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Politics : Did Slick Boink Monica? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jlallen who wrote (15165)	5/14/1998 3:53:00 PM
From: DD™	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 20981

INDEPENDENT COUNSEL SMALTZ TELLS FRONTLINE RENO, CLINTON UNDERMINED INVESTIGATION drudgereport.com Thu May 14 09:45:22 1998 INDEPENDENT COUNSEL SMALTZ TELLS FRONTLINE RENO, CLINTON UNDERMINED INVESTIGATION Frontline's investigative team of Peter Boyer and Michael Kirk ("Once Upon A Time in Arkansas") have produced "Secrets of an Indpendent Counsel" to air next Tuesday, May 19, on PBS. The film includes an interview with sitting Independent Counsel Donald Smaltz who accuses Janet Reno, the Justice Department, and President Clinton of trying to undermine his investigation. BOSTON-In a program to air Tuesday, May 19, the PBS documentary series FRONTLINE broadcasts a rare and candid interview with a sitting independent counsel, Donald Smaltz, who is investigating former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy. It is the first time a sitting independent counsel has been interviewed on television since Lawrence Walsh was interviewed on Nightline in 1988. "Secrets of an Independent Counsel," which tells the inside story of how the Department of Justice went to war against one of its own independent counsels, also includes: ú Smaltz's accusations that Attorney General Janet Reno, President Clinton, and Tyson Foods, a powerful corporate friend of the president, orchestrated an effort to undermine his investigation and the institution of the independent counsel. ú The story of how the Department of Justice ordered Smaltz to answer Tyson CEO Don Tyson's lawyers' complaints about him and, when he failed to do it, took important elements of the investigation away from him. ú Smaltz's belief that this group of independent counsels will be the last, that the idea of an outside prosecutor investigating crimes allegedly committed by the top echelon of government will be undone within the year. "At the time it was reenacted, the President of the United States, William Jefferson Clinton, called it 'the cornerstone for the foundation of trust between a citizen and the government,'" says Smaltz about the independent counsel statute. "But the problem is that the Attorney General doesn't like the way, and the administration doesn't like the way it's working now." The investigative team of Peter Boyer and Michael Kirk ("Once Upon a Time in Arkansas," "The Fixers," "Navy Blues," "Waco-The Inside Story") traces Smaltz's investigation of Espy on charges he received gifts from companies regulated by his agency, which resulted in a thirty-nine count indictment of Espy for violating a variety of criminal statutes. It was Smaltz's investigation of Espy that lead him to Tyson Foods, the largest chicken supplier in the nation, which eventually pled guilty to one count of making a gratuity-$12,000. "I considered the Tyson victory a significant victory," says Smaltz. "And it's not the amount of dollars, it's the corruption or the potential for corruption in the system. The fact that it was given in express violation of the law, with the intent to curry favor and favored treatment." "Smaltz believes he seeks the truth regardless of the consequences," says Boyer. "To some, it seems, that zealous, single-mindedness is dangerous."