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

To: Neocon who wrote (47061)	5/10/1999 5:45:00 PM
From: jlallen	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 67261

I said pOdium. Not pUd-ium. hahahahahaha JLA

To: Neocon who wrote (47061)	5/11/1999 8:58:00 AM
From: JBL	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 67261

Read the following article by Dick Morris, not so much for his analysis of Reno, but for the tenor of the conversations he is claiming to have had with Clinton. I cannot believe this guy would have such influence on Clinton, but if it is so, it would explain a lot. The fact that some Republicans have used or are using his services is telling...It tells us that some Republicans have not much more character than Clinton. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WHAT WON'T JANET DO FOR BILL? New York Post May 11, 1999 Dick Morris THE Justice Department's efforts to block the FBI investigation of the worst episode of espionage in 50 years raises the most important issues of obstruction of justice by Attorney General Janet Reno and her deputy, Eric Holder. Incredibly, unbelievably, it now appears that Reno's department did more to protect atomic spy Won Ho Lee than was even suspected before. Not only did Justice deny the FBI access to Lee's computer; it denied it even though Lee had signed a waiver specifically allowing access to his computer files. What factors might have entered into Reno's thinking in stopping this politically sensitive investigation at a time when Clinton was under fire for having accepted illegal campaign contributions from the Chinese government? Well, how did Janet Reno come to stay on as attorney general in Clinton's second term? The president had planned to get rid of Reno once he won re-election. Having once complained to me that she was his ''worst mistake,'' he was determined to rid himself of this nuisance. He was sick and tired of her refusal to endorse tough administration initiatives on crime. In addition, as George Stephanopoulos has speculated, he might have been angry that she had intervened gratuitously and backed Kenneth Starr's assertion of criminal jurisdiction over Clinton ally and Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy Tucker. After the '96 election, the president and I explored several alternatives for attorney general. Clinton mentioned his former chief of staff, Leon Panetta. But it seemed that the Republicans would not confirm him because he had been too partisan in the budget negotiations and was lacking in stature. Thank goodness he wasn't named. Can anyone imagine how it would have looked for Panetta - Monica Lewinsky's White House boss - to have supervised a special prosecutor investigating her White House orgy with the president? Newspaper speculation had focused on Clinton's intimate friend Mickey Kantor for Reno's job. I asked the president if he had taken leave of his senses: How could he consider Kantor in view of the reports that the former trade representative's law firm had represented the Riadys? In addition, Kantor's links to the job hunt for Web Hubbell made him too dangerous a choice. The search turned elsewhere. I suggested to both the president and the First Lady that they consider a Republican, like Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld, a former client of mine. I had been urging Clinton to appoint Republicans to his Cabinet to show a new spirit of bi-partisanship. Naming Weld, who back in the '80s had quit the Justice Department to protest Ed Meese's conduct as attorney general, might make it easier to accomplish Clinton's No. 1 goal: getting rid of Reno. Both Clintons seemed interested in Weld to something, as his subsequent designation as Ambassador to Mexico confirmed. But then, shortly before the inauguration, Clinton met with Reno. He called me after their chat to report that he had told her that few attornies general had ever served for eight years and that he had indicated that he did not think it was a good idea for her to do so. He said she had ''pleaded to be allowed to stay on for one more year'' and that he had grudgingly agreed, with the understanding that she would then resign. He asked me if I thought Weld would wait. I said I thought he would, but perhaps the president might want to bring him into the Cabinet in a lower position in the meantime. The president said that he didn't know if he could do that, because he had to have enough women and minorities in the Cabinet and it was hard to appoint another white male. After winning that one-year reprieve, Janet Reno changed, suddenly metamorphosizing into a loyal administration advocate. She has stayed on the job ever since. Apparently, her service to the president in refraining from the appointment of independent counsels to investigate campaign fund-raising earned her a reprieve from her scheduled year-end departure. Clinton surely also realized that no new nominee could be confirmed by the GOP-controlled Senate unless he or she pledged to name independent counsels to investigate campaign finance. Her decision that the independent-counsel law did not mandate a special probe of campaign finance is a matter of interpretation and subject to reasonable disagreement. But Justice's refusal to let the FBI act on massive suspicion of espionage of the most vital sort is a breech of national security of the first magnitude. If politics entered into this decision, the issue becomes one of malfeasance in office. Remember the political environment in early 1997. Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.) had just launched his heralded probe of campaign finances and predicted that he would find a deliberate plot by the Chinese government to influence the American election. What remained obscure was China's motive. The Democrats loudly derided Thompson for his suspicions of a Chinese plot. If Thompson had been aware of major and systematic Chinese spying and theft of our most vital secrets while he was conducting his hearings, there would have been hell to pay. Reno did a great political service to the president and disservice to America in not allowing the FBI to proceed. Between the time of her rejection of the FBI request for access and the actual inspection of Lee's computer last month, reports indicate that upwards of 300 files have been transferred and deleted. Was this a piece of dumb luck and coincidence? Did Reno and Holder underestimate the magnitude of the spying and then let politics influence their decision? Or was there a deeper level of venality involved? Congress needs to find out the answer; Meanwhile, Reno pledges a thorough investigation, looking under every rock, to see if the Justice Department should have handled the matter differently. Earth to Janet: The answer is yes!