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

To: MulhollandDrive who wrote (17533)	7/27/1998 2:13:00 PM
From: Zoltan!	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 20981

Yeah. And they only lie whenever they open their mouths. EDITORIAL The presidential subpoena The first thing to be said about the subpoena issued to the president by Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth Starr is that it has been handled by the White House with the disingenuousness, the evasiveness and the callous self-regard we have come to expect from the Clintons. The subpoena, it turns out, was issued week before last; and yet Mr. Clinton's spinners went on declining to say whether their boss had been subpoenaed or denying outright that he had. And then, late Friday, as Tim Russert pointed out on "Meet the Press," when the whole country was preoccupied with the tragic killing of two police officers in the Capitol, the White House quietly "let the word out" that the president's lawyers are now working with Mr. Starr to "get the grand jury the information it needs." That sort of action in response to the Capitol shootings speaks for itself. And how about that newest Clintonian mantra about getting the grand jury the information it needs from the president? Consider these exchanges on "Meet the Press" between Mr. Russert and Clinton adviser Rahm Emmanuel: Mr. Russert: "So we can expect, in the very near future, the president to be under oath and answer questions from Ken Starr?" Mr. Emmanuel: "I think what we can expect is that Dave Kendall's now working with the Office of Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr to find that information and to get -- to find out a way to get the information to the grand jury." Mr. Russert: "The president wants to testify under oath?" Mr. Emmanuel: "The president wants to get the information that the grand jury needs and has instructed Mr. Kendall to talk to Mr. Starr to do exactly that." Mr. Russert: "So somewhere, somehow, this president will testify under oath about the Monica Lewinsky situation." Mr. Emmanuel: "David Kendall is instructed to work with Ken Starr to find a way to get the information that the grand jury needs . . ." Now, Mr. Starr has, of course, already found such a way by making Bill Clinton the first president in history to be subpoenaed for grand jury testimony. Though Mr. Clinton's spinners are busily creating the impression that there is some question as to whether a sitting president can legally be compelled to comply, it seems unlikely in the extreme that any court would elevate any president above the law by granting him special subpoena-free status. Fighting the subpoena might call up once again those uncomfortable comparisons with Tricky Dick Nixon, whose battle to decline a subpoena for his Oval Office tapes went all the way to the Supreme Court, where it failed. Mr. Clinton has had it in his power for six months to provide that information voluntarily and publicly -- something he promised the American public he would do "sooner rather than later." Not only has he failed to live up to that promise, he has declined repeated requests from Mr. Starr for unsubpoenaed testimony. Suddenly, now that he's faced with a subpoena, Mr. Clinton is eager to "get the grand jury the information it needs." But he wants to do it on his own terms. No appearance before the actual grand jury for him, to begin with. The president would like to testify in the comfort of his own home. The president reportedly also seeks to limit the scope of the questions Mr. Starr may ask him. And unlike any other citizen called to grand jury testimony, the president would prefer to have his many, many lawyers in attendance. Forget it. If in deference to the dignity of the office, Mr. Starr agrees to allow the president to testify away from the grand jury, on videotape, fine and good. But under no circumstances should any other concessions be granted --particularly of the sort that would play into the hands of Mr. Clinton's talent for evasion. It is high time Bill Clinton was forced to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help him God, about Monica Lewinsky. washtimes.com