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Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1998 09:40:16 -0500
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Subject: IP: Whitewater Probe Continues
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Source: Washington Times
http://www.WashTimes.com/news/news2.html#link
Starr continues Whitewater investigation
By Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Kenneth W. Starr's case for impeaching President Clinton
is only the first public accounting in a massive ongoing
investigation --contrary to White House claims that the
Whitewater probe is dead.
"All phases of the investigation are now nearing
completion," the 445-page report says.
The independent counsel "will soon make final decisions
about what steps to take, if any, with respect to the other
information it has gathered."
While it was Mr. Starr's "strong desire" to complete the
entire Whitewater inquiry before giving any information to
Congress, the report said, it "became apparent" there was
"substantial and credible information" of impeachable offenses
and he was required under the law to refer the information to
Congress as soon as possible.
"It also became apparent that a delay of this referral until the
evidence from all phases of the investigation had been
evaluated would be unwise," the report said.
Mr. Starr will soon make decisions on final reports to a
three-judge panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the
D.C. Circuit and possible indictments, the report added.
Mr. Clinton's personal attorney, David E. Kendall, attacked
the Monica Lewinsky report this week as a
"hit-and-run smear campaign," saying it was nothing but an
attempt to damage the president with "irrelevant and
unnecessary graphic and salacious allegations." He asked,
"Where's Whitewater?"
But the report's introduction notes that Mr. Starr's four-year
Whitewater probe, all but forgotten in the crush of sordid
public revelations of Mr. Clinton's sexual dalliances with the
former White House intern, continues to target a number of
areas:
Legal representation of a failed Arkansas thrift, Madison
Guaranty Savings and Loan Association, and a real
estate project, Castle Grande, by first lady Hillary
Rodham Clinton and former Rose Law Firm partner
Webster L. Hubbell, the ex-associate attorney general
who resigned in disgrace.
The firing of seven White House travel office employees
to make room for Clinton cronies, and the role Mrs.
Clinton may have played in the decision.
The delivery to the White House of more than 1,000
secret FBI files on Reagan and Bush administration
aides, and efforts to shield White House officials,
including Mrs. Clinton, from a public accounting on how
the files were obtained and used.
The misuse of personnel records of Pentagon employee
Linda R. Tripp, whose secret recordings of
conversations with Miss Lewinsky began the grand jury
investigation.
Possible perjury and obstruction of justice concerning an
incident involving former White House volunteer
Kathleen E. Willey. Mrs. Willey said in August 1997
that Mr. Clinton made sexual advances in the Oval
Office in November 1993.
The Starr report to Congress said Miss Lewinsky told the
president Newsweek was working on an article about Mrs.
Willey. Mr. Clinton dismissed the accusations as "ludicrous,
because he would never approach a small-breasted woman
like Mrs. Willey." Later he asked Miss Lewinsky if she had
heard about the Newsweek inquiry from Mrs. Tripp, to which
she replied "yes."
The former intern said Mr. Clinton asked if Mrs. Tripp
could be trusted and then told her to persuade Mrs. Tripp to
call White House Deputy Counsel Bruce R. Lindsey about the
matter. Newsweek published the Willey story on Aug. 11,
1997. In his Jan. 17 deposition in the Paula Jones case, Mr.
Clinton denied the Willey accusation.
The Starr probe also is looking into accusations that efforts
were made to silence Mrs. Willey. Among those drawing
attention is Democratic fund-raiser Nathan Landow.
Investigators want to know if he urged Mrs. Willey to deny she
was groped by the president. Mrs. Willey has since testified
before the Lewinsky grand jury as a cooperating witness.
Mr. Landow testified before the grand jury, later telling
reporters he took the Fifth Amendment. His daughter, former
White House volunteer Harolyn Cardozo, who worked with
Mrs. Willey, also testified.
In "Travelgate" and "Filegate," papers filed earlier this month
in federal court in Washington show the investigations "are
continuing and in extremely sensitive stages." Deputy
independent counsel Robert Bittman told the court the probes
had reached to the "highest level of the federal government"
and involved "issues of singular constitutional and historic
importance."
The Whitewater probe also is examining whether Mr.
Hubbell hid his involvement and that of Mrs. Clinton with
Castle Grande, a real estate project south of Little Rock, Ark.
In September 1996, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
said Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Hubbell drafted legal papers that
Madison used to deceive bank examiners and divert $300,000
to Mr. Hubbell's father-in-law, Seth Ward. The report said the
papers "facilitated the payment of substantial commissions to
Mr. Ward, who acted as a straw buyer" in Castle Grande. A
straw buyer is one who owns property in name only, having
never put up any money or assumed any risk.
The FDIC said the Ward payments were in violation of
federal regulations. The report did not accuse Mrs. Clinton or
Mr. Hubbell of criminal wrongdoing, although it raised serious
questions about their involvement in a deal that ultimately cost
taxpayers $3.8 million when Castle Grande failed.
Prosecutors, the report to Congress said, immediately
recognized parallels between the job help provided to Miss
Lewinsky by Washington lawyer Vernon E. Jordan Jr., a
longtime Clinton friend, and "his earlier relationship" with Mr.
Hubbell, sentenced in 1994 to prison for stealing $420,000
from his Rose Law Firm partners. By late 1997, Mr. Starr had
evidence Mr. Jordan helped Mr. Hubbell obtain consulting
contracts after he agreed to cooperate in the Whitewater
probe.
In 1994, Mr. Hubbell was paid $450,010 by 17 different
persons or entities as a consultant and $91,750 in 1995,
despite beginning a 28-month prison term in August of that
year. He has yet to explain what work he did for the cash.
Some of the payments came from MacAndrews & Forbes
Holding Co. in New York after he was introduced to the firm's
executives by Mr. Jordan, a director of Revlon Inc. The
cosmetics firm, controlled by MacAndrews & Forbes, also
offered a job to Miss Lewinsky based on Mr. Jordan's
recommendations.
With regard to Mrs. Tripp's personnel records, Mr. Starr
has been investigating if they were illegally released in an effort
to tarnish her reputation in the Lewinsky probe. Assistant
Defense Secretary Kenneth Bacon approved the release to a
reporter for the New Yorker magazine. The records show
Mrs. Tripp was detained by police as a teen-ager 29 years ago
and had not noted the arrest in her 1987 security clearance
form.
The arrest later was shown to have been a teen-age prank,
in which she pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of loitering.
Former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Harold Ickes
was questioned about the documents by the grand jury. Mr.
Bacon also testified in the case.
In our Investigative Section, a history of the Whitewater
investigation.
Copyright � 1998 News World Communications, Inc.
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NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is
distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior
interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and
educational purposes only. For more information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
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Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: [email protected]>
Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'