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

To: Bill who wrote (42312)	4/14/1999 2:39:00 PM
From: Daniel Schuh	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 67261

As opposed to your rear end, which emits all the voluminous pointless crap only the crapmeister could generate.

To: Bill who wrote (42312)	4/14/1999 3:08:00 PM
From: Les H	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 67261

Clinton Statement Bewilders America This story was filed by BNN field correspondent Greg DeYong. WASHINGTON, D.C. - President Clinton today issued a statement that has baffled Republicans and has perplexed Democrats. Said GOP congressman Chris Cox, "I'm not sure what to make of it." Said House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt, "On the surface it appears like the President is opposing his own policy. But if we try to look at its deeper meaning, we can begin to appreciate the complexity of the issues surrounding the war against Yugoslavia." Some members of the Washington Press Corp. are pointing to Clinton's statement as proof that the pressure of the Kosovar conflict is causing the President to crack. Some have even suggested that he go back to playing golf as a means of relieving his stress. In his statement, President Clinton condemned his decision to send Apache Helicopters to Kosovo. Claiming that the name of the helicopter is offensive to Native Americans, Clinton accused himself of being cruel, mean-spirited and insensitive. Said Clinton, "This whole war thing has made me forget my personal values."

To: Bill who wrote (42312)	4/16/1999 6:18:00 AM
From: Zoltan!	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 67261

The Clintonistas' political use of the IRS: April 16, 1999 Does Clinton Have An 'Enemies List'? By William McGurn, a member of the Journal's editorial board. Maybe the Internal Revenue Service has learned more than we give it credit for. When congressional investigators looked into the Nixon White House 25 years ago, they found more than enough evidence to support John Dean's charges that the president had directed associates to compile an enemies list of people who were to find themselves the subject of IRS tax audits after the election. Less noted is the committee's finding that Nixon had largely been frustrated in these attempts. In other words, the IRS had resisted the Nixon effort to politicize it. Today the situation has reversed itself. In the Nixon days, we had a president calling upon the IRS for audits that never materialized. In the Clinton days, by contrast, we already have a large number of audits of people and groups who might reasonably be described as Clinton foes, from Paula Jones, the Heritage Foundation and the Christian Coalition to Oliver North's Freedom Alliance, the National Rifle Association and five foundations associated with then-Speaker Newt Gingrich. We further have an IRS desperate to prevent the release of information that would help tell us whether such audits were in fact random or taken from some new enemies list. The latest wrinkle came late last month, when the IRS delivered 8,000 pages of material to the Landmark Legal Foundation. In January 1997, Landmark filed a Freedom of Information Act request for some simple information: the names of anyone who had requested audits or investigations of 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organizations. Yet even after a federal district court twice ruled against it, the IRS is still playing games. Most of the names and organizations on the 8,000 pages provided have been blacked out, with no legal explanation given. Whether the IRS will be free to continue to refuse releasing the requested information or delay any real response until after Bill Clinton has left office is now up to Judge Henry H. Kennedy Jr., who will meet this morning with both sides' lawyers to discuss the status of the case. Judge Kennedy has been here before. The IRS first tried to avoid coming up with the information by claiming Landmark would have to pay tens of thousands of dollars for the search, fees typically not charged for public-interest nonprofits. In October 1998, Judge Kennedy rightly rejected the IRS claim. But the IRS shifted, now claiming that Landmark was not entitled to the material because it was privileged tax return information. This, of course, is absurd: Landmark is after information about the accusers, not the accused. Again Judge Kennedy found against the IRS, though he put off Landmark requests for depositions of IRS officers and for an index giving a case-by-case explanation of any document withheld. That the IRS has now responded with 8,000 pages with the pertinent information mostly blacked out suggests an agency determined to abuse Judge Kennedy's patience. Landmark's president, Mark Levin, says he needs to know two things to ensure that the IRS has complied with the request. First, he wants to know what the IRS searched. Landmark staffers have gone through most of the documents, the bulk of which consist of correspondence to and from members of Congress. There are no phone messages or logs, no e-mail, and only a handful of notes originally requested, and Mr. Levin's suspicion is that the search may have been confined to the correspondence of the IRS legislative affairs office. Indeed, his question gets to the integrity of the discovery process. Unless Landmark is permitted to depose IRS officials about where they searched and why, there is no way to verify that the IRS complied with the law. Equally important is that the IRS be compelled to give a reason when it declines to provide a given document or name. We can all imagine a legitimate basis for withholding the name of, say, a chief financial officer for some nonprofit who has become a whistleblower. Surely, however, what's called for here is a case-by-case explanation, not a blanket dismissal. Remember, Landmark is not asking for any tax or financial information about the audited parties. It's not even asking which parties were audited. All it wants to know are the names of those who might have fingered these groups for investigation. We don't know whether those audited were targeted in a Nixon-like quest by Clinton officials or sympathizers bent on settling scores--though it is interesting to note that the name that Landmark says comes up most frequently in the 8,000 pages is Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman. What we do know is that in America people have a right to know their accusers, especially when the accusation affects their livelihoods. In a May 1997 memo to the heads of all agencies, no less than Janet Reno reminded administrators that the principles of open government "include applying customer-service attitudes toward FOIA requesters, following the spirit as well as the letter of the Act, and applying a presumption of disclosure." Clearly the attempt by IRS officials to keep the requested information out of Landmark's hands by dragging their feet, throwing up bogus legal objections and blacking out names is hard to reconcile with Miss Reno's "presumption of disclosure," much less her directive on "customer-service attitudes." It might all lead you to conclude that the IRS has more than demonstrated it no longer deserves the benefit of the doubt. You might even begin to wonder, what's it trying to hide? interactive.wsj.com