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

To: jlallen who wrote (17495)	7/27/1998 12:23:00 AM
From: Zoltan!	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 20981

July 27, 1998 ESSAY / By WILLIAM SAFIRE Grand Obstruction A prosecutor must have a "theory of the case" -- a theme that ties together the disparate evidence of a conspiracy to obstruct justice -- to give coherent meaning to all the strands of evidence. Up to now, our attention has been narrowly focused on the Tripp appearances before a grand jury, the deal-making for Lewinsky testimony, the Presidential subpoena to testify again under oath. And as of now, the Clinton defenders are saying: everybody lies about sexual liaisons, and if one took place here, the cover-up is trivial, certainly no "high crime" providing the basis for impeachment. Conventional wisdom has it that the scandals of the first term -- Whitewater and the concealment of files, power abuse in the travel-office firings, Filegate -- all turned out to be dry holes, with the Little Rock grand jury shut down, leaving the Independent Counsel with little to show but the improper inducement to lie about some tawdry hanky-panky. But what if we're all mistaken? What if the seemingly obsessive pursuit of false denial in the Lewinsky-Tripp-Willey matter turns out to illuminate a much broader landscape of witness-tampering and suppression of evidence? Then we would be talking about a serious abuse of executive power. Assume for unconventional argument's sake that a distinct pattern can be shown -- both in the cast of characters and the technique of payoff employed -- of possibly hushing up Webster Hubbell on Whitewater and possibly buying Monica Lewinsky's cooperation in giving a witness "talking points" to mislead a jury. Assume that dots can be connected among the use of the office of White House counsel to transmit false information to a grand jury about the First Lady's involvement in Travelgate firings, the removal and concealment of Rose Law Firm files long under subpoena and the improper use of White House counsel to coordinate and influence the testimony of witnesses and avoid subpoenas in subsequent criminal investigations. And assume that Independent Counsel has a witness tying a cover-up of bank fraud directly to President Clinton himself. That John Dean-like accuser might be Jim Guy Tucker, Clinton's successor as Arkansas Governor, who twice met privately with the President and has reportedly been turning state's evidence since his plea bargain. If my pure speculation about Ken Starr's "theory of the case" is correct, and his intent is to show a pervasive pattern of the use of executive power to obstruct the administration of justice, that would explain (a) the prosecutor's vain attempt to see the notes of Vincent Foster's lawyer regarding Travelgate, (b) his ongoing effort to deny privilege to taxpayer-paid White House lawyers and (c) the prosecutor's appeal of a recent court decision taking the pressure off the well-compensated Hubbell to talk. This approach also suggests that the demand by Clinton Justice for total Secret Service privilege in the Lewinsky matter was a classic and perhaps fatal blunder. Resulting sweeping court decisions emboldened Starr to bring a parade of agents before grand juries. Why assume, as most do, that the line of questioning is limited to sexual encounters? Agents may have witnessed obstruction in other matters. Every bit of corroboration counts. We already know that Starr sought the services of a professional writer to draft his report to the courts and Congress. We can logically conclude that he found a writer whose summary of the criminal information, running a couple of hundred pages, is now well under way. Space has surely been left for the insertion of the upcoming testimony of Ms. Lewinsky and of Secret Service witnesses on the full range of investigations, and for the coming addition to previous testimony given under oath by President Clinton. When will we get this report? My guess is, in Clinton's phrase, sooner rather than later: Starr need not wait for all appeals to end or trials to be held before reporting on the Presidential obstruction he encountered over three years. Public reaction to its startling contents should be "if we had only known." More profound question: what conclusions about abuse of power will the report reach, or lead a reluctant Congress to act upon? The answer, if I am right, may come more quickly and be more far-reaching than most imagine. nytimes.com

To: jlallen who wrote (17495)	7/27/1998 12:39:00 AM
From: MR. PANAMA (I am a PLAYER)	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 20981

jlallen if you are a man then why have your handle look like a womans....lowercase...stop being a sissy and change it to add capitals. I have been on many sex chat lines and the guys looking fer guys take small letters and pretend to be women to get the guys to talk dirty to them while they whack off. You have made it seem like you are a female and when i once asked you if you were not Ginger Lynn Allen you made NO attemt to tell us that you were a GUY.