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Politics : Clinton's Scandals: Is this corruption the worst ever? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Zoltan! who wrote (8078)	10/9/1998 3:22:00 AM
From: Borzou Daragahi	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 13994

Why not post the whole article, which includes details that highlight differences between the Clinton and Cisneros cases? Here's the rest of it, with my commentary. ....Ken Starr's case against Clinton focuses on whether the president lied under oath about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky. Starr accuses Clinton of obstructing justice by using White House staffers and friends to cover up the relationship. He alleges Clinton obstructed the investigation by trying to help Lewinsky find a job at a time when she was a potential witness against him in the Paula Jones sexual harassment lawsuit. Cisneros was indicted in December on charges he made false statements to FBI investigators conducting a background check on him in 1992 after his nomination by then president-elect Clinton to become HUD secretary. During the background check, Cisneros acknowledged that Linda Medlar, his former campaign fund-raiser in San Antonio, was also his former mistress. Cisneros, who is married with three children, had already publicly admitted to the affair while mayor. What got him into legal trouble was his recollection of support payments he made to Medlar after the affair ended. Aha! Money was involved. For someone taking charge of HUD, so scandal plagued under Reagan and Bush that it cost tax payers billions, the handling of money would be an important issue in any confirmation. He said he had made support payments to her between 1990 and 1993, but that the amounts were never more than $10,000 a year or $2,500 at a time. Investigators alleged that Cisneros made payments to Medlar, now known as Linda Jones, through 1994. And, according to the indictment, the total of the payments exceeded $250,000. The indictment alleges that Cisneros tried to hide the amount of payments and other information because he feared revealing that information would threaten his chances of being confirmed by Congress. Cisneros has said he simply had a bad memory and did not have the benefit of good records to help him in his answers. Linda Jones produced a deposit slip in the amount of $4,500, more than what Cisneros said was the amount of his largest payment. There was Hard forensic evidence of lies about money. Something the Republicans don't have. She produced tape recordings of telephone conversations during which Cisneros talked about how their relationship might affect his background check and confirmation. Oooh! That's pretty damning. Unfortunately for the Republicans, they have no such tapes of Clinton actually discussing such obstruction. Not yet, at least. Cisneros is also accused of enlisting the help of two former employees at his private company to help him hide the amount of the payments he was making to her. Part of that charge centers on whether Cisneros promised government jobs to the former employees. Stephen Saltzburg, a George Washington University law professor and former Justice Department official, says the biggest similarity between the cases is that independent counsels are investigating both of them. ''I don't think either of these cases would have been investigated if there weren't an independent counsel statute,'' Saltzburg says. ''The attorney general would have said this is not worth investigating any further in both cases.'' What a statement! But Rothstein says there is at least one difference: Although there is no suggestion that Cisneros' financial obligation made him susceptible to blackmail or ''shady transactions to get money,'' it was undoubtedly an issue that investigators would want to know, Rothstein says. Therefore immediately making the lying about the affair a public issue of grave concern. Cisneros' trial was due to begin Nov. 4 but has been postponed while his lawyers appeal a lower court ruling that the prosecution of Cisneros did not violate separation of powers or the political question doctrine. His lawyers have filed nearly three dozen motions trying to get the charges dismissed. Each charge carries a possible five-year sentence. Cisneros' lawyers could not be reached for comment. By Gary Fields, USA TODAY