A L S O+T O D A Y Impeachment diary II By Anonymous While senators basked in the glow of Friday's bipartisan trial accord, both sides were already plotting to renew the war (01/13/99) Ebonics II By Lee Hubbard Oakland students' test scores are among the lowest in the state, but Oakland teachers press ahead with Mumia Abu Jamal teach-in (01/13/99)   T A B L E+T A L K Speaker Howdy Doody? What do you think of Livingston replacement Dennis Hastert? Get partisan in the Politics area of Table Talk ___________________ Want the dirt on kenneth Starr? Search barnesandnoble.com! ___________________ Portrait of a political "pit bull" By Russ Baker Rep. Dan Burton, who called President Clinton a "scumbag," has a few questions to answer about his own behavior (12/22/98) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - R E C E N T L Y Tainted witness By Murray Waas The Arkansas trooper who corroborated David Hale's story received payments from the American Spectator (01/12/99) Working class hero? By Micah L. Sifry Jesse Ventura will have to reconcile his millionaire libertarian views with his blue collar support (01/11/99) That wasn't foreplay, that was a four-poster! By Lori Leibovich 'Don't act like a bully.' In a full-trial impeachment, the questions won't be for the squeamish (01/08/99) Back from the brink By Joshua Micah Marshall A Senate compromise on the impeachment trial ends the partisan bickering, for now (01/08/99) The culture of prosecution By Bruce Shapiro President Clinton is the victim of a tough-on-crime mentality that has trivialized the rights of the accused (01/08/99) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Browse the Newsreal Archives - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
		Starr's lowest blow   In indicting Julie Hiatt Steele, the independent counsel continues a pattern of bullying women. BY BRUCE SHAPIRO | I phoned Julie Hiatt Steele last week at the behest of a mutual acquaintance. I felt a bit like a voyeur: Just a few hours earlier this 51-year-old single mother had been indicted by Kenneth Starr. I fully expected to find someone broken by inquisitorial pressure. Her travails had already been recounted in the press, on talk shows and in Congress: investigation of her 8-year-old's adoption, the prospect of facing down the nation's most powerful prosecutor with no resources of her own. Yet the voice on the other end of the phone was neither shattered nor haunted. Angry, yes; and so protective of her son that she doubted he should ever even meet a reporter. But when I asked her what she most desired, her answer was neither peace nor a return to privacy nor that the pressure on her family end. It was one word, repeated several times: "Vindication." Julie Hiatt Steele is, as has been widely written, merely a peripheral figure in the Clinton impeachment saga: a former friend of Kathleen Willey who once vouched for Willey's claim that she was groped by the president and later -- before the Monica Lewinsky scandal ever broke -- told Newsweek she'd lied at Willey's behest. Yet while Steele is a third-tier player -- a carrier of gossip -- her indictment goes to the heart of the Clinton impeachment trial. Not, as has been generally presumed, because she might somehow bring Willey's allegations to life again, but because Steele's own story fits conveniently into the baroque, conspiratorial tapestry that Starr and the House impeachment squad have spun in hopes of driving the president from office. The basic facts bear repeating. In August 1997, Newsweek reported Willey's claim that President Clinton had groped her in the Oval Office. Reporter Michael Isikoff talked to Steele, who said Willey had told her about the incident at the time. But before Isikoff's article ever appeared, Steele changed her story: Her friend Willey, she told Isikoff, had asked her to spread the story of harassment, but she admitted the story was a fabrication. Newsweek printed both versions. Eventually, Julie Steele -- a registered Republican active in charitable work and social service -- found herself interviewed by Ken Starr's FBI agents and subpoenaed before two of his grand juries. Each time, she repeated her recantation of the initial story. Each time, the pressure increased: Starr called her brother, her former lawyer and her adult child. And Steele charged in the media -- most notably on the Larry King show -- that Starr's staff even asked questions about the legality of her adoption of a Romanian infant, her son Adam, now 8. Is this about resurrecting Willey? Certainly, Steele stood in the way of Willey being more than a footnote to the Starr Report or the House's articles of impeachment. Yet even if Steele reversed herself tomorrow, it would not do much to make Willey a credible witness against the president at his trial -- and Starr's staff knows it. As Salon was the first to report, Willey herself has severe credibility problems: She had once falsely accused a business associate of murdering her husband, harassing him so persistently that a judge issued an arrest warrant; she was sued for evading repayment of money her husband had embezzled; and later, after she appeared on "60 Minutes," White House documents showed that she'd substantially misrepresented her contact with Clinton after the president's alleged pass. What she may or may not have once told Steele does not alter the shaky foundations of her dependability. N E X T+P A G E+| Why pursue Julie Hiatt Steele? - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Become a Salon member. Click here.   PHOTOGRAPH: AP/WIDE-WORLD