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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 (8154)	10/12/1998 9:53:00 AM
From: j g cordes	Respond to of 13994

Zoltan.. lets not imply I agree with your principles <g>

To: Zoltan! who wrote (8154)	10/12/1998 10:36:00 AM
From: Who, me?	Respond to of 13994

Charting the course of impeachment David Schippers, chief Republican investigator for the House Judiciary Committee, holds the keys to the strategy for impeachment proceedings against President Clinton. What strategy will GOP follow? By Dennis Shea MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR WASHINGTON, Oct. 8 — After watching chief Republican investigator David Schippers make his presentation to the House Judiciary Committee on the pending impeachment proceedings, I knew Henry Hyde had found his man: Serious, dignified, yet rumpled in a refreshing not-made-for-TV kind of way, Schippers comes across as one of those “professional guys” who is still right at home sipping Scotches at the local VFW post. A CHICAGO NATIVE, Schippers must know his baseball, but apparently he also has a feel for literature, closing his Clinton-damning remarks with a flourish from “A Man for All Seasons:” “The laws of this country are the great barriers that protect the citizens from the winds of evil and tyranny,” Schippers said, evoking the sainted British barrister Thomas More, who challenged the authority of a king. “If we permit one of these laws to fall, who will be able to stand in the winds that follow?” Good question. In fact, like many of the residents of the Windy City, Schippers is a self-described “committed” Democrat, and someone who had voted for President Clinton twice. As the impeachment hearings proceed, Schippers will loom over the Judiciary Committee Democrats like the Ghost of Christmas Past: “Is the Democratic Party the party of perjury? Are Democrats apologists for law-breaking? It doesn't have to be this way. Look at me: I'm a Democrat, too.” A GUILT-INDUCING MESSAGE Richard Nixon paid the price for his abuse of executive power. Bill Clinton may do the same. This is the guilt-inducing message Schippers' very presence will send. And he won't even have to open his mouth; he just has to show up. There was one disappointment, though, in Schippers' otherwise boffo opening-day performance: his failure to include President Clinton's abuse of executive privilege among the 15 potentially impeachable offenses he identifies as stemming from the Lewinsky cover-up. In this way, Schippers takes a less aggressive approach to Presidential wrongdoing than does Ken Starr, who accuses Clinton in his 11-count impeachment referral of “repeatedly and unlawfully” invoking “the executive privilege to conceal evidence of his personal misconduct from the grand jury.” And why did Schippers punt on the executive privilege count? Two words: Public relations. The public understands words like “felony,” “perjury,” “conspiracy.” The public's indignation starts to slow boil when ominous phrases like “obstruction of justice,” “lying under oath,” and “witness tampering” are invoked. But executive privilege? These words are never uttered on “L.A. Law,” “The Practice,” or even “Ally McBeal.” So what do they mean? And why should we care? Executive privilege is the legal doctrine that allows the president to protect certain presidential communications from scrutiny by the courts and Congress. Not all presidential communications, however, are covered by the privilege, as President Nixon learned the hard way in 1974 when he asked the Supreme Court to block Watergate Special Prosecutor Leon Jaworski's subpoena of his taped Oval Office conversations. NO ONE'S ABOVE THE LAW Ruling that Nixon had to comply with the subpoena, the Supreme Court noted the president had a virtually absolute right to confidentiality in three areas: the military, diplomacy, and national security. But when other issues are implicated, the Court insisted the president's assertions of confidentiality must give way to a prosecutor's need for evidence, so long as the evidence is important and cannot be found elsewhere. This is one of the happy consequences of living under a democratic form of government rather than a monarchy. No man, including el presidente, is above the law. At least Nixon had an excuse for pursuing his executive privilege claim. In 1974, the contours of executive privilege were largely unknown. Other presidents had invoked the privilege to withhold informtion from Congress, but what the privilege did and did not cover was never clarified until the Supremes intervened in their unanimous 1974 opinion. NO EXCUSES Clinton has no such excuse. Despite the clear guidance of the Nixon decision, despite pledging his “full cooperation” with the Starr investigation, and despite approving former White House Counsel Lloyd Cutler's 1994 opinion that the Clinton Administration would never invoke executive privilege in cases involving personal wrongdoing, President Clinton did precisely that-claiming the privilege to shield the testimony of five White House employees: Sidney Blumenthal, Lanny Breuer, Nancy Hernreich, Bruce Lindsey, and Cheryl Mills. And on what basis were these claims made? If Starr was engaged in a fishing expedition into the president's private life, why did Clinton repeatedly invoke a privilege that applies only to communications involving official government matters? Was Clinton trying to protect from disclosure his conversations with Sidney Blumenthal about the latest NATO deployments in Bosnia? Or was he trying to hide his conversations about pressing “national security matters” with Nancy Hernreich, who happens to manage the Oval Office secretarial pool? Or was Clinton simply trying to protect the “institution of the presidency,” as his defenders insist? In 1974, the contours of executive privilege were largely unknown. Other presidents had invoked the privilege to withhold informtion from Congress, but what the privilege did and did not cover was never clarified until 1974, when the Supreme Court intervened. Please. Using taxpayer-funded lawyers, Clinton attempted to exploit the shield of executive privilege for one purpose and one purpose only: to delay and impede a criminal investigation into his own wrongdoing. And he succeeded. For seven months. That's an abuse of executive power. Is there any doubt about this? President Clinton, a skilled lawyer himself, knew he was skating on shaky legal ground. So he adopted the “I Know Nothing” approach. Buried in the Starr report is this little gem of presidential mendacity: “On March 24, while the President was traveling in Africa, he was asked about the assertion of Executive Privilege. He responded, ‘You should ask someone who knows.' He also stated ‘I haven't discussed that with the lawyers. I don't know.' This was untrue. Unbeknownst to the public, in a declaration filed in District Court on March 17 (seven days before the President ‘s public expression of ignorance), White House Counsel Charles F.C. Ruff informed Chief Judge Johnson that he ‘ha[d] discussed' the matter with the President, who had directed the assertion of Executive Privilege.” BOGUS CLAIMS Gotcha. With his transparently bogus executive privilege claims, Bill Clinton has succeeded in doing what was once considered impossible: He has out-Nixoned Nixon. Nixon paid the price for his abuse of executive power. The Nixon articles of impeachment accuse the former president of “knowingly misus[ing] the executive power by interfering with agencies of the executive branch, including...the Office of Watergate Special Prosecution Force....” Article III accuses Nixon him of failing to comply with lawful subpoenas issued by the House Judiciary Committee. Are these offenses “crimes?” Not really. But were they “impeachable?” Apparently so. As the impeachment inquiry proceeds, David Schippers may well re-examine the abuse of executive privilege charge. He may be surprised. The American people are pretty quick learners. They will get it. Dennis Shea is an attorney in Washington, D.C. who writes about politics and the law. He is a regular contributor to MSNBC. msnbc.com