Time: Sun Jun 29 15:33:27 1997
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Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 15:28:40 -0700
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From: Paul Andrew Mitchell [address in tool bar]
Subject: SLS: Safire: COURT v. CLINTONS (fwd)
<snip>
>
>[not to be used for commercial purposes]
>
>
>June 29, 1997
>
>ESSAY / by William Safire
>
>"Court v. Clintons"
>
>LONDON--All over the world, the prurient interest
>is battling the public interest.
>
>Here in Britain, when the new Tory leader named
>Cecil Parkinson to be chairman of the bedraggled
>Conservative Party, the press reported him finally
>released from "the sin bin." This recollection
>of a 15-year-old affair, using a hockey metaphor,
>seemed unduly unforgiving.
>
>In Israel, a TV interviewer provoked Sara Netanyahu,
>the Prime Minister's wife, into an unfortunate
>outburst by asking about her husband's prior infidelity.
>This nosiness struck many as excessive.
>
>In Russia, Minister of Justice Valentin Kovalyov
>was embarrassed by a video purportedly showing
>him cavorting in a sauna with three naked women.
>Public reaction: not to castigate the minister
>but to wonder what combination of gangsters and
>journalists was out to get him.
>
>In the U.S., a report that investigators for the
>Independent Counsel asked Arkansas state troopers
>about Clinton liaisons provided Democrats with
>an excuse to attack Kenneth Starr for invasion
>of privacy and to call for an end to his investigation.
>
>In this global orgy of first titillating and then
>condemning prurient interest, legitimate lines
>of inquiry are obscured. That's why Americans have
>not focused on last week's most significant development
>in the prosecutors' case against the Clintons.
>
>For three years, the Office of White House Counsel
>has conspired with a score of private attorneys
>and Democratic counsel in Congressional committees
>to delay and frustrate the working of Whitewater
>and Filegate justice.
>
>This Clinton Stonewall Brigade bought a full year's
>delay by hiding notes with a spurious claim of
>lawyer-client privilege, then recently sought another
>year's delay by taking the claim to the Supreme
>Court.
>
>This was a huge gamble, but the odds were good.
>If the Clintons could get the high court--which
>traditionally gives great weight to Presidential
>requests--to take the case, argument would not
>begin until the fall and the case not decided until
>next spring. Meanwhile the Clinton witnesses could
>hang tough and stymie the investigation.
>
>Moreover, there was the chance that the Court could
>decide on some halfway privilege that would allow
>the stonewalling to continue.
>
>Downside risk: that the Court would refuse even
>to consider the Clinton appeal, letting stand the
>stern judgment against any privilege by the Eighth
>Circuit Court of Appeals.
>
>And then the case would proceed all too speedily.
>
>That Clinton worst-case scenario is what happened.
>In rebuffing the President's outrageous claim,
>the Court sent a signal that it would not be a
>party to his delay strategy. The subpoenaed notes
>were at last produced.
>
>But the significance is not merely in these particular
>notes taken by taxpayer-paid lawyers and so long
>wrongfully concealed. The Court action gives prosecutors
>a green light to get--without delay--all the
>plans for obfuscation, manipulation and information-
>sharing among subjects and targets of the investigation.
>
>This includes grand jury testimony to be taken
>from a parade of White House Counsel from Bernard
>Nussbaum to Lloyd Cutler to Abner Mikva to Jack
>Quinn (especially Quinn) and present Counsel Charles
>Ruff.
>
>Recollections can be refreshed by notes, diaries
>and logs withheld for years by some of these unprivileged
>lawyers and their assistants, including William
>Kennedy 3d. The 1994 plan to "monitor" the investigation
>mapped out by Jane Sherburne deserves sworn elaboration.
>
>Counsel Bruce Lindsey's work-product and testimony
>should be of interest now that the claim of privilege
>has been exposed as a sham. And not just on Whitewater;
>the tight-lipped Clinton confidant was present
>at the 1995 meeting with James Riady when the President
>personally decided that John Huang, the longtime
>Riady employee assigned to a top-secret job in
>the Department of Commerce, would be reassigned
>to the Democratic Finance Committee.
>
>Even the communications between White House Counsel
>and those helping block Congressional investigations
>may now be accessible.
>
>The White House lost its high-risk gamble. The
>Supreme Court decided not to be suckered into a
>strategy of delay. No wonder Clinton defenders
>are venting their outrage at Kenneth Starr.
>
>
>Copyright 1997 The New York Times Company
>
>
>--------------------------------------------------------------
>
<snip>
========================================================================
Paul Andrew Mitchell : Counselor at Law, federal witness
B.A., Political Science, UCLA; M.S., Public Administration, U.C. Irvine
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