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Politics : Bill Clinton Scandal - SANITY CHECK -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DMaA who wrote (64837)	1/13/2000 10:35:00 AM
From: Zoltan!	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 67261

January 13, 2000 The Most Corrupt Administration Ever These are excerpts from a televised address by Sen. Orrin Hatch, a Republican presidential candidate, due to air this week in New Hampshire and Iowa: We need to look at what happened right after the Clinton-Gore administration's re-election in 1996. In fact, even before the campaign was over, the revelations started. More word of attempts by the administration to politically misuse the power of federal agencies like the FBI, the Secret Service, the Immigration Service and even the Census Bureau. Disturbing allegations that the IRS was retaliating against political opponents of the administration. Questionable practices or abuses of power at the Commerce Department, the Interior Department and Housing and Urban Development. . . . And then came still more revelations . . . including allegations of the misuses of government power to raise millions upon millions in illegal campaign contributions. Not just that the Lincoln bedroom had a political purpose and a price. Not just that the White House was open to suspicious characters--despite official warnings--who purchased access to the president and various federal departments with their checkbooks. Even beyond that, the White House saw frequent visits by a bagman for the Riady family of Indonesia [which is] tied to Chinese business and government interests and--hard as this is to believe--another fund-raiser who was indirectly tied to a high official of the Chinese army. . . . The administration's answer was a frightening echo of the Watergate scandal: "Everybody does it." But the fact is, that isn't true. No administration in our history has ever had a political fund-raiser in such a high position in government who was so closely tied to foreign interests, allowed him not only repeated access to the White House but [to] CIA briefings and top-secret clearances, and then made him privy to the United States' positions in trade negotiations. The administration had also altered those positions in ways that were favorable to these foreign interests. And, finally, all this occurred as allegations cropped up of missile technology transfers and a massive breach of U.S. nuclear secrets by the Chinese government. . . . Faced with an astonishing range of allegations about illegal activities, from perjury by administration officials before Congress to damaging missile technology transfers and even theft of nuclear secrets, the Justice Department did not pursue corruption but thwarted its own lead attorney in the investigation as well as FBI Director Louis Freeh. After refusing to follow the dictates of law and appoint an independent counsel to thoroughly investigate the illegal fund-raising . . . the department arranged highly questionable, even sweetheart, plea bargains with key wrongdoers who might have provided damaging testimony. . . . After assessing the investigations, indictments and numerous top-level resignations covering a gamut of departments in this administration, we have to confront the possibility--however sad, however tragic--that when those investigations are finally over, this administration may be remembered as the most deceitful and corrupt in our nation's history. Just ask yourself: What other administration has ever, to this extent, used the awesome power of the White House and federal departments to assure its political survival even when this meant politically intervening with civil and criminal investigations? What administration refused to hold accountable so many officials and political allies--most of them lawyers--for casually defying congressional committees with the false testimony of chronic memory loss? What other administration seemed to get away with diligently fighting and discrediting not just a court-appointed independent counsel investigating corruption, but even punishing one of its own Justice Department lawyers, Charles LaBella, for urging vigorous investigation? And what other administration has so callously defied subpoenas and held back documents and, when forced to disclose them, routinely released them on Friday afternoons--and then all but openly gloated at their ability to thwart any real media attention? . . . The first step in putting all this right and setting out to rescue the democratic process is reasserting this: There is an antidote to all the blab, falsehood and duplicity of modern political campaigning. It's the biggest breakthrough, the greatest technological marvel ever invented in politics. It's called the truth. The power of the truth. Telling the simple unvarnished truth. And counting on the people to recognize it, feel its magnetic pull, signal their approval and rally to its support. . . . I am disturbed that the current frontrunner in the race for the Republican nomination for the presidency doesn't really want to speak to this issue. And the second-place candidate in the polls wants to make simplistic charges about "special interests" and calls for even more rules and restrictions on political speech and activity that would make it impossible for an opposition party to raise the issues of corruption. We must point out how "the corrupt system" is really about a unique and historic brand of wrongdoing by a new class of elitist liberals and political power-seekers who appear to think themselves above the people and unaccountable to them. interactive.wsj.com