the TRUTH!
LG.....
if i may, without exclamation point,
suggest it is a bit more complicated.
for now, an excerpt from here...
seattletimes.com
The original Whitewater special prosecutor was Robert Fiske Jr., a moderate Republican selected in January 1994 by Reno, who had the authority to make the appointment because the independent-counsel law had expired. Eight months later, with the law renewed and Fiske under fire from conservatives for being insufficiently aggressive in pursuit of the president, the three-judge panel in charge of appointing independent counsels abruptly replaced him with Starr.
The outcry from some quarters of the Clinton camp was immediate. Starr had been a top aide in the Reagan Justice Department, named to the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., by President Reagan, and returned to the department as solicitor general, the government's top advocate before the Supreme Court, under President Bush. He had toyed with running for the U.S. Senate as a Republican from Virginia, and had served on the finance committee of a Republican congressional candidate.
And - in an episode that exemplifies the unfortunate collision between the two matters - Starr had spoken out publicly on the Paula Jones sexual-harassment lawsuit, disputing Clinton's assertion that he should be immune from being sued while in office. Starr had considered filing a friend-of-the-court brief in the case on behalf of a women's group, before his selection as independent counsel made the matter moot. And - Jones' former lawyers now say - he even consulted with them in two or three telephone calls that dealt with the legal arguments to be made against Clinton's immunity claim.
Former Jones lawyer Joseph Cammarata said last week that the discussions, instigated by Jones' side, concerned only legal theory. "He's not sympathetic to Paula Jones' case," Cammarata said. "It was either you believe there's immunity or there is not immunity. Those were constitutional principles."
New York University law professor Stephen Gillers, an expert on legal ethics, said, "Back when he was appointed, that was one of several factors that should have led the court to choose somebody else as a matter of judgment."
'Unimmaculate conception'
Then came the disclosure that the removal of Fiske and appointment of Starr came on the heels of a meeting between North Carolina Republican Sens. Jesse Helms and Lauch Faircloth and Appeals Court Judge David Sentelle, who headed the panel that appointed Starr. Faircloth had been a leading crusader against Fiske's continuation in office.
That "unimmaculate conception," as one Starr associate called it, was bad enough. Starr's conduct afterward stoked the fire. He continued his lucrative legal practice as a partner at Kirkland & Ellis, earning $1.1 million in 1996, the last year for which he has filed a financial-disclosure form. Such outside work - he also taught a constitutional-law seminar at New York University law school - prompted criticism from those who thought he should devote himself full time to the Whitewater investigation.
Starr rejected such criticisms, but his choice of clients also came under scrutiny, as did some of his continuing associations.
He argued for the Brown & Williamson tobacco company in an appeals-court case involving class-action lawsuits, drawing criticism that he was aligning himself with an industry that was spending millions to oppose Clinton and the Democratic Party. He represented the state of Wisconsin, in a case underwritten by the conservative Bradley Foundation, upholding the use of school vouchers. He continued to serve on the board of advisers of the Washington Legal Foundation, a conservative group that has been critical of Clinton-administration policies.
Even Dash, Starr's in-house ethics counsel, told The New Yorker in 1996 that "What he's doing is proper . . . but it does have an odor to it."
And his public comments went too far for the taste of some seasoned prosecutors - and certainly for the White House. In one speech that drew significant criticism, he spoke in October 1996 at a law school run by religious broadcaster Pat Robertson, who has been highly critical of Clinton on Whitewater and other issues. Starr defended the appearance as "entirely appropriate."
Said one person who knows him well, "I think Ken is the kind of person who is so confident of his integrity that he can't imagine anybody would want to apply conflict-of-interest rules to him."
The Clintons' Whitewater lawyer, David Kendall, issued a six-page public blast at Starr last June after a New York Times Magazine profile of Starr that reported he had "provided background assistance . . . but declined to be quoted directly." Kendall accused Starr's office of mounting a "leak and smear" campaign, while Starr said that all the examples Kendall cited were based on public court statements.
And the probe drags on
Meanwhile, the investigation dragged on.
As he has tried to get to the bottom of the original Whitewater allegations - including whether Clinton, while governor of Arkansas, pressured businessman David Hale into making an illegal loan to Whitewater business partner Susan McDougal - two critical witnesses have remained unavailable to Starr: former Arkansas governor Tucker and McDougal herself.
Although Tucker was convicted in one case brought by Starr, he has been indicted in a separate matter involving cable television companies. The indictment was handed up in the summer of 1995, but the case has not yet gone to trial because Tucker contested Starr's authority to bring the case, a matter litigated up to the Supreme Court. Starr's jurisdiction was upheld, and the case is set for trial next month. Until that is concluded, Starr's prosecutors will not be able to interview Tucker about what he knows about Clinton and the loan.
At the same time, Susan McDougal, one of the partners with the Clintons in the Whitewater investment who is viewed as a critical potential witness about Clinton's involvement in the Whitewater matter, has been jailed for contempt for 17 months for refusing to testify about Clinton despite a grant of immunity.
Then, in January 1996, the Rose Law Firm billing records - related to work that Mrs. Clinton did for the McDougals' Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan - were discovered in a private area of the White House, opening up a whole new avenue of investigation. That inquiry, too, was stalled with litigation that began in August 1996 over whether notes taken by White House lawyers of their meetings with Mrs. Clinton were shielded by attorney-client privilege - an issue that Starr's office won last June.
And Starr has opened inquiries on whether White House aides or associates of the Clintons, including Vernon Jordan Jr., arranged payments to former associate attorney general Hubbell in an effort to ensure his silence on Whitewater matters. Hubbell, a former law partner of Mrs. Clinton, resigned from the Justice Department before pleading guilty to fraud and tax evasion while in private practice.
Tenuous relationships
Starr also has grappled with matters only tangentially related to Whitewater. The issue of whether former deputy White House counsel Vincent Foster Jr. committed suicide had been investigated and answered by Fiske (he said Foster had), but Starr reopened that investigation after conservative conspiracy theorists continued to assert that Foster had been killed. In July 1997 he produced a lengthy report debunking the various murder theories and concluding that Foster had killed himself.
The travel-office firings came under Starr's purview because the White House turned over to congressional investigators a memorandum by former administration official David Watkins suggesting that Mrs. Clinton may have given false testimony about the role she played in the firings. Starr told Reno he was prepared to take on the matter, and she expanded his jurisdiction, because Watkins was already caught up in the Starr investigation due to his role in the handling of the Foster suicide.
Resolving that issue has been stalled in part by yet another dispute over attorney-client privilege - whether Foster's personal lawyer, James Hamilton, should have to testify about what he discussed with Foster in a conversation shortly before the suicide. The Supreme Court is now considering whether to review that privilege claim.
Meanwhile, the issue of whether the White House had improperly received FBI personnel files of Bush and Reagan administration employees ended up in Starr's lap largely because of efficiency considerations - some of those involved, such as Watkins, were already under review by his office. And as congressional inquiries have continued, other issues, such as whether former White House counsel Bernard Nussbaum committed perjury in his testimony, have also been piled on Starr's plate.
As the investigation has gone on, Starr has been accused of hardball and improper tactics. Last summer, The Washington Post reported that FBI agents and prosecutors working for Starr had questioned Arkansas state troopers about their knowledge of any extramarital relationships Clinton may have had while he was governor, as well as a number of women whose names had been mentioned in connection with Clinton.
Kendall said it showed that Starr's investigation was "out of control."
But Starr said he was using "well-accepted law-enforcement methods" to get relevant information about the land deal and any efforts by administration officials to obstruct his inquiry.
Attitude of intimidation?
Some lawyers who have dealt with Starr have complained that he has repeatedly called the same witnesses before the grand jury on peripheral matters in order to create a "perjury trap," issued overbroad subpoenas and pursued the littlest of fish in his zeal to get at higher-ups.
"They had an attitude of intimidation and nastiness that maybe you treat the Mafia and paid Mafia lawyers that way," said one lawyer who has had extensive dealings with the office.
Others reported professional dealings. "I had no problems with them," said Stanley Brand, who represented former Clinton adviser George Stephanopoulos. "They were . . . guys who seemed to me to be well within the pale of what I'm used to dealing with."
Now, with an entirely new line of inquiry before him, Starr's hopes of moving on to Pepperdine law school - an idea he raised last February but quickly abandoned after a public outcry - appear dimmer and dimmer.
Information from the Los Angeles Times is included in this report. |
