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

To: Johannes Pilch who wrote (38588)	3/15/1999 10:52:00 PM
From: JBL	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 67261

Maybe you would care to comment on this , Your Highness. This Bakaly stuff is starting to smell pretty bad, you know....Anyway, who killed Tinky Winky ? The Charles Bakaly-Howard Shapiro duo The Washington Times March 15, 1999 Joseph P. Duggan Has there been a mole in Kenneth Starr's office? Botched investigations and self-destructive actions by the special prosecutor's staff have long suggested this possibility. Former independent counsel press spokesman Charles Bakaly resigns under suspicion of improperly leadking information about investigations of Bill Clinton. So whom does he hire to defend himself in a possible Justice Departmetn investigation of the leaks? Howard Shapiro, former general counsel of the FBI. Mr. Bakaly's choice of lawyers -- and Mr. Shapiro's choice of clients -- adds new knots to an almost impossibly tangled legal web. Mr. Shapiro is a key player in what George Stephanopoulos has described as the “Ellen Rometsch strategy” - the effort to destroy members of Congress and of the law enforcement community who have sought to hold Bill Clinton and his associates accountable for criminal behavior. Moreover, Shapiro himself has been accused of sabotaging Starr's investigation of “Filegate” - the illegal use of confidential FBI background investigation reports containing potentially embarrassing and derogatory material on Reagan and Bush administration political appointees by political operatives in the Clinton White House. During the summer of 1996, investigators for the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee discovered the illegal use of the Republicans' sensitive FBI files while probing another matter - the Clinton administration's misuse of the FBI in firing the White House Travel Office staff. The House Government Reform Committee took depositions, held hearings and issued an interim report in September 1996 (it has never issued a subsequent report). The interim report did not unravel the full story of Filegate, but it did conclude that the general counsel of the FBI had abused power and obstructed justice in two instances. First, the FBI general counsel had given a heads up about the breaking story and pending investigation of Filegate to Clinton White House aides before investigators could collect evidence. This gave Clinton operatives an opportunity to destroy evidence and coordinate alibis. Second, the FBI general counsel had intimidated a witness in the investigation - career FBI agent Dennis Sculimbrene, who had given damning evidence to Starr's grand jury implicating Hillary Rodham Clinton in the hiring of Craig Livingstone, the White House staffer who had illegally collected the Republican's background files. Mr. Clinton's FBI general counsel, the first partisan political appointee ever to hold that sensitive post, was none other than Howard Shapiro. The House Government Reform Committee accused Shapiro of obstruction of justice, demanded his immediate dismissal, and recommended prosecution. More than any other House member, Appropriations chairman Bob Livingston made punishing Shapiro a personal crusade. He called FBI director Louis Freeh before his committee to demand Shapiro's ouster. But Mr. Freeh fudged. Mr. Shapiro stayed on the job for nearly a year, until the heat was off. Then he left to accept a plum partnership at the law firm of Washingon insider and former Clinton White House Counsel Lloyd Cutler. Mr. Shapiro meanwhile became involved with Starr's grand jury - not as a witness or as a target of prosecution, but as attorney for a witness. The witness was the notorious private investigator Terry Lenzner, identified by former Clinton political strategist Dick Morris as the capo of Mr. Clinton's Secret Police and on the payroll of Mr. Clinton's lawyer David Kendall. Mr. Starr's grand jury questioned Mr. Lenzner to investigate possible obstruction of justice involving salacious, unproven press reports alleging sexual misconduct by prosecutors on Mr. Starr's staff. Starr's grand jury also questioned Mr. Lenzner about links to the illegal release of Linda Tripp's confidential personnel file. Mr. Lenzner remains a prime suspect in the spread of damaging information about the private lives of Shapiro's two main nemeses -- House Government Reform chairman Dan Burton and Bob Livingston, who quit as House Speaker-elect because of leaked allegations of sexual misconduct. It is disturbing to say the least that Shapiro, a key player in apparent external sabotage of Starr's investigation, now should have a privileged attorney-client relationship with a man suspected of sabotaging Starr's investigation from the inside.