May 10, 1998

Starr Put All The Spiders In A Bottle And Taped It Shut

Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr now “has put all the spiders in the same bottle and is letting them fight it out” -- this according to Washington, D.C., pundits following the court’s dismissal of President Clinton’s claim of executive privilege.

White House spinmeisters professed jubilation over legal developments last week. Paula Jones’ sexual harassment case against Clinton was summarily dismissed by a judge, and the Whitewater grand jury closed shop without indicting either Bill or Hillary.

It was a lilting tune to whistle past the grave yard, but nervously off key.

Jones promptly appealed her dismissal just as the Supreme Court took up a similar case that seeks to lower the bar for sexual misconduct in the work place -- from hard-to-prove harassment to just “outrageous behavior.” In any case, Clinton stonewalling has only prolonged his agony.

Same goes for expiration of the Little Rock grand jury. White House aides assert Starr’s investigation “fizzled.” More indicative is 14 convictions of Clinton cronies -- including the sitting governor of Arkansas.

True, the jury did not indict either Clinton in the embezzlement of $60 million of tax-payers’ money. However, billing records and checks -- concealed despite court-ordered subpoenas -- link them in some unknown degree to Whitewater. Starr says “pertinent” records will be turned over to the Washington, D.C., grand jury.

Most ominous for the Clinton administration is two other legal developments last week:

• The court rejected Clinton’s claim of “executive privilege” to justify secrecy. President Nixon didn’t get away with it either.
  
• The Little Rock grand jury handed down additional indictments of Webster Hubbell and Susan McDougal. Each had already served 18-month prison sentences stemming from grand jury proceedings. Both refused to answer questions regarding the Clinton’s involvement.

Hubbell and McDougal re-indictments is a clear warning to other White House spiders: Bruce Lindsey, Clintons’ lawyer; Vernon Jordan, another Clinton lawyer specializing in smothering bimbo-eruptions; Betty Currie, the president’s private secretary; Sidney Blumenthal, designated attack dog; and Monica Lewinsky, a nubile intern with unusual Oval Office privileges. Answer grand jury questions truthfully, or suffer the consequences. Audio tapes of prison conversations between Hubbell and his wife were released last week by Rep. Dan Burton, chairman of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee. His transcript of the calls was overly selective of statements damaging to Mrs. Clinton. It was a partisan gambit that outraged Clintonoids.

Nevertheless, there are a number of suspicious phone comments by the Hubbells which stand unchallenged. Chief among them is the following:

• By Mrs. Hubbell -- “She (Marsha Scott, director of presidential correspondence) says you are not going to get any public support if you open Hillary up to this. Well, by 'public support’ I know exactly what she means. I’m not stupid. I’m hearing the squeeze play.”
  
• By Mr. Hubbell -- “So, I need to roll over one more time.”

Susan McDougal faces an additional 10 years in prison for “criminal contempt” by refusing a simple yes-or-no answer to a question that ranks right up there with Sen. Howard Baker’s Watergate query of “What did Mr. Nixon know, and when did he know it?”

Both Mrs. McDougal and President Clinton were witnesses before the Little Rock grand jury to which he declared under oath he had nothing to do with the Whitewater development frauds. She was asked, “Has Mr. Clinton told the truth?”

If she said no, Clinton would be liable to perjury.

If she said yes, and Clinton later was found to have lied, she would be guilty of obstruction of justice.

Mrs McDougal tried to wiggle out of the dilemma by professing distrust of Independent Counsel Starr. Without thinking of consequences, the Clinton gang bought into the accusation -- trashing Starr relentlessly in a campaign of invective.

With the Paula Jones case pushed to the back burner, the public can move away from the irrelevant issue of sex. Instead, people can focus on the constitutional issues of abuse of power by elected officials and illegal political campaign money.

Americans would like to know why Webster Hubbell, leaving the Justice Department in disgrace on his way to prison, was showered with $725,000 in “retainer fees” from “friends” recruited by Vernon Jordan. It smells like hush money and quacks like a duck.

It is surprising that the pack media have not asked Revlon, Sprint, CNN and the Indonesian Lippo Group why they suddenly, and simultaneously, showered Hubbell with cash? And what did they get for their money?

A majority of the public apparently does not care about the taped accounts of Lewinsky’s sexcapades in the Oval Office. It is imperative, however, that she reveal who prepared a list of “talking points” coaching her and White House aide Linda Tripp on how to evade grand jury questions. That is suborning a witness, plain and simple.

White House cover-up has dragged on for four years, obfuscated by hundreds of evasions. The truth can, and will eventually, be discovered when Hubbell, McDougal and Lewinsky each answer a simple question.

Better now than later.

By Lindsey Williams, columnist for Sun Coast Media Group newspapers