Interesting allegations of another Clinton scandel

[BenGarrett]

http://www.creators.com/opinion_show...olumnsName=tsn

by Tony Snow

RELEASE: FRIDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2005, AND THEREAFTER



WASHINGTON, D.C. -- "No wonder they call us the Stupid Party," said a disgusted Republican operative in Washington. "You've got to wonder what these guys were thinking."

At issue was the publication of a report by David Barrett, an independent counsel who has spent the better part of a decade looking into some of the most hair-raising allegations of presidential malfeasance in American history.

Like most independent counsels, Barrett didn't set out on such a mission. He was assigned the duty of looking into whether former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Cisneros committed tax fraud in trying to cover up payments to a former mistress.

Yet, as published reports have indicated, he soon discovered that he was onto something much bigger. He found unsettling evidence that Justice Department officials were actively interfering with the probe and even conducting surveillance of Barrett and his office. Worse, there were indications that Team Clinton was using key players at the IRS and Justice to harass, frighten and threaten people who somehow got in the former president's way.

The pattern was set early on, when the White House sicced the FBI on Billy Dale, who had served as the director of the White House Travel Office since the days of John F. Kennedy. They mounted a baseless probe of Dale's finances, while chasing after his daughter, his sister and others. Dale was guilty of holding a job coveted by presidential pal Harry Thomasson. But rather than simply firing Dale, the Clinton White House chose to destroy him.

By all accounts, the 400-page Barrett report is a bombshell, capable possibly of wiping out Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential prospects. At the very least, it would bring to public attention a scandal that would make the Valerie Plame affair vanish into comical insignificance.

Democrats know this. Using provisions in the independent-counsel statute that permit people named in a report to review the allegations against them and file rebuttals, attorneys close to the Clintons have spent the better part of five years reviewing every jot and tittle of the charges arrayed against their clients and friends.

This careful and continuous monitoring of the report explains why Sens. Byron Dorgan, Dick Durbin and John Kerry took the highly unusual step earlier this year of trying to slip into an Iraq-war spending bill an amendment to suppress every word of the Barrett report. (Every other independent counsel finding has been printed in its entirety, with the exception of small sections containing classified material.)

Alert Republicans, pushed by talk-radio listeners and bloggers, managed to short-circuit that effort, but Democrats patiently pursued their goal. They got what they wanted recently, when the House and Senate met to iron out differences in yet another appropriations bill. Democrats inserted language that would prevent public release of the 120 pages of the report listing the Clinton transgressions. They offered what may have looked like a good deal. They promised not to object to letting Barrett continue with any prosecutions already underway.

Republicans negotiators, led by Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., and Rep. Joe Knollenberg, R-Mich, took the bait. They agreed to keep the public in the dark about the important stuff in exchange for a big, fat nothing. Unbeknownst to Bond and Knollenberg, Barrett shut down his grand juries three years ago.

The move represents more than just boneheaded politics. It's grossly irresponsible. If the report contains the kind of bombshells that have been hinted at in reports published by The Wall Street Journal and National Review, among others, the public not only has a right to know, Congress has a duty to investigate.

If Barrett has found evidence that officials at Justice and the IRS served as a praetorian guard, that means some bureaucrats felt it appropriate or beneficial to ignore their duty to the public and instead to perform dirty work for the people who oversee their budgets.

Another big "if": If such behavior were covered up, the malefactors would conclude that they may do the same thing again for other presidents.

Something stinks, and the only way to get at the truth is to release the full report. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, who fought a lonely battle to ensure the document's publication, is furious. So is House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wisc. The question is whether Republican leaders Bill Frist and Denny Hastert will step in and ensure the report's publication, or whether they'll just sigh and look the other way.

[RedAllison]

The problem with naysayers against the Klintoons is that they end up DEAD!!!

And if not that they know the libbies from the IRS and Justic Dept will give them everything short of a whiteglove up the butt examination/audit. I'm tellin you Billybob's evil years in office won't probably be fully realized until ALL the concerned parties are dead of old age. Sadly our kids will never realize what a group of lieing, decietful bunch the leaders of the Democrats were during this time period. The leadership of the "old Dems" and the newer ultra libberal New Englanders now like Kennedy, Dean, Kerry, Billary etc... they would make a gangster rapper blush!


Furthermore, the Repubs aren't without a few "troublemakers" of their own. They know who they are and if they are scared of being caught for their own doings they dang sure aren't about to pull our the spotlights for ANYTHING, lest if fall on themselves!
RA

[Strange Biller]

Are you guys serious? Still talking about Clinton?

If I'm still trying to dig up dirt on Bush and find new scandals involving him six years after he leaves office, please shoot me.

[gonzodemon]

all polititions have closets full of secrets .we could probubly dig up trash on old tommy jefferson or the original GW (George Wahington). an honest politition is as hard to find as hens teeth. I would wager there aint a single politition that we wouldnt be able to dig dirt on 20 years after he or she left office.its just a matter of what persuation you are . A dem. or a repub. and who slings thier tird the farthest. But i have to say clinton was one slick criminal mastermind. not only did he become the pres. but he continued to break the law in office and got caught then got away scott free. thats a role model for any future criminal. Im not sayin any one else is a boyscout but clinton was the best and smoothest. the rest are amitures by comparison.

[kevin1]

This careful and continuous monitoring of the report explains why Sens. Byron Dorgan, Dick Durbin and John Kerry took the highly unusual step earlier this year of trying to slip into an Iraq-war spending bill an amendment to suppress every word of the Barrett report.

Am I the only one who finds this quote disturbing ? They tried to suppress free speech by riding the coattails of an appropriations bill for a war they despise and actively protest . Talk about being two faced ! These folks are supposed to be defending our Constitutional rights , they are in fact sworn to do so . [:@]

[Strange Biller]

Clinton was the greatest criminal mastermind of the 20th century. He had to be, because he was investigated more thoroughly than any individual on the planet - there was a special prosecutor who investigated all aspects of his life (without always getting permission to do so, I might add).

Yet he was never found to be guilty of anything. Nothing. Never convicted of a single crime. He must be the greatest criminal mastermind of all time.

[Knightia]

Al copone only served time for income tax evasion& had all the fbi& other goverment resourses used aginst him.

Oj & robert blake prob killed there wifes in cold blood & had special prosecutor who investigated -neither where convicted of anything in a crimial court.

Slick billy& cronies prob had more crooked dealing with the commie chinese & our enemys then the rosenbergs ( husband& wife)who where exacuited for treason.

Billy a mastermind nahh weasel & good at poltices corrupt poltican yes

[underdog]

Like a lot of folks, I'd forgotten about this investigation. Read about it in my Evans-Novak Political Report yesterday. Serves to reaffirm my opinion as to what an ineffectual Senate leader Frist is. He continues to have things going on in his committees that are ridiculous and can't seem to control his own party members well enough to use their majority to good advantage.

This investigation needs to be made public. Partisanship aside, if corruption exists in government, it should be rooted out. Some of those accused of corruption could still be working in IRS and Justice.

From the Evans-Novak Report:

Barrett Report: Democrats have their own scandal brewing at the moment, but they are doing much better in covering it up than their Republican counterparts. At issue is the report by David Barrett, the last remaining U.S. independent counsel. Over ten years, Barrett has spent $21 million on the investigation of former Housing Secretary Henry Cisneros, who lied to FBI investigators about hush money paid to an ex-mistress.

The reason the report and the investigation have taken so long is that allies to Cisneros and the legal team of former President Bill Clinton at the powerhouse Washington law firm of Williams and Connolly have fought its progress in court at every step. Meanwhile, Clinton-sympathetic judges have sealed everything concerned with the case, including Barrett's report.


The report contains shocking allegations of high-level corruption in the Internal Revenue Service and Justice Department under Clinton, which Barrett found as Clinton aides monitored his investigation and sought to derail it in order to cover up the Cisneros matter. A regional IRS official had formulated a new rule enabling him to transfer an investigation of Cisneros to Washington to be buried by the Justice Department. Barrett's investigators found Lee Radek, head of Justice's public integrity division, determined to protect President Bill Clinton.


A recently passed appropriations bill, intended to permit release of this report, was altered by Democrats behind closed doors to ensure that its politically combustible elements never see the light of day. Democrats succeeded in inserting instructions into the bill's conference report that are very broad and will allow judges to continue suppressing the report. Three of the toughest Democrats in Congress -- Sen. Carl Levin, Sen. Byron Dorgan and Rep. Henry Waxman -- have been behind the effort to suppress, and they have done it effectively. The final language authorized the judges "to protect the rights of any individual named" in the report. With two out of three judges on a three-judge panel inclined to the Democrats, that means hardly anything out of Barrett's allegations will remain in the report made public. The bill was passed by Congress Nov. 18 and signed into law Nov. 30.


The only hope for the public seeing the report lies with Senate Finance Chairman Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), who may still try to force its release. Grassley would love to see a thorough investigation of the tax agency. Otherwise, Republican Congressional sources expect Section B of the report, dealing with the allegations of IRS-Justice corruption, to be eliminated in its entirety. The rest of the report will be so heavily redacted to obey the new Congressional language that it will be of scant interest to either ordinary citizen or legislator.