A L S O+T O D A Y Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Starr By Gary Kamiya When the real Kenneth Starr finally stood up before the House, he turned out to have a split personality Starr Wars By Joan Walsh The Democrats strike back Nothing has changed Compiled by Lori Leibovich and Fiona Morgan The consensus of political experts is that no minds were changed by Starr's day in court Dear Ken The full text of ethics advisor Sam Dash's letter of resignation to Kenneth Starr Starr speaks The full text of independent counsel Kenneth Starr's House Judiciary Committee testimony A dozen questions Congress should ask Kenneth Starr By David Talbot, Murray Waas and Joan Walsh (11/18/98)   T A B L E+T A L K Discuss Ken Starr and his testimony in the Politics area of Table Talk   R E C E N T L Y Same Old Party By Joshua Micah Marshall New leadership can't mend the rifts among Republicans in Congress (11/19/98) Reply to C.D. Ellison By David Horowitz It's time for blacks to have a two-party system, too (11/19/98) Toppling Saddam By Frank Smyth Clinton wants a new government in Baghdad, but he and the Iraqi opposition are unlikely to be up to the task (11/18/98) Brother on brother By Murray Waas Whitewater witness David Hale attempted to suborn perjury by his own brother by asking him to falsely corroborate illegal acts by President Clinton (11/17/98) The mark of Cain: a tale of two brothers By Murray Waas Though they traveled the same path from the family dirt farm through law school, the Hale brothers turned out different as night and day (11/17/98) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Browse the Newsreal Archives - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - S A L O N E M P O R I U M FREE! 12-ounce bag of Salon Blend with a purchase of $30 or more. While supplies last.
		STARR SPEAKS | PAGE 1, 2,3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12,13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 - - - - - - - - - - The president's next major decision came in the days immediately after January 21st. On the 21st, "The Washington Post" reported the story of Ms. Lewinsky's relationship with the president. After the public disclosure of his relationship with Ms. Lewinsky, and the ongoing criminal investigation, the president faced a decision. Would he admit the relationship publicly, correct his testimony in the Jones case, and ask for the indulgence of the American people? Or would he continue to deny the truth? For this question, the president consulted with others. According to Dick Morris, the political consultant, the president and he talked on January 21st. Mr. Morris suggested that the president publicly confess. The president replied, "But what about the legal thing, you know, the legal thing, you know, Starr and perjury and all?" Mr. Morris suggested that they take a poll. The president agreed. Mr. Morris called with the results. He stated that the American people were willing to forgive adultery but not perjury or obstruction of justice. The president replied, "Well, we just have to win then." Over the next several months, it became apparent that the strategy to win had many prongs. First, the president denied the truth publicly and emphatically. Second, he publicly promised to cooperate with the investigation. Third, the president deflected and diverted the investigation by telling aides false stories that were then relayed to the grand jury here in Washington. Fourth, he refused invitations to testify to the grand jury for over six months. Fifth, his administration delayed the investigation through multiple privilege claims, each of which has been rejected by the federal courts. Sixth, surrogates of the president attacked the credibility and the legitimacy of the grand jury investigation. Seventh, surrogates of the president attempted to convince the Congress and the American people that the matter was unimportant. The first step was for the president to deny the truth publicly. For this, political polling led to Hollywood staging. The president's California friend and producer Harry Thomason flew to Washington and advised the president that the president needed to be very forceful in denying the relationship. On Monday, Jan. 26, in the Roosevelt Room, before members of Congress and other citizens, the president provided a clear and emphatic public statement denying the relationship. The president also made false statements to his Cabinet and to his aides. They then spoke publicly and professed their belief in the president. The second step was to promise cooperation. The president told the American people on several television and radio shows on January 21 and 22 that, in his words, "I'm going to do my best to cooperate with the investigation." The third step was the president's refusal to provide testimony to the grand jury, despite six invitations to do so and despite his public promise to cooperate. Refusing invitations to provide information to a grand jury in a federal criminal investigation -- and one authorized by the attorney general of the United States; and one in which there is a high national interest in prompt completion -- was inconsistent with the January promise of the president to cooperate, and with the general statutory duty of all government officials to cooperate with federal criminal investigations. As a fourth step, the president not only refused to testify himself, but he authorized the use of various governmental privileges to delay the testimony of many of his taxpayer-paid assistants. The extensive use of governmental privileges against grand jury and criminal investigations has, of course, been a pattern through this administration. Most notably, the White House cited privilege in 1993 to prevent Justice Department and Park Police officials from reviewing documents in Vincent Foster's office in the days after his tragic death. In the Lewinsky investigation, the president asserted two privileges -- executive privilege and a government attorney-client privilege. A subordinate administration official, without objection from the president, claimed a previously unheard of privilege that was called the protective function privilege. The privileges were asserted to prevent full testimony of several White House aides. They were asserted the prevent the full testimony of sworn law enforcement officers of the Secret Service. In asserting executive privilege, the president was plowing headlong into the Supreme Court's unanimous decision 24 years ago in United States versus Richard Nixon. There, the Supreme Court ruled that executive privilege was overcome by the need for relevant information and evidence in criminal proceedings. And thus, it came as no surprise that Chief Judge Norma Holloway Johnson of this district rejected President Clinton's effort to use executive privilege to prevee surprise that the federal courts rejected the administration's claims. Indeed, as to the government attorney-client claim, the D.C. Circuit and the District Court, like the Eighth Circuit a year ago, stated that the president's legal position not only was wrong but would authorize, in the court's words, "a gross misuse of public assets." The Supreme Court refused to grant review of the cases not withstanding the administration's two strongly-worded requests, petitions for certorai. This point bears emphasis. The administration justified its many privilege claims by claiming an interest in protecting the presidency, not the president personally. But that justification is dubious for two reasons. First, Presidents Carter and Reagan waived all government privileges at the outset of criminal investigations in which they were involved. The example set by those two presidents demonstrate that such privileges in criminal investigations are manifestly unnecessary in order to protect the presidency. Second, these novel privilege claims were quite weak as a matter of law. And that raises a question -- What was it about the Monica Lewinsky matter that generated the administration's particularly aggressive approach to privileges? The circumstantial evidence suggests an answer -- delay. Indeed, when our office sought to have the Supreme Court of the United States decide all three privilege claims at once this past June, the administration opposed expedited consideration. Not only did the administration invoke these three losing privileges, but the president publicly suggested that he had invoked -- he had not invoked executive privilege when, in fact, he had. On March 24, 1998, while traveling in Africa, the president was asked about executive privilege. He stated in response, "You should ask someone who knows. I haven't discussed that with the lawyers. I don't know." But White House Counsel Charles Ruff had filed an affidavit in federal court before Judge Johnson only seven days earlier in which he swore that he had discussed the assertion of executive privilege with the president and that the president had approved its invocation. After Chief Judge Johnson ruled against the president, the president then dropped the executive privilege claim in the Supreme Court. And then, in August, the president explained to the grand jury why he had dropped the claim. The president stated: "I didn't really want to advance an executive privilege claim in this case beyond having it litigated." But this statement made to the grand jury was inaccurate. In truth, the president had again asserted executive privilege only a few days earlier. And a few days after his grand jury testimony, the president again asserted executive privilege to prevent the testimony of Bruce Lindsey. These executive privilege cases continue to this day; indeed, one case is now pending in the D.C. Circuit. When the president and the administration assert privileges in a context involving the president's personal issues; when the president pretends publicly that he knows nothing about the executive privilege assertion; when the president and the administration rebuff our office's efforts to expedite the cases to the Supreme Court; when the president contends in the grand jury that he never really wanted to assert executive privilege beyond having it litigated, despite the fact that he had asserted it six days earlier. And would do so again, 11 days afterwards, there is substantial and credible evidence that the president has misused the privileges available to his high office. And the misuse delayed and impeded the federal grand jury's investigation. The fifth tactic was diversion and deflection. The president made false statements to his aides and associates about the nature of the relationship, as we have seen, with knowledge that they could testify to that effect to the grand jury sitting here in Washington. The president did not simply say to his associates that the allegations were false or that the issue was a private matter that he did not want to discuss. Instead, the president concocted alternative scenarios that were then repeated to the federal grand jury. The final two tactics were related -- to attack the grand jury investigation, including the Justice Department prosecutors who serve in my office; to declare a war, in the words of one presidential adviser and ally; and to shape public opinion about the proper resolution of the entire matter. It is best that I leave it to someone outside our office to elaborate on the war against the office. But no one really disputes that these tactics were employed and continue to be employed to this very day. This strategy proceeded for nearly seven months. It changed course in August after Monica Lewinsky reached an immunity agreement with our office, and the grand jury, after deliberation, issued a subpoena to the president. The president testified before the grand jury on August 17th. Beforehand, many in Congress and in the public advised that the president should tell the truth. They cautioned that the president should not lie before the grand jury. Senator Hatch, for example, stated that, "So help me, if he lies before the grand jury, that will be grounds for impeachment." Senator Moynihan simply stated that perjury before the grand jury was, in his view, an impeachable offense. The evidence suggests that the president did not heed this senatorial advice. Although admitting to an ambiguously defined "inappropriate relationship," the president defied that he had lied under oath at his civil deposition. He also denied any conduct that would establish that he had lied under oath at that deposition. The president thus denied certain conduct with Ms. Lewinsky and devised a variety of tortured and false definitions. The president's answers have not been well received. Congressman Schumer, the senator-elect for one, stated that "it is clear that the president lied when he testified before the grand jury." Congressman Meehan stated that the president engaged in a "dangerous game of verbal Twister." Indeed, the president made false statements to the grand jury and then that same evening spoke to the nation and criticized all attempts to show that he had done so as invasive and irrelevant. The president's approach appeared to contravene the oath that he took at the start of the grand jury proceedings. It also disregarded the admonitions of those members of Congress who warned that lying to a grand jury would not be tolerated. It also discounted Judge Susan Webber Wright's many orders in which she had ruled that this kind of evidence was relevant in the Jones case. And thus ended the over-eight-month journey that had begun on December 5, 1997, when Monica Lewinsky's name appeared on the witness list. The evidence suggests that the eight months included false statements under oath, false statements to the American people, false statements to the president's cabinet and his aides, witness tampering, obstruction of justice, and the use of presidential authority and power in an effort to conceal the truth of the relationship and to delay the investigation. N E X T+P A G E+| "It is obvious that the actions of the president and Ms. Lewinsky to conceal the truth warranted criminal investigation" - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Become a Salon member. Click here.