Review & Outlook
Obstruction and Abuse:
A Pattern
The latest Clinton scandal involving Monica Lewinsky is titillating because
of sex, but it derives its legal and political importance from the issues of
perjury and obstruction of justice. The latter is the legal description of a
coverup, and a generation ago was the centerpiece in President Nixon's
Watergate scandal, which originally started with a "third rate burglary." In
fact, the issue of obstructing, avoiding and abusing the law and law
enforcement agencies has been a constant theme of the long series of
Clinton scandals both in Washington and Arkansas.
There is a view about in the land nowadays that
whatever Mr. Clinton's shortcomings (almost never
detailed when this point is being pressed), the
people somehow have internalized them. The
shortcomings "don't matter" or don't "interfere with
his job" or "everyone does it." Were any of this
actually a true description of public belief today
about the American system of politics, that system
would be in profound danger. No system that we
are aware of has survived on a foundation of rank
cynicism.
The events that are described in the passages
inside, however, depend precisely on a reading of this country's
contemporary culture that indeed makes allowances for overturning
traditional standards of political and personal conduct. Some of those
standards are in fact laws, which is the mandate of the independent
counsel who have been appointed so far. Some of those standards allow
our most politically powerful institutions, such as the FBI the Secret
Service or Justice Department, to be seen as exemplary rather than mere
instruments of politics. And some of those standards, pertaining to private
conduct, exist to ensure that the President of a great nation, very simply, is
a man one looks up to.
The Clinton Presidency, in our view, has in large part been an exercise in
defining downward the standards that elected officials must abide by and
that voters in a democracy expect them to abide. At the current juncture,
readers may find a refresher course instructive.
The Lewinsky Affair
Dec. 19, 1997: Former White House intern Monica Lewinsky is served a
subpoena in the Paula Jones sexual harassment case against Bill Clinton. A
lawyer for Lewinsky is arranged by presidential friend Vernon Jordan
Dec. 28: According to later reports in the New
York Times, Lewinsky visits the White House for
a private meeting with the President, who instructs
her to describe her earlier White House visits as
meetings with his secretary, Betty Currie. He also
tells her that if she does not have any gifts from
him, she cannot produce them under subpoena,
and Ms. Lewinsky gives the gifts to Mrs. Currie.
Jan. 7, 1998: Lewinsky completes an affidavit for
the Jones case saying she never had sex with the
President.
Around Jan. 9: Lewinsky is offered a job at Revlon, after the intervention
of Jordan.
Jan. 12: Linda Tripp, a friend of Lewinsky, contacts Independent
Counsel Kenneth Starr with tapes of conversations between the two, in
which Lewinsky said she had an affair with the President and intended to
lie in her affidavit. Tripp, a former White House employee, also has been
subpoenaed in the Jones case.
Jan. 13: In a conversation secretly taped by the FBI, Lewinsky describes
to Tripp her conversations with Jordan about the affidavit.
Jan. 14 or 15: Lewinsky gives Tripp three pages of "talking points,"
suggesting that Tripp file an affidavit in the Jones case contradicting an
earlier comment to Newsweek that Kathleen Willey, a volunteer in the
White House social office, had reported being fondled by the President:
"You now do not believe that what [Ms. Willey] claimed happened really
happened," the talking points instruct. "You now find it completely
plausible that she herself smeared her lipstick, untucked her blouse, etc."
Jan. 17: Clinton is questioned under oath in the Paula Jones case. Various
news reports say he denied any sexual misconduct at the White House,
but is questioned extensively about Lewinsky.
Jan. 18: According to a later report in the New York Times, Clinton
summons his secretary, Betty Currie, to the White House, and asks a
series of questions that can be seen as coaching her grand jury testimony,
for example, telling her he was never alone with Lewinsky. But news
reports suggest that Currie's grand jury testimony contradicts the
President's testimony on key points.
Campaign Finance Abuses
Sept. 13, 1995: At an Oval Office meeting among the President,
Commerce Department official John Huang, Lippo Group scion James
Riady, senior Clinton aide Bruce Lindsey, and Arkansas dealmaker
Joseph Giroir, a decision is reached to dispatch Huang to a senior
Democratic National Committee fund-raising post.
1996: Huang and longtime Clinton friend Charlie Trie engineer millions in
contributions to Democratic coffers, helping to fund an early advertising
campaign designed by adviser Dick Morris. Much of it is later returned as
illegal. Reno rejects calls for an independent counsel.
April 29, 1996: Gore attends a fund-raiser at the Hsi Lai Buddhist
Temple in California, raising at least $140,000. The fundraiser later comes
under scrutiny by Congress and the Department of Justice. Gore initially
calls the visit a "community outreach event." Later he admits knowing that
the visit was donor-related but says his staff failed to tell him it was a
formal fund-raiser.
October: On the eve of the presidential election, with the campaign
finance issue exploding, Lindsey advises White House aides to lie about
Riady's visits to Clinton, telling them to characterize the visits as "social"
calls.
December: Concealing the news until after the election, the president's
legal defense trust discloses that Trie attempted to deliver $640,000 in
donations to the trust. The money was returned.
July 1997: Sen. Fred Thompson opens hearings into campaign finance
abuses, impaired by White House document stonewalls, witnesses fleeing
the country and others pleading the Fifth Amendment. As the hearings
close, Reno again rejects calls for an independent counsel.
January 1998: A Justice task force indicts Trie, who returns from refuge
in Macau to plead innocent.
The Department of Justice
March 1993: Newly installed as attorney general after the abortive
nominations of Zoe Baird and Kimba Wood, Janet Reno fires all 93 U.S.
attorneys.
May: Arkansas crony Webster Hubbell is
installed as associate attorney general; in a 1994
deal with the Whitewater independent counsel, he
pleads guilty to felony fraud and goes to prison.
January 1994: Respected Deputy Attorney
General Philip Heymann resigns.
July 1995: In a meeting with Reno and top aides,
amid mounting pressure from the White House and
prominent Arkansans, Independent Counsel
Donald Smaltz is told to stop investigating
poultry giant Tyson Foods.
August: Criminal Division head Jo Ann Harris retires. Robert Litt, a
Clinton political appointee and former partner of Clinton personal attorney
David Kendall, is put forward for the job, but Justice later withdraws the
nomination.
April 1996: Top Public Integrity officials Lee Radek and Jo Ann
Farrington sign an unprecedented motion before the Special Division of the
U.S. Court of Appeals seeking to limit the Smaltz probe.
April 1997: Newly named Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder elevates
Litt to principal associate deputy attorney general, not subject to
confirmation but arguably the third most important position in the
department. The post of head of the criminal division, for which Litt's
nomination was withdrawn, remains vacant.
September: Charles La Bella, a protege of former Clinton fund raiser
Allan Bersin, now the U.S. attorney in San Diego, is brought in to head the
Justice Department campaign finance probe.
November: Respected internal watchdog Michael Shaheen, head of the
Office of Professional Responsibility for 22 years, announces his
resignation.
Independent Counsels
Jan. 20, 1994: Attorney General Janet Reno appoints Robert Fiske as
independent counsel to investigate Whitewater.
Aug. 5: A three-judge special panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals
removes Fiske and appoints Kenneth Starr.
Sept. 12: Donald Smaltz is named independent counsel to investigate
Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy.
May 24, 1995: David Barrett is appointed independent counsel to
investigate charges that Housing Secretary Henry Cisneros lied to the
FBI.
July 6: Daniel Pearson is named independent
counsel to probe business dealings of Commerce
Secretary Ron Brown; the probe is closed on
Brown's death.
March 22, 1996: Starr's investigation is
expanded to cover the Travel Office affair.
June 21: Starr's jurisdiction is expanded to cover
the Filegate affair.
Nov. 26: Reno refuses to name an independent
counsel in the campaign finance affair.
Feb. 17, 1997: Starr announces he will step down to become dean of
Pepperdine Law School. Four days later he says he will stay on until
investigations and prosecutions are "substantially completed."
April 30: For the second time, Reno refuses to name an independent
counsel to probe campaign finance irregularities.
Dec. 2: Reno once again refuses to name an independent counsel to
investigate campaign finance abuses.
Dec. 15: Reno declines to appoint an independent counsel to investigate
the president's role in the Indian casino scandal.
Jan. 16, 1998: Reno and judges expand Starr's mandate again, to
investigate possible perjury and obstruction of justice relative to Clinton's
testimony in the Paula Jones trial.
Jan. 27: In an appearance on NBC's "Today" show, Hillary Clinton
complains of a "vast right-wing conspiracy," including Starr and the
three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals, headed by David
Sentelle.
Feb. 11: Reno announces she will appoint an independent counsel to
investigate Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt's involvement in the Indian
casino scandal.
Webster Hubbell
March 1993: Installed as the Justice Department "liaison" to the White
House, Webster Hubbell brokers a meeting with the congressional Black
Caucus that leads to the reversal of the Justice Department position in the
Memphis corruption trial of Rep. Harold Ford. The U.S. attorney and two
assistants resign. First Journal editorial, "Who Is Webster Hubbell?"
March 1994: Associate Attorney General
Hubbell resigns amid a probe into his Rose Law
Firm billing practices.
April: Vernon Jordan helps Hubbell obtain
$63,000 in "consulting fees" from a holding
company controlled by Revlon financier Ron
Perelman.
June: Following five White House visits by James
Riady, the Lippo Group pays Hubbell $100,000
for undisclosed services. According to a USA
Today compilation, after leaving Justice Hubbell
"was paid more than $500,000 by various companies and people,
including some with close ties to the White House."
Dec. 6: Hubbell pleads guilty to two fraud felonies in a deal with
Whitewater prosecutors and promises cooperation. No cooperation
materializes.
The Ron Brown Paper Chase
May 16, 1995: Judge Royce Lamberth orders the release of documents
on Commerce Secretary Ron Brown's trade missions and possible
political influence on them, under a Freedom of Information Act suit filed
by Judicial Watch, a conservative legal watchdog group.
April 3, 1996: Brown and 32 others die in a plane
crash in Croatia.
Oct. 28: Ira Sockowitz, a Clinton appointee at
Commerce, admits he removed classified
documents when he took a new job at the Small
Business Administration. The documents are seized
by the SBA's Inspector General. In November,
Dalia Traynham, a Commerce employee, admits
shredding documents from Brown's files after his
death.
May 28, 1997: Graham Whatley, a Commerce
official, reveals existence of a "DNC Minority Donors List" in
departmental files. It had been turned over to the Justice Department two
months earlier, but not to Judicial Watch or the court.
Aug. 12: The Clinton administration capitulates and offers to pay $2
million in legal fees to Judicial Watch. The group later asks the court for
additional discovery, including a resumption of its deposition of John
Huang. |
