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Politics : Bill Clinton Scandal - SANITY CHECK -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jlallen who wrote (16986)	12/3/1998 3:42:00 PM
From: Bill	Respond to of 67261

Yes, OJ redux.

To: jlallen who wrote (16986)	12/3/1998 3:55:00 PM
From: DMaA	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 67261

Nullification was the first thing I though of too but it looks like the law is at fault. Full of holes. Until it's fixed, guess the price of doing business with Washington just went up. Progressive Review December 3, 1998 Sam Smith THE ESPY ACQUITTAL Not about sex but about your dinner Independent prosecutor Dan Smaltz brought 15 criminal or civil prosecutions against 14 persons, seven companies and one law firm. He obtained 15 convictions and collected over $11 million in fines and civil penalties. Offenses for which convictions were obtained included false statements, concealing money from prohibited sources, illegal gratuities, illegal contributions, falsifying records, interstate transportation of stolen property, money laundering, and illegal receipt of USDA subsidies. The largest corporate offender, Tyson Foods, paid the government $6 million in settlement of its case. Net cost of investigation: $6 million or 3% of what Tyson Foods receives annually in federal government contracts. Because of the acquittal of former ag Secretary Michael Espy, however, one would never guess that Smaltz had done anything right. In fact, the Washington elite, led by the major media, has leaped on the acquittal as evidence of the gross failure of the independent prosecutor statute. Wrong. Smaltz' work demonstrates precisely what such a position is essential. No one else in Washington -- not the Justice Department, not Congress, not the media wanted to look into the Ag Department scandals which were, at their heart, not about sex nor about tickets to footballs games but about the safety of food that appears on your dinner plate. For example, last spring Consumer Reports revealed significant levels of contamination in chickens purchased from a number of different sources, including Tyson and Holly Farms. Although the precise number of food poisoning cases is impossible to come by, US officials say the reported cases of chicken poisoning rose three-fold between 1988 and 1992. Espy was made ag secretary only after being flown to Arkansas to get the approval of Don Tyson. In office, Espy backtracked on tougher chicken contamination standards. The primary reason Espy was let off was not because he had not received illegal gratuities -- in fact, others were convicted of giving them to him -- but because a US Court of Appeals last spring ruled that the applicable law required that Espy "knowingly and willfully" acted to break the law. As the Washington Times put it, "Intent by the companies who gave him the gifts did not matter in the decision." Further Espy claimed that he fell under another exception -- that all the gratuities had come from friends. As the law now stands -- it's before the Supreme Court in another Smaltz case -- it is okay for federal officials to accept bribes as long as no one can prove they did anything specific in return and further that if the bribers and bribee are buddies, than the latter is off the hook. Clearly this interpretation makes a mockery of bribery laws and, if allowed to stand, will contribute further to the rampant culture of impunity among the powerful. You can add "payoff" to the growing list of words -- like "sexual relations" and "is" -- that those in high places no longer comprehend. There were [sic]another reason the Smaltz probe was important. Back in 1994, Time reported that a senior pilot for Tyson had been grilled for three days by Smaltz and FBI agents about transfers of cash to the governor's mansion. Joe Henrickson claimed to have carried white envelopes containing a quarter-inch stack of $100 bills on six occasions. Here's how Ambrose Evans-Pritchard describes what happened next: "In one case, [Henrickson claimed] a Tyson executive handed him an envelope of cash in the company's aircraft hanger in Fayetteville and said, 'This is for Governor Clinton." "'I nearly fell off my chair when I heard Joe make the allegation. I took over the questions,' Smaltz told Time." But Smaltz had no authority to investigate Clinton and when he asked Janet Reno for permission she said no. Reno's refusal, along with Starr's mishandling of the Mena drug and Foster death investigations, rank among the biggest scandals that lie within the Whitewater scandal.