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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Neocon who wrote (149128)	5/27/2001 10:27:51 AM
From: jlallen	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Saw this one coming....... Saturday May 26, 2001; 12:30 p.m. EDT Senate Dems Readying Whitewater-style Probes for Bush Newly empowered Senate Democrats are salivating at the prospect of dirtying-up President Bush by launching a Whitewater-style investigation of the White House and Bush's Texas past, a former top Clinton aide revealed Saturday. "The Bush administration will have to face, as its recent predecessors did, an array of committees with the power to peel back secrecy and probe controversy," reports former Clinton speechwriting director Michael Waldman in Saturday's New York Times. "The results may not be pretty," he warns. For years Democrats complained about millions of dollars spent on investigations into an array of Clinton scandals, including allegations of a cover-up in the death of former top Clinton aide Vince Foster and charges that the administration gave the Communist Chinese nuclear secrets in exchange for campaign contributions. Though similar controversies have yet to emerge on Bush's short watch, that's not expected to stop Senate Democrats now that they have majority control -- and the subpoena power that comes along with it -- thanks to Sen. James Jeffords' decision Thursday to bolt the GOP. Anticipating a scandal attack by soon-to-be-Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle and other hostile partisans, Waldman observes: "Until now, George W. Bush has looked -- in this way as in so many -- exceedingly lucky. With the expiration of the independent counsel law, and with Congress friendly territory, it looked as if he would be able to sail though his term with far fewer controversies and confrontations." Without a murder mystery or any sexual harassment charges to prompt suspicions, Waldman suggests that Daschle's first investigative target should be the Bush team's ties to various oil companies, suggesting that hearings commence on "closed door sessions on that drafted the administration's new industry-friendly energy plan." Another scandal probe suggested by the recently departed Clinton aide: An investigation into charges that the Bush Justice Department is undermining legal action against the tobacco companies initiated under former Attorney General Janet Reno. While Waldman's recommendations include the obligatory disclaimer that new Democratic probes into the Bush White House "should not be payback time," clearly partisan revenge will be the order or the day. "The power to probe is a critical tool for accountability," he warns in high minded tones. Dan Burton, call your office. Luckily for Republicans, the Bush administration is not without recourse -- as long as it's prepared to play hardball and drop its namby-pamby "let's move on" approach to still pending charges of criminality against the Clinton administration. The GOP finally controls the all important Justice Department -- which, as the last eight years have amply demonstrated -- has the power to torpedo even the most serious investigations into presidential wrongdoing, let alone the nuisance probes currently on Democratic drawing boards. In fact, despite its professed disinterest in exposing further criminal wrongdoing by the previous White House, Bush has appointed a team that is extraordinarily well equipped to revisit some of the more serious charges against both Bill and Hillary Clinton, should the need arise. Certainly, the former First Lady recognizes the potential threat. On Thursday Mrs. Clinton cast the only vote in the entire Senate not to confirm Michael Chertoff as Justice Department Criminal Division chief. She did the same on the nomination of Viet Dinh for another top Justice Department post. Clinton well remembers how Chertoff, while lead counsel of the Senate Whitewater Committee, skillfully dissected her cover-up of the Castle Grande real estate scam and, by process of elimination, removed all doubt that anyone but she and/or her husband could have planted her long-lost Rose Law firm billing records in the White House's book room. Mrs. Clinton may actually have even more to fear from Mr. Dinh, since he was intimately involved in probing reports from two Arkansas state troopers who say a Clinton aide told them Vince Foster had killed himself in the White House parking lot -- not where his body was later found, in a Virginia Park eight miles away. Add to that Bush's appointment to head up the Drug Enforcement Administration, Asa Hutchinson. Hutchinson was not only a House Manager during Clinton's impeachment trial, but served as U.S. Attorney in Arkansas while that office probed reports that drugs were being shipped in and out of Mena. It was Hucthinson who successfully prosecuted Clinton's brother Roger in 1985 on charges he was involved in a massive conspiracy to distribute cocaine. Then there's Brett Kavanaugh, a former associate independent counsel who was considered one of the strongest advocates for Clinton's impeachment in the Office of Independent Counsel. Kavanaugh, who was selected in March for a top post in the Bush White House counsel's office, was prepared to send an impeachment referral to Congress even before Monica Lewinsky's stained dress proved the president had lied under oath. Last but not least is newly confirmed Bush Solicitor General Ted Olson, whose work with the American Spectator certainly made him privy to all sorts of unpublished details about Clintonian wrongdoing -- his limited connection to the much heralded "Arkansas Project" notwithstanding. It's hard to believe that Bush could have tapped this many former Clinton probers for top legal posts at random, despite his public protestations about the need to "move on" from the Clinton scandals. But whether he was deliberately seeking out lawyers with Clinton investigative experience or not, the team of Chertoff, Olson, Dihn, Kavanaugh and Hutchinson certainly knows where the proverbial Clinton scandal bodies are buried -- in spades. The question is: Will Bush be ready to use his legal firepower when Senate Democrats implement their plans to make the rest of his term an investigative nightmare?