It's Not the Crime, It's the Cover-Up11.39 p.m. ET (436 GMT) January 23,
1998WASHINGTON - For President Clinton, it may be time to review one
basic law of the Washington jungle: It's not always the crime that gets
you in trouble; quite often, it's the cover-up. While current headlines
predictably focus on allegations of presidential sex with a White House
intern, this would not be Clinton's biggest problem if it in fact were
true, and Clinton has denied anything improper occurred. Sex, even in
this buttoned-down capital, is not a crime on its own. But lying about
it under oath, or telling somebody else to do so, is a federal offense.
Even without the threat of legal prosecution, sex or other misconduct
alone is not enough to incur the wrath of establishment Washington, and
deceit is hardly unheard of. But ineffective cover-up operations are a
serious affront to the way this town does business. The most famous
scandal involving a cover-up was the granddaddy of them all, Watergate,
named for the Washington residential complex where, ironically enough,
Clinton's alleged former lover has an apartment. In that case, President
Richard Nixon's White House tried to cover up the fact that five men
caught breaking into the Watergate worked for Nixon's 1972 re-election
campaign. This discovery led to exposure of a massive conspiracy and
assorted abuses of power that forced the 37th president to resign under
threat of impeachment. However, the Watergate scandal and cover-up was
different from the present case because of the nature of the abuses
being covered up, according to Clyde Wilcox, an expert on public opinion
and government at Georgetown University. "For the public, I think
there's a real difference between Watergate - using the power of
government to commit a burglary, using the IRS to investigate enemies -
that relates to misuse of office,'' Wilcox said in a telephone
interview. But Wilcox said the political and media elite in Washington
are likely to pounce on any perceived obstruction of justice in
Clinton's case because "basically this is the first time there's
something remotely like a smoking gun; obstruction of justice is an
easily defined law. The other stuff? Nobody cares.'' In Clinton's case,
reports of sexual dalliance are nothing new and in fact most voters can
understand if not condone a lie told to protect a spouse or preserve a
family, Wilcox said. Henry Graff, a Columbia University historian who
specializes in the American presidency, disagreed, saying the age and
status of the woman in this case made the difference in how the matter
was perceived. Monica Lewinsky, now 24, was a White House intern when
the alleged affair took place. That alone is enough to raise serious
questions, Graff said by telephone from New York. "This is a young kid,
an intern,'' Graff said. " ... If this were an old battle-ax, I think
the feeling would be less outrage, less shock, less a feeling of 'I am
appalled.' ... These interns are always somebody's daughter.'' While sex
makes headlines, it is not an essential component of Washington
scandals. Consider the case of Oliver North, a decorated Vietnam veteran
working during the 1980s in a then-obscure corner of the Reagan White
House called the National Security Council. North said he was simply
following a broad mandate from President Ronald Reagan to support the
Nicaraguan Contra rebels, "body and soul''. He was the key figure in a
plan to sell weapons to Iran and funnel the proceeds to the Contras,
both against U.S. policy at the time. But all charges relating to the
heart of the matter, known as the Iran-Contra affair, were dismissed by
the time North's case came to trial in 1989. What remained were various
charges involving cover-up - lying to Congress, shredding White House
documents - and greed. He was convicted in 1989 on three charges, none
dealing with arms transfers or illegal aid to foreign organizations. All
three counts were set aside on appeal. North later lost a famously
expensive bid for the U.S. Senate and is currently host of a radio talk
show. Another Washington scandal involved Gary Hart, the former Colorado
senator whose 1988 presidential bid was torpedoed after revelations of a
flamboyant extramarital affair. Hart did the opposite of trying to cover
it up: he challenged the media to follow him. They did, and his
presidential hopes sank under questions about the judgment of a
candidate who would throw down such a challenge. |
