging information about its political opponents.
As part of the discovery, the group was allowed to ask extensive written questions about the release of the Willey letters even though Willey is not a party to the suit. Presidential aides refused to answer some of those questions, prompting Lamberth?s ruling.
Lamberth held that the White House was informed by one of the judge?s own rulings in 1998, nine months before the release of the Willey letters, that the White House was covered by the Privacy Act.
WHITE HOUSE ARGUMENT
The White House maintains "that the president did not act willfully because the Department of Justice has, in the past, taken the position that the White House office is not subject to the Privacy Act," the judge noted.
"This court, however, has already rejected this argument in this same case," Lamberth added. "When the president and EOP (executive office of the president) released the letters they were fully aware of this court's ruling that the Privacy Act was applicable and that the disclosure of the letters was therefore prohibited."
In addition to Clinton, Lamberth said three top presidential aides "adviser Bruce Lindsey, former White House Counsel Charles F.C. Ruff and former Deputy Counsel Cheryl Mills" may have violated the Privacy Act.
The ruling notes the three aides "had their discussions about whether the letters should be released" and then communicated with the president about the issue. Clinton then authorized the release of the letters, the judge said.
RULING'S IMPACT
At present, the ruling simply clears the way for Judicial Watch to press the White House to answer additional questions about the Willey letters.
However, the Justice Department has an open investigation into another impeachment-related release of damaging information about a critic "the Pentagon's release of data from Linda Tripp's personnel file."
Willey told her story on "60 Minutes" in the spring of 1998 in the midst of prosecutor Kenneth Starr's perjury-and-obstruction probe of Clinton regarding former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
The letters seemed to undercut Willey's story because many were written in an extremely friendly tone after the alleged sexual advance.
In grand jury testimony in August 1998, Clinton denied Willey's allegations and referred to the release of the letters, telling prosecutors: "You know what evidence was released after the "60 Minutes" broadcast that I think pretty well shattered Kathleen Willey's credibility."
Clinton told the grand jury that he considered releasing the letters earlier, but "frankly, her husband had committed suicide. She apparently was out of money. And I thought, "Who knows how anybody would react under that"? So I didn't. "But, now when "60 Minutes" came with the story and everybody blew it up, I thought we would release it," he said.
Clinton said that regarding the letters, "I didn't remember that she'd written us as much as she had and called as much as she had, and asked to see me as often as she had. ... I didn't know the volume of contact that she had which undermined the story she has told. But I knew there was some of it." |
