BREAKING NEWS: SLICK USING WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL ILLEGALLY
DRUDGE REPORT
By Matt Drudge
Thu Jun 11 1998 22:35:10 EDT
L.A. TIMES SHOCKER: BRUCE LINDSEY HAS BEEN IN CONTACT WITH VERNON JORDAN!
Sleuth Lindsey
**Exclusive**
The DRUDGE REPORT has learned, the LOS ANGELES TIMES recently obtained confidential court records from the ongoing Monica Lewinsky grand jury probe.
Late Thursday, TIMES reporters Ron Ostrow and David Willman were said to be preparing a report that details a 51-page opinion signed on May 1 by Chief U.S. District Judge Norma Holloway Johnson.
"The court questions the propriety of the president utilizing a government attorney as his personal agent in a personal attorney-client relationship, wrote Johnson.
Bruce R. Lindsey, White House official, lawyer on government payroll. Sleuth.
"Secret portions of court records in the case illuminate the presidential aide's special role as an intelligence and reconnaissance operative," the LOS ANGELES TIMES is set to report, perhaps as early as Friday.
"[The paper] finally has a Lewinsky scoop," a Los Angeles-based TIMES reporter joked.
And according to newspaper intelligence, Lindsey declined to be interviewed for the upcoming report.
One of many revelations in the TIMES exclusive: Bruce Lindsey has been in contact with Vernon Jordan.
Judge Johnson wrote in her opinion: "In the case of the president of the United States, taxpayers should not bear the financial burden of facilitating communications between the president and his personal attorneys or of advising those attorneys on strategy... The court finds that Lindsey was not an appropriate intermediary and the attorney-client privilege does not apply to conversations where he allegedly facilitated communications between the president and his personal counsel."
Records show that Lindsey directly sought information from three witnesses in the Lewinsky matter at the time the controversy was erupting last January, the LOS ANGELES TIMES will report.
Lindsey reached out before Starr had the chance to bring the witnesses before the grand jury in Washington to tell what they knew.
Example: Lindsey contacted a lawyer for a retired chief White House steward named Michael McGrath. Specific details of what was discussed are not highlighted in the TIMES report, but Ostrow and Willman do reveal: McGrath was prepared to testify that White House valet Bayani
Nelvis had given him details of what he observed in the White House during a Lewinsky moment!
"Among other things, Nelvis told McGrath that Lewinsky's hair was askew and that, on the floor of the study, the valet found towels smeared with lipstick."
Nelvis was later called before the grand jury twice, represented by a lawyer who is participating in a joint-defense arrangement with those defending Clinton.
[Lewinsky-a-holics will recall, the WALL STREET JOURNAL was forced to retract a story that reported Nelvis would testify he had seen Lewinsky's hair askew, towels smeared with lipstick.]
Pause.
The TIMES story is extensive.
Ostrow and Willman disclose Lindsey is refusing to answer questions about conversations he had several months ago with key witness Vernon Jordan.
Judge Johnson sharply questioned why a lawyer, on government payroll, was doing this kind of sleuthing.
DD (Drudge Double) |
