Billing records missing for 2 years (subpoenaed, crucial to FDIC investigation) appeared in White House living area and turned over several days after statute of limitation expired.

Bruce Lindsey's notes, subpoenaed but not turned over until the day after the Senate's Whitewater Committee authorization expired.

Hillary Clinton and White House lawyer talks claimed as executive privilege, then attorney client privilege, appealed to Supreme Court - ordered turned over.

Existence of diaries subpoenaed in April 97, were "concealed" to October 97 and have not been released. Second set also not disclosed until three weeks before committee's deadline expired.

Existence of videotapes subpoenaed in April 97 (coffees and fund-raisers) was not disclosed but then turned over October '97.

FBI files from 91 (Chinese efforts to influence U.S. elections) were turned over five days after the Senate committee ended its hearings.

White House continues to be unresponsive (from June 96 to date) to requests by Rep. Dave McIntosh, R-Ind., concerning its 300,000-name database.

White House tried to delay the Paula Jones case until after Clinton left office, appealed to the Supreme Court, turned down unanimously.

Existence of letters from Willey, subpoenaed by Jones' attorney was denied, but 15 were produced in response to 60 Minutes interview, by personal approval of president.

Lewinsky proffer: Clinton told her that if she were in New York, she might be able to avoid testifying in the Jones lawsuit

Lewinsky proffer: Clinton told her she would not have to turn over the gifts, subpoenaed by Ms. Jones's lawyers, if she did not have them in her possession.

Lewinsky proffer: Clinton told her that she could explain her White House visits as trips to see Ms. Currie.

Clinton met with Ms. Currie on a Sunday in January, the day after his deposition in the Paula Jones case, posed and answered a series of questions to guide her through an account of his relationship with Lewinsky. The president placed Betty Currie at the center of all Lewinsky-related matters Mr. Clinton took Ms. Currie on his recent trip to Africa.

Lewinsky tapes: she claims Clinton directed her to testify falsely in the Jones case. Under oath Ms. Tripp said she was told by Lewinsky to "lie and deny," Lewinsky passed along to Ms. Tripp three pages of "talking points" giving her instructions on how to lie under oath.

Clinton/Flowers tape: Clinton says "deny it" Flowers says "The only thing that concerns me . . . at this point, is the state job," to which Clinton replies, "Yeah, I never thought about that. . . . If they ever ask if you've talked to me about it, you can say no."

House Campaign Finance Committee - immunity grants blocked by Democrats

At 9:30 the day before scheduled deposition of Clifford Bernath by Judicial Watch, Justice filed a motion for protective order.

Justice refusals to appoint Independent Counsel for Campaign Finance

Presidential action (waiver regarding PRC) when Loral/Hughes was under FBI Investigation

Firing of former FBI director Sessions

Office of President and Vice-President are not "agencies" for the purpose of the Freedom of Information Act.

Curt Weldon "...can't get access as a member of Congress to these briefings..." (threat assessments)

White House leak of Executive Privilege Decision followed by White House Motion for Contempt action against Independent Council

Sweet Coal - administration refused House Natural Resources Committee document request for 7 months, missed deadline by one week.

Refusal to provide documents (China/missile) to Congress citing a criminal inquiry v. prior Presidential permit to transfer the technology to China while the investigation was underway (after the fact.)

Department of Treasury tip off to White House re: criminal referral of White Water

12/13/94 Task List Memo - "to do" items regarding Foster, White Water and other 39 scandals, Congress and the press

Commerce Department "pattern of obstruction" for refusing to provide Defense Intelligence Agency with information on U.S. supercomputer exports (e.g. Russia/China)

White House missed deadline for turning over Loral (China/Missile) documents to House Committee

Janet Reno refused I.C. Smaltz on information about cash payoffs to then-Governor Clinton

Atty General Reno refusal to provide Congress the Freeh memo concerning the FBI position on an Independent Counsel for Campaign Finance

Haney - Portals, House Investigation - withholding documents

Mayer (reporter) wanted to know how to respond

DOD attorney objects to Bacon answering questions about Lewinsky in deposition (Judicial Watch.)

Hoyt Zia (Commerce) called John Huang when Huang was being sought by US Marshals, ie didn't tell the Marshals where to find him.

Concerning data subpoenaed by Starr, Harold Ickes testified about a conference call with other aides on Sept. 9, 1996, because "the president doesn't want any polling data turned ... over to people outside the campaign."

Change of privilege claim on Bruce Lindsey to attorney-client at the last minute.

Secret 3rd privilege claim.

At the last minute, Justice appealed the Secret Service testimony ruling to the Supreme Court.

State Department said they are not sending a witness to the hearing 6/4/98 "The Sale of Body Parts by the People's Republic of China."

When US government nuclear experts asked Commerce to provide American computer companies with a list of nuclear laboratories in Russia and China to prevent the companies from selling their high-performance supercomputers to them, Commerce refused to provide such a list, claiming U.S. policy prevented them from sharing such information.

Congress has been unable to see a copy of the May 1997 Pentagon report that said "national security has been harmed" by the transfer of sensitive computer technology to China's military complex. According to Rep Pitts, the White House offers only silence and spin.

Senate Republican leader Trent Lott, R- Miss., said 6/8/98 that the Justice Department did not give the Senate Select Intelligence Committee four documents it requested when legislators began investigating the matter last week.

The administration has not responded to a Freedom of Information Act request from the Small Business Survival Committee (SBSC) for the release of economic conclusions, data and evidence supporting its position on the proposed international treaty addressing the questionable threat of global warming.

9/96 The Washington Times: White House refused to release a Pentagon-commissioned report suggesting Clinton's strategy to combat drug use has failed.

9/96 White House refused to release documents to House investigators trying to determine whether the administration knew U.S.-trained Haitian security agents murdered political opponents of the U.S.-supported regime.

10/96 White House refused to release a memo by FBI Director Freeh and DEA Administrator Thomas Constantine that condemns Clinton's efforts against drug use.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Shelby on 6/10/98 accused the Clinton administration of failing to produce documents his panel requested. Instead of getting actual reports, the committee is only getting short summaries, he complained. He said some of the summaries are contradictory.

Refusal (Clinton) to allow access to medical records, academic records, passport records.

EPA delayed 2 years to produce climate-change proposal document for House Commerce Committee

Senate Campaign Finance hearings, Clinton White House no help in getting 45 witnesses to testify

According to Klayman (Judicial Watch) regarding quid pro quo information: some of the records are missing, pertinent information on original records obtained through the courts is blacked out -- making it impossible to read, "These documents have been permanently altered or destroyed."

.Commerce executive Melinda Yee admitted that she destroyed handwritten notes regarding trade trips.

Robert Atkins, formerly with the Commerce International Trade Administration, said he saw hundreds of documents on White House and DNC letterheads en route to a shredder.

House members cannot make an informed decision on $18 billion in new IMF funding because, according to Treasury officials, any documents on IMF operations might have to be presented with some details left out because governments that deal with the IMF often demand confidentiality.

The White House will be barred from spending $630,000 for overtime pay for East Wing stewards and kitchen help until it turns over expense forms to the General Accounting Office team investigating the controversial Lincoln Bedroom sleepovers.

The Administration balked at cooperating with the GAO claiming that the White House isn't subject to audits

According to an exclusive from Drudge, there appears to be a direct White House attempt to thwart any immunity deal for Monica Lewinsky, i.e. the White House lawyers are arguing over assurances by William Ginsburg regarding joint defense.

Donald Smaltz independent prosecutor has at least three times been blocked in his attempt to expand his probe beyond alleged wrong-doing involving Michael Espy. The latest request came just two days after the Fayettesville, Arkansas, police filed murder charges against two brothers in the 1986 death of Mitchell D. Abel, a cocaine dealer and student. Abel's shooting had been followed a few days later by the mysterious death of Randall Tyson, a Tyson Foods VP and half brother of Don Tyson who choked to death on a cookie. It is unknown whether these are connected or are connected to Smaltz' request.

Developer Franklin Haney, a Democrat from Chattanooga, Tenn. and a friend of Vice President Al Gore, refused to comply with a subpoena for documents regarding a $1 million payment to Clinton's former campaign manager, saying it violated the lawyer-client privilege, was an invasion of privacy and would hurt his business. A House subcommittee voted to hold the developer in contempt of Congress.

On the eve of Clinton's trip to China, Senate Democrats shut down debate on a defense bill to block votes on China policy, Tom Dashle D-SD: ``I'm not going to allow one single vote on China this week .We're not going to embarrass this president.''

In Congressional hearings with reference to the missing encryption device, Rep. Weldon: ". But I wanted to raise this, because I just don't think you were candid last week. It's hard for me to believe that none of you knew the answer to that question when I asked it last week. And even though I had been assured by Mr. Tarbell that we'd get that by the end of the day, to my knowledge, we never did get that answer. We had to finally go get it for ourselves over the weekend. But it's in the record now.."

Prosecutors subpoenaed materials from Terry Lenzner's Investigative Group Inc. - but the company declined to turn over information because Clinton's lawyers had invoked attorney-client and work product privileges.

7/6/98 The White House has removed any reference to EO 13083 Federalism from their Web library site.

Rejecting the Clinton Adminstration argument that the Secret Service should be exempt by creating a new "protective function privilege," a Federal Appeals Court panel ruled 7/7/98 that three of the Secret Service employees must tell a grand jury in the Monica Lewinsky investigation what they observed while guarding the president.

7/10/98 Washington Post Bill Miller "A federal judge has ordered the Federal Election Commission to aggressively review a conservative group's allegations that the Clinton administration and the Democratic National Committee offered U.S. businesses places on overseas trade missions in exchange for campaign contributions. U.S. District Judge Stanley Sporkin, in ordering the agency to pursue what it said could be "serious violations of law," criticized the FEC's decision not to pursue the case on its own as "inexplicable." .David Kolker, an FEC attorney, told the judge. "If the campaign contributions themselves were lawful, there is nothing for the commission to look at." ."Well, is bribery lawful?" Sporkin shot back. ."

RNC 7/9/98 "Republican National Committee Chairman Jim Nicholson this evening applauded a decision by U.S. District Judge Stanley Sporkin holding that the Federal Election Commission "for some reason is attempting to thwart a review" of charges that the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton/Gore 1996 Reelection Committee gave seats on Commerce Department trade missions in exchange for contributions of $100,000 or more. In a case brought by Judicial Watch against the FEC seeking action on a complaint it brought alleging possible sales of seats on the trade missions, Judge Sporkin noted that the FEC had received the complaint on August 26, 1996, about ten weeks before the 1996 elections. In language sharply critical of the FEC, Sporkin ruled that "inexplicably, the FEC waited over a year and a half before determining whether to investigate Plaintiff's allegations," then suddenly closed its file, without explanation, on December 15, 1997. In the lawsuit, the FEC had claimed that the dismissal was based on technical reasons.

New York Daily News 7/10/98 Thomas DeFrank "Lawyers for President Clinton yesterday moved to block the release of hundreds of pages of papers from the Paula Jones sex suit, fearing they would spark a "media circus." .White House sources confirmed that much of that material is extremely unflattering to the President and, if unsealed, would reignite a media frenzy over the President's sex life. .."

October 27 1993, US Attorney Paula Casey in Little Rock rejected the first RTC criminal referral concerning Whitewater, 9 others pending.

November 9, 1993 RTC investigator Jean Lewis was taken off the Madison probe. In August 1994, amid a mounting smear campaign, she was placed on administrative leave. In later testimony before the House Banking Committee she charged that there was "a concerted effort to obstruct, hamper and manipulate" the Madison probe.

7/98 Online Progressive Review (1996) ". Jim Leach of the House Banking Committee is reported running into stonewalling on the grounds of "national security" as he investigates drug smuggling and money laundering out of Mena, Arkansas..Rep. Jim Leach is trying to look into the Mena drug and gun running side of the story but is running into resistance from federal investigative agencies and the IRS. The IRS has turned over three boxes of material on the late CIA informer and drug pusher Barry Seale but won't release another 21. Leach says that "various security agencies" also say their Mena documents are not available: "You'd be astonished at how little they claim to know." Leach insists: "We have more than sufficient documentation that improprieties occurred at Mena.."

7/98 Online Progressive Review about Smaltz ".[Janet] Reno, meanwhile, has quietly -- and unsuccessfully -- made an effort to rein in some of these far flung prosecutions. Sources close to the Espy investigation say that about a year ago Justice Department attorneys tried to deny Smaltz the right to expand his probe further. To Reno's consternation the department was overruled by the three judges who oversee the implementation of the independent-counsel act." . speaking of his most recent case, Smaltz declared in a largely unreported statement that the Justice Department's "opposition significantly delayed our investigation and prosecution..."

7/13/98 Jonathan Turley Chicago Tribune ".Over the last few months, the president has declined six invitations to testify before the grand jury and to respond to allegations that he committed perjury, suborned perjury and obstructed justice. .First, White House defenders have argued that the president should not testify because Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr is not to be trusted.. The second explanation is that Clinton should not testify because Starr's investigation has strayed far from its original mandate of investigating the Whitewater dealings.. The third explanation is that Clinton has already testified on this matter in his deposition in the Jones case. The final explanation given by all of the former White House counsels is that Clinton should only address these allegations before Congress..This leaves us with Ockham's Razor and the only remaining, and simplest, explanation: The president cannot testify because he committed perjury in his earlier deposition."

7/13/98 Mark S. Zaid, Esq Press Release "The U.S. Department of State has successfully impeded the efforts of syndicated columnist Arianna Huffington to reveal evidence of potentially illegal activities committed by, among others, officials of the Department and Ambassador M. Larry Lawrence and his widow Shelia Lawrence. In a July 6, 1998 Order, publicly released yesterday, the Honorable James Robertson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, granted the Department of State's request to delay producing the documents until at least November 16, 1999. No opinion explaining the Court's decision was issued. Reconsideration of the decision will be sought and, if necessary, appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. ."

7/13/98 AP Larry Margasak "A Tennessee developer with ties to Vice President Al Gore provided documents to a House committee Monday concerning $1 million he paid President Clinton's former campaign manager. "[NOTE: A House subcommittee had previously voted to hold him in contempt for failure to turn over documents.]

Washington Post 7/14/98 Robert Suro and Peter Baker "Despite serious doubts about the chances of success, the Justice Department has decided to ask a federal appeals court to reconsider its decision ordering Secret Service officers to testify in the Monica S. Lewinsky investigation, administration officials said yesterday.."

7/13/98 St Louis Post Dispatch "Law enforcement officials said that investigators were actively reviewing Huang's activities, including fund-raising solicitations made while he was an official at the Commerce Department and his role in funneling overseas contributions to the Democratic Party..James Desarno, the lead FBI investigator assigned to the inquiry, was planning to accept a promotion at his agency until the FBI director, Louis Freeh, ordered him to remain in place indefinitely after news reports about the move..FBI officials and investigators continue to openly question Reno's refusal to seek an independent prosecutor to examine the vast swirl of accusations.."

7/13/98 Wall Street Journal ".Ms. Tripp finished the week with U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth sanctioning the Clinton White House and Justice Department for stonewalling a private lawsuit into how material from her personnel file was released in violation of the Privacy Act. Judge Lamberth ordered the government to pay attorneys' fees and costs for putting up roadblocks to the deposition of Clifford Bernath, the Pentagon official who released the data. More significantly, Judge Lamberth found it "highly unusual and suspect" for Mr. Bernath to have completely deleted his computer hard drive after the incident . The judge took the rare step of ordering the Pentagon ' s Inspector General to examine the hard drive and its server to see if all relevant documents in the case have been turned over to his court .."

7/14/98 Don Van Natta Jr. and David Johnston "Twenty-one months after accusations of illegal fund raising arose from President Clinton's re-election campaign, law enforcement officials concede they have no big cases to show for their effort and express doubts that they will obtain evidence to warrant prosecution of senior White House or Democratic Party officials.."

7/15/98 Washington Times Jerry Seper and Bill Sammon ".Lawyers and others close to the probe said Mrs. Tripp, who appeared for a fifth time yesterday before the grand jury, has testified that the former White House intern asked her to lie during talks they had concerning the now-dismissed Jones suit."

Rush Limbaugh 7/15/98 Summarized "Tim Russert on NBC Today Show this morning says Clinton White House threatening USSS not to testify; Russert says the USSS "facilitated" liasons for Clinton like Arkansas State Troopers. Starr may be investigating if USSS facilitated and covered up."

AP 7/15/98 Laurie Kellman "Senate Republicans accused Attorney General Janet Reno of protecting President Clinton from fund-raising and obstruction of justice investigations by having the Justice Department concoct ways to shield the White House. Chief among the phony protections, Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch charged Wednesday, is the department's insistence that the law exempts Secret Service agents from having to testify in the Monica Lewinsky investigation. Sen. Arlen Specter, R- Pa., accused Reno of using a double standard in appointing an independent counsel to investigate charges of influence peddling against Labor Secretary Alexis Herman but using similar arguments to reject a special prosecutor for campaign fund raising. Specter cited ``overwhelming evidence'' of White House involvement in shady funding practices and asked ``what is the real reason, the real motivation'' for Reno's refusal to appoint an independent counsel. Even FBI Director Louis Freeh believes Reno should request an independent counsel to probe the fund-raising practices, Governmental Affairs Chairman Fred Thompson of Tennessee pointed out. `It is difficult to imagine a more compelling situation for appointing an independent counsel,'' Thompson quoted Freeh."

7/15/98 Matt Drudge "FBI Director Louis Freeh forcefully warned Attorney General Reno that she was flatly misreading the law by not seeking an independent counsel to investigate campaign fund-raising by the Clinton administration, the NEW YORK TIMES is planning to lead in Thursday editions. Freeh wrote Reno a 27-page legal memo urging her to bring in outside counsel.. "Freeh has been worried all along that secret intelligence gathered by the Bureau and the National Security Agency would make its way back to the top White House policy makers close to the Chinese operatives and most interested in shutting down the investigation," goes Safire..."

7/15/98 Drudge "URGENT: WHITE HOUSE SEEKS AID OF SUPREME COURT CHIEF JUSTICE REHNQUIST IN QUASHING SECRET SERVICE SUBPOENAS... CLINTON OFFICIALS LATE WEDNESDAY NIGHT ASKED COURT TO STOP STARR FROM TAKING TESTIMONY FROM SECRET SERVICE AGENTS, SCHEDULED FOR THURSDAY. THE EXTRAORDINARY MOTION COMES HOURS AFTER A DISTRICT JUDGE REFUSED TO BLOCK STARR FOR OBTAINING TESTIMONY... NO IMMEDIATE SIGN IF REHNQUIST WILL STOP THE GRAND JURY HEARING... "

Roll Call 7/16/98 Damon Chappie and Mary Jacoby "The Justice Department decisions in 1995 to block an Internal Revenue Service criminal probe of Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun are extremely unusual, according to tax experts and former Justice and IRS officials. The Illinois Democrat and the Justice Department confirmed that an IRS investigation into allegations over the misuse of campaign funds ended in 1995 when the Justice Department refused IRS requests to impanel a grand jury to continue the tax investigation."

7/16/98 AP "The U.S. Court of Appeals today refused to reconsider a panel's decision ordering Secret Service officers to testify at the Monica Lewinsky grand jury, but gave the administration until noon Friday to appeal to the Supreme Court. Sending a strong signal to the Justice Department, the full appeals court said not one of its 11 judges wanted to reconsider the earlier decision by a three-judge panel. The ruling came just hours after the appeals court issued an emergency order stopping President Clinton's chief bodyguard and eight other Secret Service officers from testifying until it made its decision. Now that the court declined the case, the Justice Department has one last recourse: an appeal to the Supreme Court. Anticipating the need, Justice lawyers had sent protective paperwork to the Supreme Court that would ask Chief Justice William Rehnquist to block the testimony and take the case when the high court returns to work in October. The Justice Department had made a mad dash from the District Court to the Supreme Court seeking to head off the testimony of Special Agent Larry Cockell, who leads Clinton's security detail, and other officers subpoenaed by Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr."

Washington Times 7/17/98 "The federal appeals court that unanimously rejected the administration's request includes five judges appointed by Democrats and six appointed by Republicans President Clinton named Judith Rogers and David Tatel in 1994 and Merrick Garland in 1997. President Carter appointed Patricia Wald in 1979 and Harry Edwards in 1980."

Judge Silberman's Opinion 7/16/98 "This is the first time in 13 years on this Court that I have seen a petition for rehearing or an appellant's brief that does not state the identity of the party petitioning or appealing in the caption of the brief. There is good reason. It is now established beyond dispute that the Independent Counsel stands in place of the Attorney General and represents the United States in any proceeding within his or her jurisdiction. The Independent Counsel's briefs therefore are captioned as briefs of the United States. The Attorney General apparently all too aware of this problem, filed a petition without identifying, in its caption, the party she is representing. Yet on the first page of the brief she purports to represent the United States. That is analytically impossible. We cannot have two opposing lawyers before us representing the same named party. Nor is this simply a matter of captioning. Even if under certain circumstances it can be thought that two entities of the executive branch can litigate against themselves under Article III, the Attorney General lacks prudential standing under the Ethics in Government Act. That Act provides that the Independent Counsel replaces the Attorney General with respect to all manners within the Independent Counsel's prosecutorial jurisdiction. Indeed, the Act specifically mandates that the Department of Justice and the Attorney General "suspend all investigations and proceedings regarding" the subject matter of the Independent Counsel's investigation. Unless the Independent Counsel agrees in writing to permit the Department of Justice to continue its involvement of the case, the Attorney General is permitted only to file an amicus brief in such a proceeding. An amicus brief, of course, would be inadequate here because if the Attorney General is not permitted to "represent" the United States neither is any other government lawyer. It seems clear to me that no one in the United States Government, speaking for the government, has standing to oppose the Independent Counsel in this proceeding, and, therefore, neither we nor the district court have jurisdiction over this case. "

Pete Yost. AP 7/16/98 "In a dramatic last appeal, the Clinton administration today asked Chief Justice William Rehnquist to intervene after the U.S. Court of Appeals refused to stop Secret Service officers from testifying in the Monica Lewinsky investigation. The Justice Department filed the request at the Supreme Court less than an hour after the appeals court refused to reconsider an earlier decision ordering the Secret Service personnel, including President Clinton's chief bodyguard, to testify. The appeals court sent a strong message to the Justice Department by saying none of its nine judges available on the case wanted to intervene and that the administration was unlikely to win before the nation's nine justices."

Z2: "On the morning following her July 16, 1998 appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee, the following newspapers' editorials demanded that Attorney General Janet Reno appoint an independent counsel to investigate the Democratic campaign finance scandal: Dallas Morning News, St. Petersberg Times, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Boston Globe. She continues to ignore all such recommendations, including that of FBI Director Louis Freeh. Curious."

Chief Justice Rehnquist 7/17/98 "This case is before me as circuit justice on the application for stay submitted by the solicitor general,on behalf of the secretary of the treasury, Robert E. Rubin. Because several of my colleagues are out of the country, I have decided to rule on the matter myself rather than refer it to the conference. An applicant for stay first must show irreparable harm if a stay is denied. In my view, the applicant has not demonstrated that denying a stay and enforcing the subpoenas pending a decision on certiorari would cause irreparable harm. The secretary identifies two injuries that would result from denying a stay: any privileged information would be lost forever and the important interests that the 'protective function privilege' protects would be destroyed. I cannot say that any harm caused by the interim enforcement of the subpoenas will be irreparable. If the secretary's claim of privilege is eventually upheld, disclosure of past events will not affect the president's relationship with his protectors in the future. On balance, the equities do not favor granting a stay. An applicant for stay must also show that there is a likelihood that four members of this court will grant certiorari to review the decision of the court of appeals on the merits. This case is obviously not a run- of-the-mine dispute, pitting as it does the prosecution's need for testimony before a grand jury against claims involving the safety and protection of the president of the United States. I shall assume, without deciding, that four members of this court on that basis would grant certiorari. But a stay applicant must also show that there is likelihood that this court, having granted certiorari and heard the case, would reverse the judgment of the court of appeals. The applicant simply has not made that showing to my satisfaction, and I believe my view would be shared by a majority of my colleagues. The opinion of the court of appeals seems to me cogent and correct. The district court which considered the matter was also of that view, and none of the nine judges of the court of appeals even requested a vote on the applicant's suggestion for rehearing en banc. The application for stay is accordingly denied. I believe my view would be shared by a majority of my colleagues."

St. Petersburg Times 7/17/98 Editorial "Everyone in Washington had known for months that FBI Director Louis Freeh disagreed with the decision of his boss, Attorney General Janet Reno, not to seek an independent counsel to investigate charges of fund-raising abuses in President Clinton's 1996 re-election campaign. However, not until this week was the vehemence of Freeh's disagreement -- and the full force of his logic -- a matter of public record. Reno, sitting as a witness before the Senate Judiciary Committee as Sen. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., read excerpts from Freeh's months-old memo to her, was clearly embarrassed, and understandably so. Freeh's interpretation of the independent counsel statute left her little room for rebuttal. "It is difficult to imagine a more compelling situation for appointing an independent counsel," Freeh wrote. Freeh, a former federal judge, noted that the law was intended to be applied whenever the Justice Department finds credible evidence that high-level administration officials are implicated in wrongdoing. In this case, Freeh noted, the allegations reach to the very highest levels of the White House: the president and vice president. Freeh added that, contrary to Reno's prior assertions, the independent counsel statute should be applied to prevent even the appearance of a conflict of interest for the attorney general, a presidential appointee.."

Rep Gerald Solomon referred to Ken Starr - President Clinton refused to reveal to Congress that White House officials searched their files for any and everything on Linda Tripp.

Washington Weekly 7/19/98 Wesley Phelan " Last week the nation came as close as it has in 24 years to seeing the complete emotional and legal breakdown of a presidency. The crisis was brought about by a series of federal court rulings that Secret Service agents guarding President Clinton must testify before a grand jury convened by Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr [1]. The utter desperation of the administration was evident in the maneuverings of the Department of Justice, which explored every available avenue for keeping the agents from going before the grand jury. If the agents' testimony supports the claim that the President committed perjury or obstructed justice, it will be the death knell of the Clinton Administration. The court battle over the agents' testimony would then be the equivalent of President Nixon's battle to withhold tape recordings of Oval Office conversations during Watergate from Special Prosecutor Leon Jaworski (see U.S. v. Nixon, 1974). Most commentators seem to have missed this very important implication of the just-completed court battle."

7/19/98 Pete Yost AP "Secret Service testimony in the Monica Lewinsky investigation could spur a new round of subpoenas as prosecutors delve into possible perjury, witness tampering and obstruction of justice, legal experts say.Four uniformed division officers testified Friday -- retiree Robert Ferguson and currently employed officers Gary Byrne, John Muskett and another currently employed officer. Byrne saw Lewinsky on her last days at the White House before she was transferred to the Pentagon. The others all knew who Lewinsky was. "I did testify there yesterday," Muskett said Saturday when contacted at his home. "We'll be back next week." He declined to answer any questions about his testimony."

World Net Daily 7/21/98 Charles Smith "The Clinton administration claims they have nothing to hide. Yet, the White House is resisting the release of documents hidden inside the files of the late Ron Brown. The documents are being sought by the House National Security Committee. The documents involve a 1996 presidential waiver written by Clinton for the troubled Loral Aerospace Corporation. Congressional officials are concerned because the 1996 Clinton waiver for Loral included the transfer of an advanced satellite encryption telemetry ground station to China. "Dozens of documents the House National Security Committee was promised have not been delivered," said Congressman Gibbons of Nevada in a recent interview for Congressional Daily. "That is typical of someone who has something to hide."

World Net Daily 7/21/98 Charles Smith ".The name of the company involved in the 1995 satellite waiver is being withheld from the public by the Clinton administration. The company name is also blacked out in the official Sockowitz inventory list."

World Net Daily 7/21/98 Charles Smith ".In response to the House request for Sockowitz documents on 1995 memos between himself and Baca - on July 6, 1998, Reinsch wrote a confused reply to Chairman Floyd Spence of the House National Security Committee. Curiously, Reinsch ignores the Kazakhstan request of 1996 and claims in his letter that the memos he exchanged with Ms. Baca were not for the Chinese Loral satellite launch that failed in February, 1996."

World Net Daily 7/21/98 Charles Smith ".The Clinton administration is also resisting the release of documents on secret meetings held in the White House. Information on the secret meetings was obtained from the U.S. Commerce Department using the Freedom of Information Act and from inside the hidden files of Ira Sockowitz. Commerce Undersecretary Reinsch has refused to turn over files linking secret Clinton administration meetings with a powerful lobby group of computer companies, called the Computer Systems Policy Project (CSPP). At the July, 1998, House National Security hearing, Rep. Gibbons asked Reinsch to produce all documentation on secret meetings and classified briefings given to the CSPP. Reinsch has not complied.."

7/17/98 Letter Dan Burton to President Clinton ".As you know, the existence of a deliberate plan created by a variety of entities in China, including the Chinese government, to influence our political process was confirmed by the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee investigation.While it is no surprise that President Jiang continues to deny the existence of a covert scheme to influence our 1996 elections, I was very concerned to read of your public statements expressing your general agreement with Jiang's statements regarding the campaign finance Chinese government connections. On July 3, 1998, during your final press conference in Hong Kong, you stated that "[Jiang] said they looked into that and that he was obviously certain. And I do believe him, that he had not ordered or authorized or approved such a thing, and that he could find no evidence that anybody with governmental authority had done that". As you are certainly aware, the Chinese government is not known for accurately characterizing its legal or military actions. Mr President, it is important that we verify not just trust statements by Chinese leaders. When you combine the large body of evidence gleaned from U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies that a deliberate plan was created by the Chinese to subvert our electoral process with the refusal of the Chinese government to cooperate either with the investigations of this committee or the Department of Justice, most observers have a healthy level of skepticism..According to published reports, President Jiang told you at a meeting in Washington on October 28, 1997, that the Chinese government would cooperate with U.S. investigators looking into whether foreign money illegally entered campaign treasuries. As you are well aware, this has not been the case. The Chinese government has remained uncooperative. ..First, the Chinese government has refused to grant visas to allow congressional investigators to travel to China or Hong Kong to conduct interviews. It is my understanding that visas have been denied also to Justice Department investigators. When I requested that both Justice Department and congressional investigators be included as part of your delegation to China, which I understand included 1200 people, I received a non- response from your diplomatic advisers..There are now 108 witnesses who are refusing to cooperate with the investigation. Because of this, it is imperative that we have your cooperation in seeking the release of key records from the bank of China. President Jiang Zemin should direct that Justice Department and congressional investigators have access to the bank records of key wire transfers to major figures such as Charlie Trie, Johnny Chung, James Riady, Ted Sioeng, and related figures, so that his statements may be matched against the facts and the matter resolved.On three previous occasions: March 9, 1998, March31, 1998, and June 11, 1998, I have written to you or your staff requesting assistance with the Chinese government in obtaining these records."

New York Times David Johnston 7/22/98 "After a 10-month inquiry, the departing chief of the Justice Department's campaign finance unit has concluded in a confidential report to Attorney General Janet Reno that she has no alternative but to seek an independent prosecutor to investigate political fund-raising abuses during President Clinton's re-election campaign, government officials said Wednesday. The prosecutor, Charles La Bella, delivered the report to Reno last Thursday as he prepared to return to San Diego this week to take over as interim U.S. attorney. La Bella's conclusions, coming from a seasoned federal prosecutor with full access to all grand jury evidence in the case, represents a serious internal fracture within the Justice Department.He produced only two copies, the officials said. He gave one copy to Reno and sent another to the home of Freeh, an ally whose top agent on the case, James Desarno, approved Labella's findings.The report casts possible new light on La Bella's decision on leaving his job as the top campaign finance prosecutor, suggesting that he could be stepping down in the middle of the inquiry because he believed that the case should not be handled by the Justice Department but by an outside prosecutor. ..In his report, the officials said, La Bella concluded that there was sufficient information to warrant the appointment based on the mandatory and discretionary provisions of the independent counsel statute, meaning that he found enough specific information to justify an outside investigation of high-level officials. .."

7/23/98 Capitol Hill Blue Doug Thompson ".More than a dozen high-level attorneys and investigators at the Justice Department have resigned in a growing internal dispute over Reno's refusal to appoint an independent prosecutor to investigate fund-raising abuses during President Clinton's 1996 re- election campaign, sources said. LaBella is just the latest, but highest-profile, attorney to leave the Justice Department in an expanding protest of Reno handling of the issue. "We've lost over a dozen top-notch attorneys and investigators here over this mess," says one Justice Department attorney. "Morale around here is in the pits." Sources say some Justice Department attorneys speculate privately that Reno is fulfilling her part of a deal she cut with Clinton to keep her job after his re-election in 1996. Clinton wanted to replace Reno in a general reshuffling of his cabinet, but she kept her job after a series of meetings with the President. Others say Reno would never agree to such a deal and cite her approval of Whitewater prosecutor Kenneth Starr's expansion of his probe into the Monica Lewinsky as evidence she is not keeping the hounds at bay.Sources say the report confirms internal Justice Department speculation that La Bella decided to leave in the middle of the investigation because he did not believe the agency should be handling the probe. "

7/24/98 FoxNews Wire Larry Margasak AP - ".Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, a Democrat who participated in the Senate's campaign fund-raising investigation, said La Bella's views are "significant, and it gives me pause to think about my previous position.'' Lieberman has been skeptical of naming another independent counsel. Republicans pointed out that La Bella confirmed their view - and that of FBI Director Louis Freeh - that the independent counsel law should be triggered in this case because the Justice Department is investigating Clinton and Vice President Al Gore, Reno's superiors. Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, R-Utah, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said, "If she doesn't do it this time, I think there had to be some kind of backroom deal made.'' ."

7/24/98 Mary Mostert The Reagan Information Interchange "Mike McCurry Survived three and a half years as Clinton's spokesman by deliberately squelching his journalistic curiosity about Lewinsky and the President, according to a story in today's Washington Post by veteran reporters Peter Baker and Howard Kurtz. They wrote: "Still, he survived the crisis by abandoning the one political commodity he prized the most: access. With subpoenas flying and lawyers setting strategy, McCurry deliberately stayed uninformed on the Lewinsky situation, aggravating an already combustible situation in the briefing room where questions went unanswered.Only in Washington could McCurry's studied determination to deliberately evade the issues involved in the Clinton White House be called "honesty." ."

CNN 7/24/98 Pierre Thomas "Rep. Dan Burton, chairman of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, issued a subpoena Friday demanding that Attorney General Janet Reno provide him with two internal memos from senior law enforcement officials calling for an independent counsel to investigate allegations of campaign finance abuses. Burton authorized the subpoena after Reno failed to meet a 1 p.m. EDT deadline that Burton had set.."

7/24/98 Samizdat ".Chairman Burton believes that professional law enforcement experts, like Freeh, LaBella and Desarno, are having their advice diminished by President Clinton's political appointees at the Justice Department, including the Attorney General. 'They are determined to protect the President,' he said, 'by keeping the campaign investigation in the Justice Department.' Chairman Burton added, 'all that Janet Reno seems to be interested in are illegal donations. What about illegal solicitations by persons covered by the Independent Counsel Act? These memoranda we've subpoenaed shouldn't be cloaked in silence, they're cries for help!" "

FoxNews 7/24/98 "Independent counsel Kenneth Starr has subpoenaed President Clinton to testify before the Monica Lewinsky grand jury and the White House is considering ways Clinton could give information without having to appear in person, sources close to the case said Friday. The White House publicly signaled a new willingness to reach an agreement this week after the subpoena was issued, the sources said."

The NewYork Times 7/24/8 Don Van Natta Jr. "With Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr threatening to subpoena him, President Clinton has told an adviser that he does not want to testify voluntarily before the federal grand jury investigating the Monica Lewinsky matter and become the first sitting president in history to appear before a grand jury, the adviser said Friday. Clinton's remarks came earlier this week after prosecutors working for Starr informed David Kendall, Clinton's personal lawyer, that they were preparing to serve the president with a subpoena, senior administration officials and lawyers close to the case said Friday. One lawyer said Friday night that the subpoena "is drawn up and ready for delivery."."

From Meet the Press 7/26/98 Chuck Allen "Russert: Mr. Emanual as you know, on Thursday NBC called you three times and on Friday we called you five times and each time, eight times you told us there was no subpoena. Emanual, duh duh as ah as you know we uh cant comfirm or deny uh the uh , Mr. Kendall uh has uh been instructed to uh get uh the Grand Jury the uh information it uh needs.And uh let me remind you that on Aug .5th it will mark the 4 year anniversary of the Indendependent Council's appointment and we have worked all along to get the Grand Jury the info it needs. Russert: but you told me there was no subpoena, and then on Friday night after 11pm, after the Capitol shooting you guys sort of let it sneak out. Emanual: Well uh duh we uh , Mr. Kendall is instructed to talk to OIC so uh we can get the Grand Jury the info it needs."

Conservative News Service 7/25/98 ".A Maryland state prosecutor today answered a request by Judicial Watch for files regarding an investigation of Tripp, by refusing to hand over the documents. The political watchdog group believes this denial is likely motivated by "political considerations and by pressure from the Clinton Administration and its allies." Prosecutor Stephen Montanarelli wrote Judicial Watch Chairman Larry Klayman that not only would he not turn over documents related to Tripp, Lucianne Goldberg and Monica Lewinsky, but that he had no record in his "custody" related to the Democratic Party, the White House and many Clinton cronies. In his letter, Montanarelli added, "I do not know where such records may be located." Klayman said this does not go with previous reports that Montanarelli was contacted by Maryland Democratic lawmakers who encouraged him to prosecute Tripp. Judicial Watch maintains they are keeping an eye on reports that Montanarelli has been contacted directly by Democratic members of the Maryland General Assembly. Klayman said they are going to appeal Montanarelli's denial."

FoxNews Jonathan Turley by Freeper rmgatto "Just concluded on Fox News Sunday was a stunning affirmation of the rule of law as it applies to the president. Mr. Turley, introduced as a democrat, eloquently expressed his opinion that the president has "no cards in his hand", and that the Supreme Court would likely vote 9-0 in an expedited hearing that clinton must testify in person before the grand jury. Turley stated his feeling that a compromise would pobably be reached but that he would be disappointed because the president should not be excused from his duties as a citizen. Among many other perspicacious points, Mr. Turley dismissed questions about a "perjury trap" by saying you can't accomplish that without perjury being committed. He aslso stated the the most serious allegation is multiple perjury counts, not obstruction of justice. "

Drudge Report 7/26/98 Exclusive "President Bill Clinton is reserving the option to follow the lead of President Thomas Jefferson by refusing to 'physically testify' before a federal grand jury, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned. A secret meeting among Clinton's legal team was in progress at the White House late Sunday. Monday's NEW YORK TIMES is reporting that a major obstacle to any agreement between the White House and prosecutor Starr is the president's request that his lawyer, David Kendall, sit in on his testimony. Starr is unwilling to grant the request, the TIMES reports. Starr may give ground and not require Clinton to testify at the Federal Courthouse. Starr may bus the jurors to the White House, or have Clinton testify via live closed-circuit television. But the DRUDGE REPORT has learned that a plan was still circulating in elite halls of the White House over the weekend: Clinton would agree to provide written answers to written questions submitted by prosecutor Ken Starr -- and nothing more -- citing a historic legal precedent."

Roll Call 8/3/98 John Bresnahan "Attorney General Janet Reno, citing an ongoing investigation by the Justice Department, has denied a request by two top Republicans for copies of a confidential department memo outlining the need for an independent counsel to probe allegations of campaign fundraising abuses during the 1996 presidential election. Reno's refusal to release the report has angered some Republicans, who now plan to step up their campaign to force Reno to resign. Hatch and Hyde have each twice formally asked Reno to name an independent counsel to look at the propriety of the infamous White House sleepovers and coffee klatches, which helped the Clinton/Gore campaign raise millions of dollars in donations. While Administration officials have repeatedly insisted that they broke no laws during the campaign, Hill Republicans claim there is sufficient and credible evidence to warrant a special investigation. Reno's refusal to name an independent counsel to investigate the fundraising activities of the Clinton/Gore re-election campaign has infuriated GOP Congressional leaders. "

AP John Solomon 8/3/98 "With pressure growing for President Clinton to explain his relationship with Monica Lewinsky, the White House today decided to continue the legal fight seeking to block testimony by presidential confidant Bruce Lindsey, an official said. The administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the White House would appeal a decision last month by a three- judge appeals court panel that ordered Lindsey to testify before a grand jury. The judges rejected arguments that his testimony was protected by attorney-client privilege."

Wall Street Journal Brian Duffy 8/3/98 "The departing head of the Justice Department's campaign fundraising investigation has told Janet Reno that he developed evidence of wrongdoing by senior officials of the White House and the Democratic National Committee. Charles LaBella's findings, presented in a lengthy memorandum to Ms. Reno, focus sharply on the fund-raising efforts of Harold Ickes, the former deputy White House chief of staff. They form the basis of Mr. LaBella's recommendation that Ms. Reno seek the appointment of an independent counsel.Interviews with senior government officials present a picture at sharp variance with the image of the inquiry that Ms. Reno has sought to portray. The attorney general appointed Mr. LaBella to the fundraising task force after complaints by the FBI and senior Justice Department officials that it had stalled. Since then, Ms. Reno has repeatedly told her Republican critics that she based her decision not to seek an independent counsel on the advice of career Justice Department attorneys. But Mr. LaBella, her top attorney and a career federal prosecutor, was frequently excluded from meetings concerning the appointment with Ms. Reno and other Justice Department executives, several officials said."

Wall Street Journal David Cloud 8/3/98 "The Secret Service officers subpoenaed in the Monica Lewinsky matter are seeking to force Kenneth Starr to obtain a federal judge's approval before he discloses their testimony to Congress.Mr. Starr may already intend to submit his report for Judge Johnson's review, some lawyers involved in the case said, or to a special three-judge appeals-court panel that oversees independent-counsel inquiries. Even if the courts block Mr. Starr's report, lawyers and scholars say Congress can demand all of his evidence."

AP Kevin Galvin "A House committee voted today to cite Attorney General Janet Reno for contempt of Congress for failing to turn over reports recommending that she seek an independent counsel to probe campaign fund-raising abuses.."

Drudge 8/6/98 "The WASHINGTON TIMES is set to release a blockbuster report that is bound to turn official Washington upside down and inside out. U.N. Ambassador Bill Richardson, contrary to what he told Congress last month in sworn testimony, did not have a job opening on his staff when he offered to hire Monica Lewinsky in October, according to sources and documents obtained by the WASHINGTON TIMES."

Capitol Hill Blue 8/4/98 "Confidential memos to Attorney General Janet Reno from FBI Director Louis Freeh and her former chief investigator into fundraising law violations name President Clinton, Vice President Al Gore, former deputy chief of staff Harold Ickes and other White House officials as "principal targets" of the probe, sources confirmed Tuesday..A third witness at the hearing, chief task force investigator James Desarno, said he concurred with the opinions of Freeh and La Bella that an independent counsel was needed."

8/5/98 Washington Post Peter Baker Susan Schmidt "A top White House lawyer went before the grand jury investigating President Clinton's ties to Monica S. Lewinsky yesterday but refused to answer certain questions, prompting another round of legal jousting with independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr, according to sources familiar with the closed proceedings. White House special counsel Lanny A. Breuer showed up at the federal courthouse to testify about two hours after Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist refused an emergency White House request to intervene and temporarily block his appearance yesterday morning. ."

Washington Times 8/5/98 Warren Strobel "The powers and privileges of the presidency have shrunk during the legal duel between President Clinton and independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr, with major consequences for the future, according to legal scholars.They're the ones who've jeopardized" presidential privileges by litigating them at every possible turn, said C. Boyden Gray, who was White House counsel under President Bush. "There's a lot of power in the ambiguity" that once existed, he said. Mr. Gray called the Clinton White House's actions particularly egregious because the president and his aides have asserted privilege in matters having to do with the president's personal conduct, rather than his official conduct or issues of national security. By taking "the weakest possible case to the courts, they have gotten rulings that reduce the leverage future presidents will have in cases when it really matters," he said. "

NY Daily News Online 8/5/98 Timothy Burger Kathy Kiely "Monica Lewinsky has given investigators a photo of her and President Clinton with a personal inscription from him written on the back, CBS reported yesterday. According to the report, Lewinsky concealed the picture from the FBI when she turned over tapes of her telephone conversations with Clinton and a dress allegedly stained with the President's semen."

NY Times 8/5/98 David Rosenbaum "Attorney General Janet Reno and a House investigating committee approached a showdown Tuesday over whether she should ask for an independent counsel to prosecute campaign finance abuses.. A few minutes before the hearing began, Reno called and asked to testify herself. Burton turned her down. "There are procedures for what we're doing," he said at the hearing. .Freeh and La Bella suggested Tuesday that they believed the mandatory and discretionary provisions of the law applied in this case, but they declined to tell the committee their reasoning. The top FBI agent on the case, James Desarno, testified Tuesday that he agreed with Freeh and La Bella. Freeh testified that the investigation involved "a core group of individuals who in my view are indisputably covered." Burton asked whether that included President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore. "Yes sir," Freeh responded. But he did not say whether any evidence had been found suggesting that Clinton or Gore had committed crimes.."

NY Post 8/5/98 Vince Morris "A House committee is poised to hold Attorney General Janet Reno in contempt of Congress following word she called a meeting about the funny-money investigation that excluded top probers. Absent from the meeting were FBI chief Louis Freeh, Reno's own chief funny-money prober Charles LaBella and FBI investigator James Desarno, all of whom want Reno to name an independent counsel - an idea she rejects. Meanwhile, GOP leaders took aim at Reno, faulting her for excluding key people from her meetings and refusing to make public documents that contradict her. "I don't have confidence in this attorney general," said Rep. John Shadegg, (R-Ariz.).If the House approves the measure, Speaker Newt Gingrich is required by law to refer the matter to the local U.S. attorney, Wilma Lewis, who could charge Reno - her boss - with obstructing justice. "The people who she's been meeting with do not include any of you," said a visibly upset Rep. Chris Cox (R- Calif.), after Freeh, LaBella and Desarno said they weren't in the room during Reno's July 21 discussion.Under questioning, Freeh said he'd read LaBella's report "a couple of times" and pronounced himself in full agreement with it. "I couldn't think of a stronger argument for an independent counsel," said Freeh, who last November made waves when word leaked that he wrote his own 27-page memo to Reno urging her to appoint an independent counsel.."

Reform Party News 8/3/98 Dan Burton, Chairman (R-Ind.) letter to Janet Reno ".I have considered and rejected all of the objections raised in your letter of July 28, 1998. As you have failed to provide the subpoenaed documents or assert a valid claim of privilege, I have recommended that the Committee continue to assert its constitutional oversight responsibilities in pursuing these matters. "

AP Sandra Sobieraj 8/5/98 "Bedrock Democratic loyalists in the Hispanic and black communities say they're not concerned about what story might emerge when President Clinton testifies in the Monica Lewinsky investigation. " 'We're not fair-weathered friends. We will be with you to the end,' Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., told Clinton, whose appearance Tuesday night at her fund-raising reception of mostly black activists raised $300,000 for House Democratic candidates.".and reply from Freeper gruber ".With that statement, Maxine Waters has just disqualified herself as an impartial member of the House Judiciary Committee."

FoxNews Fred Barnes . a Freeper reports "Fred Barnes stated that according to "sources" that Monica will implicate Lindsey as contributing to the talking points...."

US Newswire 8/5/98 Mike Collins "The reason President Clinton is threatening to shut down the federal government later this year, says Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Jim Nicholson, is that new polling data shows "President Clinton's personal approval ratings are sagging faster than an old barn in the wind." "Bill Clinton is looking to pick a fight with Congress to deflect attention from the scandals that are swirling around the White House," Nicholson charged. "He's got to create a crisis to stop the hemorrhaging, and a federal government shut down in the weeks before the Nov. 3 election is just what his spin doctors ordered. At a speech Monday in Prince George's County, Md., and at an appearance today before the House Democrat Caucus, Clinton and his aides repeatedly raised the spectre of repeating the budget showdowns of 1995 and 1996 that resulted in two partial shutdowns of the federal government."

8/10/98 AP Ron Fournier "A week before Bill Clinton's risky date to answer questions from prosecutor Kenneth Starr, some of the president's closest advisers are convinced he should try to avoid telling all. The president last month agreed to testify ``completely and truthfully'' on Aug. 17 to a grand jury investigating whether he had sex with Monica Lewinsky and tried to cover it up -- allegations Clinton denies. In exchange, Starr withdrew a subpoena, saving Clinton from being the first sitting president compelled to testify in a criminal case. That concession could play a role in the president's strategy next week. A longtime Clinton confidant said one option under discussion among the president's advisers would have him repeat his broad denials to the grand jury but refuse to answer specific questions about his relationship with Ms. Lewinsky. A second Clinton adviser said the bombing of U.S. embassies in Africa and the resurgence of trouble with Iraq could be grounds for the president to delay his testimony..

New York Post 8/11/98 Editorial "If Kenneth Starr's staff has indeed been leaking confidential grand-jury testimony about the Monica Lewinsky matter, then punishment is certainly in order. Judge Norma Holloway Johnson has ordered Starr to prove his office was not the source of those leaks, and that seems appropriate. But let's be clear about something: This issue is a smokescreen. Bill Clinton's lawyers and shills are trying to make it seem as though the president's possible misconduct and Kenneth Starr's are comparable. They're not.

NY Times James Bennet Richard Berke Neil Lewis and David Sanger 8/14/98 "President Clinton has had extensive discussions with his inner circle about a strategy of acknowledging to a grand jury on Monday that he had intimate sexual encounters with Monica S. Lewinsky in the White House, senior advisers said. Although Clinton has not settled on this approach, discussions have centered on a plan that would allow him to acknowledge a specific type of sexual behavior while still maintaining he told the truth when he testified in January that he never had "sexual relations" with the former White House intern, according to the advisers. Clinton would say he based his previous denial, in a deposition in the Paula Corbin Jones lawsuit, on a definition of sex approved by the judge in the case. His advisers believe this definition does not cover certain activities, including oral sex."

Washington Times Donald Lambro 8/13/98 "Cracks are beginning to appear in the party-wide wall of support that Democrats have constructed around Bill Clinton in the perjury and obstruction of justice scandal that threatens his presidency. Publicly, Democratic leaders and their rank-and-file continue to march in lockstep behind their embattled president. And some are threatening to launch a "scorched earth" counteroffensive that will reveal dirt about the personal lives of House Republicans if they begin an impeachment inquiry against him. But party strategists say many Democrats in Congress are becoming scared stiff about the damaging political fallout that would rain down on them if independent prosecutor Ken Starr produces substantial evidence that Mr. Clinton is guilty of impeachable offenses. ."

8/14/98 Press Release Rep Dan Burton (R-Ind) on letter to Janet Reno ".Evidence is mounting that suggests your decision making is subject either to unacceptable political considerations, or serious misreading of the law for inexplicable reasons. Therefore, it is incumbent on this Committee -- following its mandate to conduct oversight of your agency -- to investigate the Department of Justice's response to campaign finance crimes committed in the last two Presidential election cycles..Suffice it to say that something appears to be very wrong at the Department of Justice. Last week, at a press conference, you made the following statement: "The Department cannot do its duty if it is subjected to a process that can only shake public confidence in our ability to make law enforcement decisions free from political pressure." This sounds perilously close to an argument that you are above the law and that you are above scrutiny. As has been observed by many across the ideological spectrum, it is you who has politicized this process by failing to understand the obvious conflicts inherent in investigating your own boss. It is precisely this type of situation that resulted in the original push for an Independent Counsel statute."

Wall Street Journal Phil Kuntz and Glenn Simpson 8/20/98 "President Clinton has acknowledged taking steps to foil efforts by Paula Jones's lawyers to prove the true nature of his relationship with Monica Lewinsky, but he insisted his actions didn't constitute obstruction of justice or perjury.."

Boston Globe 7/31/98 " Seven times during a daily briefing with reporters this week, White House press secretary Michael McCurry pleaded ignorance to questions on the Monica S. Lewinsky case and the president's strategy in addressing the allegations. And that was just in the first two minutes of the briefing. ..In private, McCurry seemed angered by the lack of communication between Clinton's lawyers and policy advisers. The White House still did not even acknowledge that it had received the subpoena until Starr withdrew it in a deal for Clinton's testimony on Wednesday. ..''We are very concerned about the state of the White House,'' said one adviser with intimate knowledge. ''There is a tremendous amount of disarray and lack of a message. There was that silliness of not confirming the serving of a subpoena, the lack of any message team. There is literally a total vacuum of political and press strategy in the White House. Everyone has taken a pass.'' .By the time the case is resolved, many in the West Wing expect to no longer be part of the Clinton circle. McCurry has announced he will depart in October. Chief of staff Erskine Bowles has sent strong signals that he will leave by year's end. Yesterday, he uncharacteristically gave two speeches during a Clinton trip to North Carolina, in what appeared to be a dry run for a possible gubernatorial bid. And Emanuel has long been rumored to be leaving the White House for Chicago. "

Arianna Huffington 7/30/98 about BruceLindsey ".There is no end to which Bruce wouldn't go for the President,'' said Bill Burton, a former White House colleague from Arkansas. ``There are things that Bruce would do for the President that nobody else on earth would do, and Bruce wouldn't even think twice about it.'' Lindsey clearly didn't think twice when, on June 8, 1996, he offered an unequivocal ``no'' to the question of whether anybody affiliated with the administration tried to drum up any ``work'' for Webb Hubbell. This was under oath during a closed session of the Senate Whitewater Committee. Early the following year, White House officials had to admit that Lindsey's testimony had not been accurate. .When in 1990 Clinton needed money for a last minute media blitz in his run for governor, it was Lindsey, then the campaign's treasurer, who made large cash withdrawals and failed to report them. For his efforts, he ended up as an unindicted co-conspirator in Starr's case against two Arkansas bankers.When Clinton wanted John Huang moved from the Commerce Department to the Democratic National Committee's fund-raising central, it was Lindsey who quietly and seamlessly arranged the move. And at the beginning of Clinton's first term, it was Lindsey who briefed the President on the plan to fire the travel office workers. When Gennifer Flowers was being hounded with media questions about Clinton's role in getting her a state job, it was Lindsey -- she says -- who instructed her ``to tell them I found out about it through the newspaper, and that's exactly what I told them.'' When Christy Zercher, a former stewardess from the 1992 presidential campaign, started getting calls from a reporter, it was Lindsey who called her at her New Jersey home to urge her to say ``all positive things.'' When former Miss America Elizabeth Ward Gracen was confronted by the press with questions about an affair with the President (which earlier this year she confirmed), it was Lindsey who allegedly tracked her down and urged her to deny it. When Dolly Kyle Browning was subpoenaed by Paula Jones' lawyers, it was Lindsey who arranged for the draft of a motion to be sent to Browning's lawyer to avoid her being deposed. When Linda Tripp started getting calls from Newsweek reporter Mike Isikoff about the Kathleen Willey incident, it was Lindsey, Tripp's friend and former boss, who encouraged her in a very lawyerly way to come up with a newfound ``recollection'' of her encounter with Willey. Indeed, Tripp's letter to Newsweek -- a letter which, incidentally, bears a striking resemblance to the famous talking points Lewinsky gave Tripp -- apparently contains Lindsey's guidance verbatim. And it was Lindsey who arranged for Tripp to meet with the President's lawyer Bob Bennett -- a meeting which Tripp canceled when she decided to stop cooperating with the White House. .."

Washington Post 7/29/98 Michael Kelly "The problem with stone walls is that, eventually, they fall down: Eventually people will talk, eventually truth will out. The defense that President Clinton erected against the exposure of his behavior in the matter of Monica Lewinsky rested entirely on denying the reality about walls, and the days of denial are ending. .Clinton and his array of lawyers, flacks, spinners and hacks labored heroically to maintain the hush. They invented elaborate and often patently absurd legal claims of privilege and pursued these claims as slowly as they could through increasingly skeptical courts. They mounted a furious campaign of vilification against independent counsel Kenneth Starr and anyone who had the temerity to aid Starr in his investigation. They erected what was euphemistically called a "shared defense" among the lawyers representing witnesses called before Starr's grand jury, so that everyone might get their stories straight. They steadfastly declined to allow Clinton himself to tell what he knew, reportedly refusing half a dozen invitations from Starr. And above all, one assumes, they prayed for the continued sweet silence of the lady in the case. ."

CNN AllPolitics 7/28/98 "Attorney General Janet Reno is under fire for refusing to hand over two Justice Department memos that recommend the appointment of an independent counsel to investigate Democratic fund-raising practices. Rep. Dan Burton, whose House Government Reform and Oversight Committee is also investigating fund-raising abuses in the 1996 Clinton/Gore campaign, has threatened to bring a contempt citation against Reno if she does not hand over the documents."

7/29/98 AP John Solomon ".sources said Ms. Lewinsky is prepared to explain why she returned gifts from Clinton to the White House last December, furthering prosecutors' investigation of obstruction of justice. In addition, Ms. Lewinsky was said to have provided a dress to prosecutors as some sort of evidence. Reports of such a garment, frequently denied and ridiculed by her attorney, circulated last January when Ms. Lewinsky first came under investigation."

7/29/98 AP John Solomon ".Linda Tripp, the woman whose secret tape recordings of Ms. Lewinsky prompted the investigation, spoke publicly for the first time, presenting herself as a common citizen and lashing out at her critics from the White House to Hollywood. ``I have been vilified for having taken the path of truth,'' Mrs. Tripp, visibly shaking, said after wrapping up eight days of grand jury testimony. ``I have been maligned by people who have chosen not to tell the truth and who know they are not telling the truth,'' she said. Mrs. Tripp, who worked inside the Clinton White House and now works for the Pentagon, said that between 1993 and 1997 she learned of ``actions by high government officials that may have been against the law'' and became fearful. "

UPI 7/29/98 "President Clinton maintained his silence on the Monica Lewinsky case while aides welcomed reports that the former intern is prepared to claim authorship of the infamous talking points memo. The three-page memo appeared designed to influence the courtroom testimony of Lewinsky's former friend and colleague, Linda Tripp, in a way that would deny the existence of an affair between Clinton and Lewinsky. It had been widely seen as the potential foundation of an obstruction of justice case against Clinton. But Lewinsky reportedly plans to claim no White House assistance in her authorship of the memo, despite its apparently professional style.. Lewinsky also is reportedly prepared to testify that the president encouraged her to say that her many visits to the White House after she lost her job there in 1996 were to see Clinton's private secretary Betty Currie and not the president himself. Both Lewinsky and Clinton have denied under oath having a sexual relationship. But the Times reported that Lewinsky told prosecutors she and Clinton had a sexual relationship that began in 1995, and said she lied in the sworn affidavit she submitted in the Paula Jones sexual misconduct suit in January. Lewinsky will reportedly say that Clinton told her in mid-December, after she was put on the witness list in the Jones case but before she received a subpoena, that nobody could prove her wrong if she denied a relationship. "

8/1/98 J. Peter Mulhern (Peter the Lawyer) "Richard Nixon said it best: "People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook." Today, unfortunately, every American with normal intelligence and access to the news knows that the president is a crook. This is not just an embarrassment. It is a crisis with profound implications for the future of our republic. Democrats and their media allies argue that Clinton's perjury and obstruction of justice are minor matters that could not justify impeachment. This despite the fact that these crimes together carry a combined maximum sentence of twenty years. Clinton's crimes involve his private life, we are told, not his public duties. He should just apologize for breaking the law and the country can move on. Apparently our politics are now so degraded that we actually have to have a serious national debate about whether a felon can stay out of jail by clinging to the Oval Office.The irony of this situation is sharp; like that of a lunatic running the asylum.But even if, when all the evidence is heard, most Americans want to retain Clinton, doing so would be a constitutional catastrophe.."

Miami New Times 11/27/97 "Foutanga Dit Babani Sissoko's $1.2 million contribution to Camillus House last week was secretly orchestrated by U.S. District Court Judge K. Michael Moore and has raised questions about whether the West African millionaire made the supposedly voluntary donation in order to buy his way out of federal custody. Earlier this year Sissoko was sentenced by Moore to four months in jail and four months of home detention after Sissoko pleaded guilty for his role in a plan to smuggle a pair of helicopters out of the United States by bribing a Customs agent. Forty-eight hours after Sissoko wrote the check to the Miami homeless center, Moore signed an order, over the objection of federal prosecutors, allowing him to return to his home in Gambia even though he still had three months to serve on the house-arrest portion of his sentence. Several days later Sissoko boarded a plane and quietly left the country. Moore's order requires Sissoko to complete his confinement in Africa, but prosecutors say compliance will be impossible to verify. In addition, they note, the wording of Moore's order allows Sissoko to come and go virtually at will, so monitoring him in Africa would be pointless.Schnapp also noted in his motion that the president of Gambia had written to Pres. Bill Clinton asking for Sissoko's release."

MSNBC 8/5/98 "With anticipation building for Monica Lewinsky's imminent grand jury appearance, which could come as early as Thursday, Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr's prosecutors were enmeshed Wednesday in a renewed legal battle over testimony by White House lawyers, this time centering on special counsel Lanny Breuer, sources said. .Legal sources told NBC and the Associated Press that rulings by a federal appeals court and Chief U.S. Justice William Rehnquist that cleared the way for testimony by White House lawyers before the Lewinsky grand jury left open the possibility that the administration could try to block specific questions by making additional claims of attorney-client privilege or resurrecting its earlier claim of executive privilege, which it dropped earlier this spring.."

Washington Weekly Marvin Lee 8/23/98 "Judicial Watch last week took the deposition of Larry Potts, former head of the FBI's Criminal Division during Travelgate and Filegate. Potts also played key roles in the Ruby Ridge and Waco disasters. His authorship of the infamous "shoot to kill" order at Ruby Ridge eventually led to his resignation from the FBI. Potts is now a high official with Terry Lenzner's IGI International, one of the private investigation firms hired by president Clinton to collect dirt on critics and potential witnesses. During the deposition, Potts refused to answer questions from Larry Klayman about whom he had been in contact with at the FBI during his tenure at IGI, as well as whether IGI has obtained materials from Linda Tripp's Pentagon file. He also refused to identify who IGI was investigating, including Judge Starr, Larry Klayman, federal judges, and others.."

Fox News 8/23/98 Reuters "Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr's report on his investigation of the president's love affair with Monica Lewinsky includes details that will make people "want to throw up," according to Newsweek magazine."

8/24/98 Washington Times Editorial "Anyone still harboring the illusion that the president's not- so-frank grand jury testimony and his not-so-apologetic speech to the nation signaled an end to Mr. Clinton's stonewalling in the Lewinsky case? Well, they had their bubble burst by his appeal to the Supreme Court Friday of a July 27 appeals-court ruling that Deputy White House Counsel Bruce R. Lindsey (and other White House counsels involved in the Lewinsky matter) must also testify before Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr's grand jury. Having failed to get a stay of the appeals court ruling from Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Mr. Clinton is now asking for a full review of the matter by the Supreme Court, something that cannot possibly happen before October, at the earliest, when the Court comes back into session. It is worth noting Counsel Lanny Breuer, who was been in charge of the debriefing of friendly witnesses and their lawyers to figure out the direction Mr. Starr was heading in his grand jury questioning, reportedly defied the July ruling by continuing to claim attorney-client privilege when called to testify after Judge Rehnquist denied the stay. And though Bruce Lindsey, the president's closest confidant who undoubtedly knows more than anyone about Mr. Clinton's actions in the Lewinsky matter, is conveniently unable to testify because of recent back surgery, there's no reason to believe he would not have claimed the rejected privilege as well, had he testified."

Landmark Legal Foundation 5/2/98 Mark Levin ".Basically, we are attempting to learn whether the IRS is being used, willingly or otherwise, as a partisan or ideological tool to punish certain tax-exempt groups. The IRS' response has been to stonewall. Rather than seek to prove that its audits are non-partisan and routine, it has spent months using one delaying tactic after another to keep the information, assuming some exists, from the public. For example: On January 28, 1997, we submitted the FOIA request. The law requires the IRS to respond within 10 working days. It did not. On March 6th, we made a second request for the information. Still no answer. On March 26th, we appealed to the IRS commissioner with a third letter. On April 1st, the IRS asked for 30 more days to locate the information. On April 11th, the IRS told us to "demonstrate how you will actively disseminate the requested information" as a condition of releasing the information. It also said that they would have to search "at least 1,400 items over a seven-to-eleven week period." On April 28th, we provided an extensive dissemination plan to the IRS. On May 1st, the 30-day extension ended. On June 6th, the IRS refused to give us a fee waiver for the cost of searching and copying documents, a waiver which is usually granted to tax-exempt foundations. On June 27, 1997, tired of the obvious run-around and failure to comply with federal law, Landmark sued the IRS for release of the documents.."

Washington Times 9/9/98 Editorial " `If you don't have the facts, argue the law. If you don't have the law, argue the facts. If you don't have either the facts or the law, pound on the table.' - Lawyers' aphorism President Clinton is pounding the table. His personal lawyer wrote to independent counsel Kenneth Starr demanding that the president and his lawyers be given an advance copy of the Starr report currently being written. Mr. Clinton wanted a heads-up of at least a week so that the White House war room could coordinate a battle-plan. "We believe that fundamental fairness dictates that we have the opportunity to review [the independent counsel's report to Congress] and submit simultaneously any reply we wish to make," Mr. Kendall wrote to Mr. Starr. What's telling about the request is the justification: "fundamental fairness." If Mr. Clinton or his lawyers could point to any sentence, phrase or word in the law that even hinted about advance copies being given to targets of special prosecutors, he would be pointing away. If there were any legal precedent for the demand, Mr. Clinton would be standing on a stack of case law books. He did neither.."

Washington Times 9/28/98 Frank Murray "President Clinton's fight to shield evidence shifts today to the Supreme Court despite the independent counsel's assertions to Congress that Mr. Clinton's appeals are themselves an abuse of power aimed at delaying an impeachment inquiry. The case before the court is the first of two White House appeals Kenneth W. Starr, in his impeachment referral to Congress, contended were examples where Mr. Clinton "abused his constitutional authority" in his legal battle with the prosecutor. Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin -- who maintains he is acting independently of the White House -- wants Secret Service bodyguards and uniformed officers declared immune from telling a grand jury what they see and hear while guarding a president. A separate lawsuit invoking "executive privilege" to block Mr. Starr from recalling presidential confidant Bruce R. Lindsey, a deputy White House counsel, also is pending and may come up for a vote next month..

AP 9/26/98 "The acting Teamsters president could face contempt of Congress unless he turns over documents subpoenaed by a House panel or offers a legitimate reason for continuing to withhold them, said a lawmaker investigating the union's 1996 election. At issue are documents pertaining to work that White House counsel Charles F.C. Ruff performed for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters before he took the administration job. Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., chairman of the House Education and Workforce subcommittee on oversight and investigations, told the union's acting president, Thomas Sever, that unless he produced the material by Tuesday, the panel would consider a contempt resolution. The Washington Times first reported on the issue in Saturday's editions. Ruff, as a private lawyer, worked from December 1993 to August 1995 on the union's anti-corruption efforts. He, in turn, hired a San Francisco private investigator, Jack Palladino, whose work for the union also is among the files Hoekstra wants. ``Ruff and Palladino were paid more than $250,000 in members' dues. We're trying to find out what they did for that money, and the IBT has steadfastly refused to provide us with that information,'' Hoekstra said in a statement dated Friday accompanying a letter sent to Sever at union headquarters. The congressman's office made the statement and letter available Saturday.."

CNN Ted Barrett 9/25/98 "U.S. Commerce Department lawyers asked a federal judge Friday to grant "an unprecedented judgment" against their own department for failing to "adequately and reasonably" fulfill a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by Clinton Administration adversary Larry Klayman and his watchdog organization Judicial Watch. The motion, if granted, would cost taxpayers more than $2 million, the cost of Judicial Watch's legal fees, according to Klayman. Commerce Department officials, who asked not to be identified, said the cost to taxpayers could be justified because of the "incredible resource strain" and "huge costs" the department has faced after four years of litigation with Judicial Watch. The dispute centers around Commerce Department documents related to trade missions it sponsored to Russia, China, India, South Africa and other nations. Judicial Watch alleges the missions were used as a tool by the Democratic National Committee (DNC), in concert with Commerce and the White House, to raise money for the 1996 election cycle. Judicial Watch alleges corporations and business leaders were given access to the missions in return for large donations to the Democrats. The White House, DNC and Commerce Department deny the link..

New York Times AP 10/1/98 AP "Hoping to avert a contempt charge, Teamsters attorneys were meeting with House Republicans today over subpoenaed documents the union says are privileged and can't be released without jeopardizing the safety of people who cooperated with internal corruption investigations..At issue are records pertaining to legal work Charles F.C. Ruff, now White House chief counsel, and private investigator Jack Palladino did for the union from 1993 to 1995. Hoekstra has questioned the legitimacy of the work..

ConservativeNews.org 10/12/98 "The chairman of the Committee on House Oversight and the White House are at odds over a weekend incident in which the White House did not accept a bill passed by Congress Saturday."

Conservative News Service 10/12/98 Ben Anderson "GOP congressional leaders Newt Gingrich and Trent Lott, in an effort to head off a budget showdown with President Clinton, agreed to a meeting with his budget negotiating team, headed by Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles. There was only one problem, the president's team failed to show up.."

North Carolina News and Observer (Nando Times) 7/14/95 From Freeper Z ".Foster's widow blames his depression on the massacre of the Branch Davidians at Waco, Texas, according to the FBI. "Lisa Foster believes that Foster was horrified when the Branch Davidian complex burned. Foster believed that everything was his fault," the FBI wrote of their interview with Lisa Foster. A strange form of support for that theory comes in the form of a car burglary. The July 14, 1995 News and Observer reported that White House lawyer Cheryl Mills had her car broken into after preparing for a Senate hearing on Whitewater. In addition to her wallet, the burglar stole a gym bag containing Mills' notes on the Foster affair and on Waco. During the 1995 U.S. House hearings on Waco, Texas Rangers disclosed that when they were in dispute with the FBI about the destruction of evidence, someone in the Texas Governor's office gave them Vince Foster's phone number to contact. The hearings revealed that the only document found in Foster's Waco file was a memorandum that Foster was forwarding "Waco, the Big Lie" (a videotape charging government conspiracy) to to the Treasury Department."

Insight 11/9/98 Jennifer Hickey ". Before the debate could begin about whether the Democrats have been remiss or negligent in returning $1.7 million in questionable donations, the most heated disagreement was addressed by the committee -- whether its investigation was prolonged because of Democratic and Clinton-Gore "stonewalling" or as a result of a Republican "partisan witch-hunt." Reflecting the importance the staff places on the stonewalling, a 30-page analysis of the "Unprecedented Obstacles to the Committee's Investigation" directly follows the report's introduction. The primary obstruction, according to the committee report, has been the reluctance of witnesses to cooperate with the investigation -- a reluctance also encountered by the Senate investigation. To date, 79 potential witnesses have exercised their Fifth Amendment right lest they incriminate themselves, 18 witnesses have bolted from the country and 23 who now reside outside of the United States have refused to testify. This brings the total of noncooperating witnesses to 120, says the report. . . . . The Burton report also cites a pattern of unresponsiveness by the Clinton-Gore administration and the White House Counsel's Office. The House Government Reform and Oversight Committee experienced similar delays during its investigation into the firing of the seven-member White House Travel Office. In fact, this has been going on while the administration claims to be following the practice set by Ronald Reagan's counsel, Edwin Meese III, who refused to claim executive privilege over documents in the Iran-Contra investigation. . . . . The Clinton-Gore administration has asserted executive privilege in at least seven investigations. The committee reports that even when the administration does not claim a privilege to withhold documents, it is less than forthcoming. The White House Counsel's Office response to Burton committee directives is typical. On Jan. 15, 1997, the committee issued a directive for production of documents responsive to their subpoena. On Jan. 31, White House Counsel Jack Quinn responded to Burton's request, informing the committee that the administration was "unable to produce documents in the two-week time period the Committee requested and that production would be delayed [still further] until a meeting time could be arranged with White House officials." A week later, some of the documents found their way into the hands of reporters, and five days later the documents finally were delivered to the committee. . . . . While the Clinton administration was extremely inefficient in compliance with congressional subpoenas, the report asserts that it was not alone. "The DNC's refusal to produce relevant information in a timely manner acted as an additional restraint on the Committee's efforts.... In addition, production logs for many documents were never provided to the Committee despite repeated requests. This has made it impossible to ascertain the origin of many key documents," says the majority staff.."

Washington Times 10/16/98 Bill Sammon and Mary Ann Akers "President Clinton will not admit to the facts at the heart of the impeachment charges against him, but might refrain from disputing those facts if Republicans agree to focus instead on whether the charges -- even if true -- rise to the level of impeachable offenses, Democratic sources said Thursday.. Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee said the president is in for a long hard ride if he refuses to stipulate the facts of the case. Any hopes of wrapping up the matter by the end of the year likely would be dashed, they said, and public support for the president could erode "That would be a bad sign," said a committee GOP aide. "If they take that tack, they'll make it much harder for us to move expeditiously. I don't think the public will support White House stonewalling after they demanded a quick resolution."."

AP 10/16/98 Jamie Stengle President Clinton's deposition from Paula Jones' sexual harassment lawsuit won't be released when the court file is opened Monday because it was discovered Friday there isn't one on record with the court.."

Drudge Report 10/25/98 ".Senior White House adviser Bruce Lindsey may take the Fifth if called during upcoming impeachment hearings, it has been learned. According to White House intelligence, several scenarios have been discussed on how to shield Lindsey and block him from disclosing details of his role in the Lewinsky mess and other scandals that could be revealed during the upcoming impeach hearings."

Freeper report 11/2/98 Doug from Upland ".I originally called Congressman Dan Burton's office to see if they would encourage Henry Hyde to call Dr. Paul Fick to testify about Bill Clinton's non-sex related perjury in the 1996 case of Herbie Branscum and Robert Hill. The secretary put me in touch with John Williams, Burton's press secretary. Guess what --- he will probably be reading this. Yes, Williams is a FReeper. He was very kind with the time he gave me. Although he had no comment on the Fick matter, Williams was able to give me information that has not appeared in the mainstream. Burton's committee is charged with investigating the campaign finance violations of 1996. They recently issued their interim report. The day after the issuance of their report a DNC errand boy delivered 10 boxes of evidence that had been under subpoena since March of 1997! The information was received too late to become an issue in the 1998 elections but will be a part of the final report.."

American Spectator 11/5/98 Robert Bork ".The rule of law is subverted when law itself, and the institutions that guard the law, are seen as no more than a means, or sometimes an obstacle, to power. The Department of Justice's fate was virtually sealed at the outset when a complaisant Janet Reno was named attorney general but real power lodged in the president's confidante, and now convicted felon, Webster Hubbell ..Investigations have been frustrated by the shredding of documents, the withholding of files under subpoena, witnesses taking the Fifth Amendment or fleeing the country, and a spectacularly rapid spread of amnesia among administration personnel, a plague highly convenient to the White House. A journalist says witnesses recall matters very well when they talk to him, but then go before congressional committees and are unable to remember anything. The processes of justice have been savaged by the "war" on Kenneth Starr conducted by Bill and Hillary, ignobly abetted by sundry White House lackeys. The object is to delegitimize Starr's investigation and cast doubt upon his report. This is the moral, if not the legal, equivalent of an obstruction of justice. The war, despite its patent untruths, has partially succeeded. Starr, the mildest and most judicious of men, is now believed by a sizable number of Americans to be a rabid partisan. There are moments when one wishes he were..."

House of Representatives 9/11/98 Chris Cox R-CA ". Rep. Christopher Cox (R-CA), I rise this afternoon to talk about a document that was recently provided, very belatedly, by the White House to the Congress, a document now referred to as the task list. It is dated December 13, 1994, but it was just provided to the Congress in recent days. The task list shows 39 scandals that the White House staff in the West Wing, taxpayer supported staff, decided that they needed to work on because there was now going to be a Republican Congress. This memo was prepared just after the November 1994 elections.."

House of Representatives 9/11/98 Chris Cox R-CA ". Rep. Christopher Cox. For a very long while, The request for 3,000 pages was originally described not all that long ago by the White House as a request for toilet paper, that this was a trivial request, that they should not be asked for such documents. When finally we got the first 1,000 pages of the 3,000 that we requested, we got the famous list of all of the FBI files, the background files, the very, very confidential law enforcement background files, on people who had worked in the White House. These had been collected illegally by the White House for patently political purposes. Rep. Robert Walker And so for a while the White House was claiming that this information was in fact information that no one had the right to know, not even the Congress, when originally the memo was prepared because they believed that Congress would want to know about these matters. Rep. Christopher Cox. Precisely. In fact, while we learn about this same process in what turns out to be pulling teeth from the White House, trying to get them to cooperate, because they are claiming executive privilege about all of these things so they do not have to do anything cooperative with the Congress, they first gave us 1,000 of the 3,000 pages. And in that first batch of documents which we got under a threat of subpoena, we found out about Filegate and all of the FBI files that had been collected on senior officials, including James Baker and others well known. But we did not get this memo. It was only 2 weeks ago, on August 15, that we got this memo. This is brand new, and almost no one, even many of our colleagues here in Congress, has yet had the opportunity to read this, but it is clearly shocking.."

U.S. Newswire 11/12/98 ".White House to Appeal Hillary Lawsuit Nov. 12, AAPS Reports To: National Desk, Legal and Healthcare writers Contact: Kathryn Serkes, 202-333-3855, for the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons Inc. News Advisory: WHO: AAPS v. Hillary Clinton, Ira Magaziner, et al. WHEN: Thursday, Nov. 12, at 9 a.m. WHERE: D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals 333 Constitution Ave., N.W. Washington, D.C. WHAT: Oral arguments by White House and Ira Magaziner to appeal sanctions and misconduct in illegal operation of President Clinton's 1993 Health Care Task Force The Department of Justice will present arguments why the White House and the DOJ should not be found liable for misconduct and sanctions in the Health Care Task Force case filed by Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) in 1993. Health Care "czar" Ira Magaziner will be represented by private counsel, who will present his independent arguments. BACKGROUND On December 18, 1997, District Judge Royce Lambert found the Executive Branch, Hillary Clinton, Ira Magaziner and the Department of Justice guilty of misconduct in the case of AAPS v. Hillary Clinton, and ordered the White House to pay AAPS $286,000 attorneys fees, costs and sanctions. This litigation has already cost the taxpayers more than $12 million. Congress has voted that taxpayers should not be forced to pay this bill. Costs to AAPS, even before the appeal, have amounted to more than double the amount awarded. And yet the White House has pursued a now well-recognized pattern of denying wrongdoing, instead of admitting guilt and apologizing to the American people for their illegal actions, even when caught red-handed, as, in this instance, by a federal judge. As Judge Lamberth wrote in his order, "It seems that some government officials never learn that the cover- up can be worse than the underlying conduct....this conduct is reprehensible, and the government must be held accountable for it." Lamberth charged that the cover-up extended to "the highest levels of the executive branch." Even though represented by the Department of Justice, Ira Magaziner, whose lies in his affidavits were central to Judge Lamberth's decision, has insisted on filing a separate appeal, claiming he has been "harmed" and "defamed" by the judge's decision. And yet when reacting to the judges finding of misconduct and $286,000 fine, President Clinton, sucking an unlit cigar, laughed and defended Mr. Magaziner, who has continued in his position as Special Advisor to the President. "In this Administration, when the truth or the means used collide with the ends to be achieved, the truth becomes the enemy," says AAPS attorney Thomas J. Spencer.."

Wall Street Journal 11/12/98 Editorial ". On the rest of Mr. Starr's investigation--the Whitewater real estate transactions, the aftermath of the Vincent Foster suicide, the Travel Office firings, the abuse of FBI files--Mr. Clinton and his agents have consistently abused their powers so as to impede investigation of wrongdoing. But the stonewall has been largely successful; the one case that breached it happened to be about sex. Consider the original Whitewater land deal. The Clintons were partners in a business that received a fraudulent loan for which taxpayers were ultimately stuck. Mrs. Clinton helped lawyer the transactions, we learned, when billing records long under subpoena turned up in the White House family quarters. A federal banking investigator forwarded a criminal referral naming the Clintons as beneficiaries; during the Clinton Presidency she was booted off the case (and, like every Clinton critic since, blackened in the press). Tax returns prepared in the White House failed to report the income received when Jim McDougal agreed to assume the Clintons' share of Whitewater debts. But who could offer evidence of Clinton involvement in these events? Mr. Foster, who prepared the tax returns, is dead, as is Jim McDougal, who after a time did cooperate with the investigation. Webster Hubbell, who was in the thick of relevant legal work in Arkansas, served jail time in defiance of his agreement to cooperate with the independent counsel, and received some $700,000 from the President's friends for fictitious legal work. Susan McDougal went to jail for contempt rather than answer the question put to her before a grand jury: When the President testified at her trial, did he tell the truth in denying knowledge of the illegal loan?."

L. A. Times 11/17/98 David Rosenzweig ".A federal judge voiced suspicions Monday that major Democratic donor Johnny Chung might be taking a fall for unnamed others in the national campaign funding scandal. For the second time in as many weeks, U.S. District Judge Manuel L. Real postponed Chung's sentencing for making illegal campaign contributions. He asked to see transcripts of Chung's secret testimony before a federal grand jury in Washington. ``What I think is that Mr. Chung is going into the tank for someone else, but I don't know who that someone is,'' said a frustrated Real. He also cast doubt on the sincerity of an unsolicited letter to the court from the Democratic National Committee, portraying itself as a victim of Chung's machinations. That letter accused Chung of ``victimizing'' the party by funneling to it nearly $400,000 in illegal contributions from China.."

Manchester Union Leader 11/19/98 Richard Lessner ".But this is not about sex, or at least it should not be. Monicagate is the least of the President's potentially impeachable offenses. The perjury and obstruction of justice in the Lewinsky affair was part of a larger pattern of misconduct on the part of the President. There is compelling evidence that suggests Bill Clinton has violated a number of laws related to bribery, campaign fundraising, theft of government services, violations of the Privacy Act, abuse of power, obstruction of justice and misuse of federal agencies. Judicial Watch, a legal monitoring group, has compiled through a series of lawsuits and Freedom of Information Act requests a staggering amount of evidence detailing a criminal conspiracy run out of the White House at the direction of or with the complicity of the President. This conspiracy involved: -- The selling of seats on Commerce Department foreign trade missions for campaign contributions. -- The laundering of illegal contributions through the President's legal defense funds. -- Abuse of the Internal Revenue Service and the FBI to attack political opponents. -- And flagrant breaches of national security resulting from Bill Clinton's financial links to Red China through such intermediaries as John Huang, Johnny Chung, Charlie Trie, James and Mochtar Riady and a number of agents working for the government of Communist China. Little of this, of course, has been investigated. The Justice Department under Attorney General Janet Reno has stonewalled the investigations into the FBI Filegate and IRS abuses and still is dragging its feet on naming an independent counsel to probe the Chinagate campaign fundraising outrages.."

Drudge 11/23/98 ".Several of Attorney General Janet Reno's close aides advised her Monday in a private meeting that federal law required her to seek an independent counsel to investigate Vice President Al Gore's political fund-raising, according to Tuesday's NEW YORK TIMES. According to publishing sources, the TIMES is set to run the report in a Page One. In the meeting described as "spirited" -- Reno informed her aides that she was "unprepared to declare whether she had decided to refer the allegations about Gore's case to an outside prosecutor." Officials at the Justice Department tell the TIMES that Reno's decision is based, in part, on a perception that "some independent counsels have misused the offices." "Reno has been said by some aides to have expressed concern about the conduct of more than one independent counsel. She has disapproved of some tactics, like when prosecutors unfairly expose low-level witnesses to the expense and embarrassment of criminal inquiries that seemed to continue and expand long after departmental prosecutors would have dropped them."."

AP Michael Sniffen 11/24/98 ".EXCERPTS: "...``Once again, the Attorney General has failed to follow the law,'' said Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind. ``For the past two years, the attorney general has made it clear she is committed to protecting the president.'' Burton faulted her for rejecting the advice of FBI Director Louis J. Freeh to order an independent counsel, which Freeh has been advocating for more than a year....Steve Forbes, a would-be Republican presidential candidate in 2000, said, ``This raises the question of Ms. Reno's fitness to remain in office.'' Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., suggested asking a court to order Reno to turn the case over to a counsel....``We need to take these matters out of the hands of the attorney general, who appears to be acting politically and not in accordance with the act,'' agreed Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. ``Personally, I think it is going to take legislation.''..."

Reuters 11/28/98 ".House Judiciary Committee member Bob Barr told CNN's Saturday Morning News that Clinton's responses to written questions from the committee would be used against him as evidence of a "pattern of evasive answers'' by the president. The replies to Congress' 81 questions were made public late Friday, during the long Thanksgiving holiday weekend. "I think they will be used by our staff, our lawyers and our investigators, to buttress the case that the president in fact did perjure himself on many occasions,'' the Georgia Republican said.. Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah said he was disappointed in Clinton's responses, noting they were full of "all kinds of obfuscations.'' "He ought to be more forthcoming, he ought to tell the truth,'' Hatch said Saturday on the MSNBC program "Equal Time.'' In many of his answers, Clinton said he did not remember conversations or was uncertain about details. He declined to answer "yes'' or "no'' to any of the 81 questions. "It's kind of a pathetic thing, but a very good lawyerly job keeping him from getting into even more trouble than he is now,'' Hatch said.."

Houston Chronicle 11/17/98 Paul Greenberg ".Reno has found a way to avoid the obvious need for an independent counsel to investigate the whole, many-tentacled mess that was the Clinton-Gore campaign of '96 and its dubious finances. She concentrated instead on the narrow question of whether Gore lied to the FBI. As for the Chinese connection, and the plans to get around the campaign finance laws by the very crew that talks loudest about reforming them ... all of that was ignored. One was reminded of Mr. Magoo examining a doorknob so intently, he misses the door. Let it be said for Mr. Magoo that his is a physical, not an ethical, problem. There's nothing wrong with Reno's eyesight; she has no problem seeing the smallest way around the obvious. In the end, it is no one particular law that this ethically inert administration has failed to respect, but the spirit of all of them. The whole great structure of the law begins to totter when men come to see it not as a guide or restraint, but just a series of obstacles to evade. Remove the basis of law -- like the search for truth that once made perjury a serious charge -- and any individual law may be got around, too. Crimes are minimized. And if prosecutors cannot be ignored, they can always be demonized. Deprive the laws of the land of their force, and they soon lose their moral authority over us. The telltale phrases that mark such a downward spiral are already familiar: Everybody does it. It's not a high crime, and therefore it isn't a crime at all, or at least not one that should carry any penalty. It's time to move on and deal with the eal business of the country, which isn't specified. Whatever the business of the country is in 1998, it's clearly not encouraging respect for the law.."

The New York Times 11/29/98 ".Attorney General Janet Reno's decision last week to clear Vice President Al Gore of campaign illegalities was hardly surprising. Mr. Gore's telephone soliciting from Government property was one of the Clinton campaign's more innocuous fund-raising activities, and the evidence was mixed. But Senator Orrin Hatch was right to send up a warning about Ms. Reno's motives. The need for an independent counsel with broad powers to examine the White House's 1996 fund-raising has been established by journalistic accounts and Congressional hearings, and by legal opinions from the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the former chief prosecutor of the Justice Department's campaign-finance task force. So far Ms. Reno has managed to avoid taking their advice by singling out subsidiary activities like Mr. Gore's phone calls and citing narrow legal grounds for preliminary inquiries. In the days ahead, Mr. Hatch warned, we will learn whether the Attorney General will undermine "the rule of law and integrity of the Department of Justice" by preventing an unbiased inquiry into the Democratic effort to circumvent campaign laws, to use White House invitations to entice donors and to collect suspicious foreign contributions.Ms. Reno is not the only official who needs to come to grips with issues of law and conscience. The Federal Election Commission is due this week to rule on a staff audit of Mr. Clinton's re- election campaign. The audit is said to conclude that the use of unregulated "soft money" for Mr. Clinton's re-election advertising violated the election laws. The six-member commission is often divided on partisan lines on campaign issues. But in their meeting this week, the commissioners could decide to reject the auditors' finding. They are under pressure to do so because if Mr. Clinton's ads violated the law, so probably did the soft-money ads for Bob Dole, the Republican nominee. We urge the commissioners to endorse the findings of the auditors and close a loophole through which the Presidential candidates drove tens of millions of dollars in illegal fund-raising and spending. Whatever the commission does, Ms. Reno should accept the auditors' finding -- and those of Mr. Freeh and Mr. La Bella -- that this issue must be decided by someone not beholden to Mr. Clinton and his inner circle. This is more than a technical issue. The law says that unregulated soft money can only go to certain party-building activities like voter registration and get-out- the-vote drives. If Ms. Reno and the Federal Election Commission look the other way while candidates circumvent the law, the parties will simply step up their shakedowns of corporations, unions and rich donors to finance election campaigns.. If Ms. Reno takes a dive, Congress will have to find a way next year to get those investigative answers. Ms. Reno, for her part, will have nailed down the title of the most politically compromised Attorney General since Watergate.

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc 11/30/98 Meredith Oakley ".How's this for a novel idea: To heck with investigating the president, the vice president, and current and former White House officials: Investigate the attorney general who continues to protect them. Janet Reno's rare action and chronic inaction have played havoc with government, politics and our system of justice for the bulk of the Clinton administration, invoking as she frequently does the now laughable excuse that judgment and the law guide her decision-making.In my humble opinion, nobody has done as much to obstruct justice as Janet Reno, whose conflict of interest appears to be so great that she cannot bring herself to cut someone else loose on this much scandalized administration of which she is a part--a part of both the administration and the scandal, that is to say.."

11/30/98 AP Michael Sniffen ".Attorney General Janet Reno delayed a decision today on whether an independent counsel should investigate whether Harold Ickes, a former top White House aide, committed perjury before a Senate committee, officials said. She requested that a special court allow her 60 more days to review the case, according to officials and people familiar with the case. There was no immediate word from the court or any explanation of how she would spend the extra time. Reno asked the court to seal her reasons for requesting the delay, according to people familiar with the case...Republican senators have threatened action to fight Reno's reluctance to seek independent counsels for the campaign funding matters. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said on ``Fox News Sunday'' that Congress should take Reno to court because ``she has abused her discretion.'' The Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, Orrin Hatch, R- Utah, said on ABC's ``This Week'' that he would do ``everything in my power'' to enact legislation removing the attorney general's power to seek independent counsels.."

CNS 12/2/98 Ben Anderson ".Senate Judiciary Chairman Orin Hatch (R-UT) is exploring the prospect of removing from the Attorney General's office the responsibility of seeking the appointment of independent counsels. Hatch appeared Sunday on ABC's "This Week" saying he would pursue such an effort if Attorney General Janet Reno refused to seek an independent counsel to investigate former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Harold Ickes. Reno announced Monday that she has delayed for another 60 days a decision on whether to ask a three federal judge panel for an independent counsel... Hatch's spokeswoman Jean Lopatto told CNS the Senator is "looking at the possibility of taking the responsibility of out of the Attorney General's hands. He wants to study whether that can be done with legislation." Lopatto said Hatch will be considering such a move very carefully over the next few weeks.."

Progressive Review 12/3/98 Sam Smith ".Back in 1994, Time reported that a senior pilot for Tyson had been grilled for three days by Smaltz and FBI agents about transfers of cash to the governor's mansion. Joe Henrickson claimed to have carried white envelopes containing a quarter-inch stack of $100 bills on six occasions. Here's how Ambrose Evans-Pritchard describes what happened next: "In one case, [Henrickson claimed] a Tyson executive handed him an envelope of cash in the company's aircraft hanger in Fayetteville and said, 'This is for Governor Clinton." "'I nearly fell off my chair when I heard Joe make the allegation. I took over the questions,' Smaltz told Time." But Smaltz had no authority to investigate Clinton and when he asked Janet Reno for permission she said no. Reno's refusal, along with Starr's mishandling of the Mena drug and Foster death investigations, rank among the biggest scandals that lie within the Whitewater scandal."

Insight Magazine 12/26/98 Jamie Dettmer and Paul M. Rodriguez ".It comes as no secret that Republicans and, truth be told, even some Democrats, are madder than hell about Attorney General Janet Reno's decision not to seek an independent counsel to probe allegations of fund-raising abuses by Vice President Al Gore. . . But many FBI agents and officials at Justice are equally upset with Reno's deputy, Eric Holder. The reason for their frustration with Reno is evident -- she has rejected the fruits of their investigative labor several times over. What's surprising, however, is the level of disillusionment with Holder, the former U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia who on corruption charges successfully prosecuted onetime Democratic Rep. Dan Rostenkowski of Illinois. . . . According to Justice and bureau sources, Holder has not been idle, even though he has portrayed himself as the hapless deputy who has tried to support the Justice Department fund-raising task force against all odds. As news alert! disclosed once before, Holder has played a pivotal role in advising Reno to reject the Justice/FBI task-force recommendation for an independent counsel. And he's done this while holding out public olive branches to FBI Director Louis Freeh and former Justice task-force leader Charles LaBella, who resigned rather than continue beating his head against Reno's granite walls. "He's as political as she is," says one senior FBI official. "Holder tells us one thing and then whispers to Reno something else and then pretends it's all her wrongheaded doing," complains another law-enforcement official.."

New York Times 12/8/98 ".One of the sorriest episodes in modern Justice Department history has concluded with another demonstration of Attorney General Janet Reno's obstinacy. For the third time in a month, she has refused to hand her department's anemic investigation into President Clinton's 1996 campaign abuses over to an independent counsel. Both the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Justice's top prosecutor for campaign finance urged her to appoint an independent counsel under the part of the law allowing an Attorney General to avoid conflicts of interest. Although she is mired in conflict, Ms. Reno decreed that no one would be appointed to investigate whether her boss illegally used "soft money" to support his re-election. Congress now has a duty to demand an inquiry run by someone not beholden to Mr. Clinton. Her action was based on her finding that Mr. Clinton did not "knowingly and willfully" violate the law because he allegedly acted based on his lawyers' advice. Mr. Clinton is entitled to assert that his lawyers let him do it.."

Center for Security Policy 11/30/98 Decision Brief No. 98-D 192 ".Thanks to the Wall Street Journal, a man who has long labored behind the scenes on behalf of robust U.S. security policies in general and effective technology controls in particular has been given a small measure of the visibility and credit due him. In a profile published on 27 November, the Journal credited Michael Maloof, a senior career civil servant in the Pentagon's Defense Technology Security Administration (DTSA)(1) with advocating "hard-line views, unfashionable since the Cold War's end, [that] have been adopted by many Members of Congress and are driving the debate" over sensitive high-technology exports to Communist China. As a public service, the Center for Security Policy is circulating the article about Mr. Maloof in its entirety since the Friday after Thanksgiving is not the optimum day for mass readership of a business- oriented publication like the Journal. Particularly noteworthy are its references to a "diary" the DTSA official has kept since early in 1998 to record "his dealings with Pentagon superiors." According to the newspaper, copies of the Maloof diary are in the hands of Justice Department and Customs Service investigators, as well as the Wall Street Journal. It would appear that it must also have been made available to the select committee chaired by Rep. Chris Cox (R-CA) charged with examining allegations that the Clinton Administration abetted Chinese ballistic missile systems aimed at the United States by authorizing the transfer of know-how and technology that would improve their reliability and accuracy.(2) Mr. Maloof was subpoenaed to testify before the Cox committee last August.."

12/7/98 Rep Bob Barr "."Janet Reno's argument that we should turn a blind eye to potential wrongdoing by the President, because his lawyers told him to do it, is outrageous. "There is specific and credible evidence, including the President's own words on tape, that indicate he engaged in an effort to violate campaign laws by engaging in a scheme to exceed spending limits. Furthermore, this scheme was financed in part by illegally obtained campaign contributions from all sorts of questionable and foreign sources, including Communist China. "It is staggering the Attorney General can look at this mound of evidence, engage in esoteric legal discussions for months, and then pretend that it has vanished. She is refusing to fulfill her responsibility to faithfully execute the laws, just as the President is failing in his duty to do so."."

UPI 12/8/98 "..House Judiciary Committee Republicans are crying foul (Tuesday) that media outlets, including United Press International, were leaked copies of the White House's detailed impeachment defense before members of the committee were informed. Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., accused the president's lawyers of going behind the committee's back.."

USA Journal 12/9/98 Jon Dougherty ".It seems as though relevant materials - specifically, White House telephone records and email - that have been subpoenaed for years but were said not to exist do exist. The comical thing is that the phone records Ken Starr and his office have long sought were in the Old Executive Office Building, according to Paul [Rodriguez] and Insight Magazine. Furthermore the email - which was freakishly discovered after White House Internet repair guys found a "blockage" of some 100,000 emails in the West Wing's Internet server system - is currently being examined and, presumably, destroyed or hidden again by operatives within the Clinton administration. That is, unless Insight's story gets the kind of attention Paul Rodriguez correctly assumes it should get. Meanwhile, the staffers who are rifling through these emails "in secret," one White House insider told Insight, are fully aware that there are active subpoenas out there, issued by our own Justice Department, that call for them to hand them over to Starr and a small number of congressional investigative panels. Nothing doing comes the word. See, legally speaking, the White House les Honorables aren't "sure" whether or not those subpoenas are still valid. So, as long as there is a question about their validity then hey, there will be no compliance with congressional and DoJ subpoenas this time. Now, if this isn't the modus operandi of LADs, I don't know what is. What I find interesting to note is that this revelation was discovered and made public right before lawmakers in the House are supposed to vote on whether or not to impeach President Clinton. Coincidence? Like so many other Clinton administration "coincidences" over the years? ."

NY POST 12/9/98 Deborah Orin ".President Clinton's men are still stonewalling - they won't admit the lies, they won't admit the sex with Monica Lewinsky and they're still playing "Slick Willie" word games. That makes it very hard to cut a "plea bargain" with Republicans for censure instead of impeachment - and there were hints yesterday's White House defense session could backfire..The latest White House defense does nothing to answer Monica Lewinsky's graphic account of how she had sex with Clinton, even by his narrow definition. Instead it claims two witnesses can honestly recall things differently. Really? On such graphic descriptions of sex and cigars and other hanky-panky? With a president famed for his memory? Also, the White House defense panel of professors from Harvard, Yale and Princeton came in and talked down to the House Judiciary Committee members as if they were stupid college freshmen.Princeton's Sean Wilentz threw down the gauntlet by claiming that anyone backing impeachment risks "going down in history with the zealots and fanatics ... for your cravenness." .They were equally skeptical when boyish White House scandal lawyer Greg Craig insisted Clinton didn't lie when he claimed he couldn't recall being alone with Lewinsky, with one Republican saying that simply "is not credible." .."

Wall Street Journal 12/17/98 ".Another federal judge has criticized the stonewalling of President Clinton's Justice Department. District Judge Manuel Real, who was appointed by Democrat Lyndon Johnson, sentenced Democratic fundraiser Johnny Chung to five years probation this week and included a searing criticism of Attorney General Janet Reno's handling of the campaign finance scandal. After reviewing Mr. Chung's secret grand jury testimony he said he was "surprised that the Attorney General has eschewed appointment" of an independent counsel. Last month at an earlier hearing, Judge Real was even more blunt: "What I think is that Mr. Chung is going into the tank for someone else, but I don't know who that someone is." Yes, Virginia, there's more to it than just Monica.."

LOS ANGELES TIMES via St. Louis Post-Dispatch 12/23/98 ".A federal judge charged Tuesday that Commerce Department officials systematically concealed and destroyed documents that might have shed light on whether overseas trade missions were used to reward business executives who contributed to the Democratic Party. In a blistering 80-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth found "a pattern of abuse" by the department's office of general counsel in a 4-year-old civil lawsuit brought by Judicial Watch, a conservative legal organization. Among the targets of Lamberth's wrath was former Commerce Department aide John Huang, a major figure in the Democratic campaign fund-raising controversy. Lamberth said destruction of documents stretched over several years, showing an "egregious . . . disregard for the law." It climaxed with "a flurry of document shredding" in the office of Commerce Secretary Ronald H. Brown after his death in a plane crash in Croatia in April 1996, the judge said. But even before this tragedy, department officials were cavalier in failing to search for documents responsive to Judicial Watch's freedom-of-information suit, Lamberth said..Commerce officials over the past two years repeatedly have insisted that U.S. business executives were chosen for seats on overseas trade missions based on a set of objective criteria and that political considerations played no part in their selection. However, public records show that many made sizable Democratic campaign contributions either before or shortly after these trips... The judge said Huang gave "incredible" testimony that he had minor duties at Commerce. In addition, the department never fully complied with a court order to turn over all of Huang's relevant records, he said. Huang remains under investigation by a Justice Department task force for his role in obtaining foreign campaign contributions. ."

AP 12/23/98 Philip Brasher "..A federal judge is threatening to hold Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt and Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin in contempt for the government's delay in producing records of Indian trust funds. The Interior and Treasury departments are being sued over the mishandling of 300,000 Indian accounts worth an estimated $500 million. Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs was ordered two years ago to turn over statements, checks and other documents on accounts held by five Indians who are the lead plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit. So far,