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

To: American Spirit who wrote (338822)	1/6/2003 5:58:11 PM
From: Baldur Fjvlnisson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Yeah, and the people sweeping Enron's scams under the carpet at the White House used to work for, that's right - ENRON.

To: American Spirit who wrote (338822)	1/6/2003 9:27:56 PM
From: Glenn Petersen	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Lyn Nofziger's conviction was overturned on appeal. A very interesting fellow and one of Ronald Reagan's truest believers. I picked up a copy of his autobiography six months ago and found it both entertaining and informative. I used to enjoy his occasional appearances on C-Span. I hope that I am wrong, but I think that he has had some health problems. house.gov Testimony of: Lyn Nofziger 1299 pennsylvania Ave. Suite 800 Washington, DC 20004 PH. 202/785-0500 Sept. 23, 1999 TESTIMONY OF LYN NOFZIGER Chairman Hyde, members of the House Committee on the Judiciary: Thank you for giving me the opportunity today to testify about the recently--and, I hope, permanently--expired Independent Counsel Law and its abuses. As you may know, I am not here as a lawyer--I am not a lawyer--but as the target of an Independent Counsel who had nothing better to do with nearly three years of his time--and mine--than to try to put me in prison. Before I go any farther, let me remind you that, thanks to his efforts, I was convicted, sentenced to 90 days in prison and fined $30,000, but that conviction, like the indictment itself, was thrown out by a federal appeals court. The entire process, from the naming of the Independent Counsel to the final action by the appeals court cost me more than $1.5 million. It also destroyed my business. The process pitted me and my limited resources against the unlimited resources of the Independent Counsel's office and a prosecutor whose sole job and intent was to see if he could put me in prison, Ladies and gentlemen, I do not think for one minute he set out to find the truth; instead he tried to bar all the facts from coming out, I think because he saw his job not as getting at the truth but as getting Lyn Nofziger. I think that is a failing that many prosecutors have, but that failing is magnified when the prosecutor has nothing better to do than to go after a single individual and has no restraints on the time and money he can spend in that pursuit. Remember, and I think this is very important, the law not only gave the independent prosecutor unlimited resources, including money and manpower but it also gave him an unlimited hunting license to go prowling through White House records as well as my business records in search of crimes I might have committed and he had a large staff with unlimited time in which to do it. They even went over my income tax records, which were in no way involved in the crimes of which I was accused, but I suppose they thought that while they were looking they might as well see if they could get me on income tax violations, as well. My point is, he was not limited to investigating the one charge of which I was accused; he literally could investigate anything that had to do with me. It's as if the Los Angeles District Attorney tried to find out if O.J. Simpson had smoked pot so he could indict him for that, too. The fact is, there are no reins on an independent counsel, no limits on what he can do, how long he can investigate or how much money he can spend. That is wrong; it amounts to giving the Independent Counsel the right to harass on an unlimited basis. I was indicted on four counts and convicted on three of them. Ironically, the one count on which I was found not guilty was the one the Independent Counsel was named to investigate. The other three counts came about, not because there were any indications of wrong-doing on my part but only because he was able to rummage freely through White House records and papers. It is important to remember one thing about the independent counsel. He does not have to convict you to destroy you; he does not even have to indict you, although that helps. He can bankrupt you by forcing you to hire lawyers who, as you know, are not cheap and who travel in pairs. The minute he indicts you lose your last clients, those who might have stuck with you through his investigation. He can ruin your reputation by taking you to trial and accusing you of all sorts of mis and malfeasances. And during all this he and his coterie of lawyers is accountable to almost no one. You have no recourse against him. Ladies and gentlemen, I have no reason to take up any more of your time. Just let me close by saying that I doubt that there is one of you here today who would rest easy if you knew there was a prosecutor out there somewhere with unlimited resources and time and access to your papers and records whose sole objective was to find you guilty of something. That is what the independent counsel law permits. That is the power the independent counsel has. It is a power that no individual should be given by the congress or that should be approved of by a president. Finally, while it is easy to say that this is a nation of laws, not men, that is not quite true; we are a nation of laws that are written and administered by flawed men. So I would urge you, if you decide to write a new Independent Counsel act to write it so that it is not subject to abuse by those who operate under it and so that the power of the independent counsel is very carefully circumscribed. Thank you very much for this opportunity.