government before Starr entered the picture. Now Rove wants to use it again?
From an article by Sidney Blumenthal -
"A forensic accountant scratched through the confused records and issued a report showing no wrongdoing by the Clintons, while they lost about $65,000." However, a Republican activist, L. Jean Lewis, who worked as an investigator at the Resolution Trust Corporation, the federal agency dealing with failed savings and loans associations, read the article and became the prime mover in turning its allegations into a criminal referral. Then, many months later, during the presidential campaign in October 1992, Bush White House legal counsel C. Boyden Gray asked the chief executive of the RTC to look into this referral. The US Attorney in Arkansas, Charles Banks (a Republican appointee), looked into it, and on October 7, 1992, the following telex, which I cite in The Clinton Wars, was sent to Washington: "It is the opinion of Little Rock FBI and the United States Attorney...that there is indeed insufficient evidence to suggest the Clintons had knowledge of the check-kiting activity conducted by McDougal.... It was also the opinion of
the alleged involvement of the Clintons in wrong-doing was implausible...." When Attorney General William Barr nonetheless tried to revive Lewis's referral, Banks rebuked his boss: "I must opine that after such a lapse of time the insistence of urgency in this case appears to suggest an intentional or unintentional attempt to intervene into the political process of the upcoming presidential election." Then, prophetically, he added: "You and I know in investigations of this type, the first steps, such as issuance of grand jury subpoenas for records, will lead to media and public inquiries matters that are subject to absolute privacy. Even media questions about such an investigation in today's modern political climate all too often publicly purport to 'legitimize what can't be proven.'" He suggested that participating in such an investigation "amounts to prosecutorial misconduct and violates the most basic fundamental rule of Department of Justice policy." In another telex the Little Rock FBI office added that there was "absolutely no factual basis to suggest criminal activity on the part of any of the individuals listed as witnesses in the referral"—that is, the Clintons. Although the Los Angeles Times reported these memos and telexes on August 9, 1995, the Nexis database reveals no mention in The New York Times."
The article was mostly about specific individuals with the New York Times and the Times. Plenty about it can be found in a book by Gene Lyons and the book The Hunting of the PResident by Gene Lyons and Joe Conason.
The above paragraph is the easiest to read in the article and the most important to what we're talking about. The other is all about the manuevers of the NYT writers and the Times.
Repeat - they were cleared before Starr was appointed, but the Republicans went after them again and the press refused to reveal the true story - except for jounalists like Lyons and Conason - books and in many, many columns. Joe in the New York Observer and Gene in the Arkansas Gazette.
Lyons book: Fools for Scandal: How the Media Invented Whitewater. Excellent writer.
To repeat, now Karl wants to do it all over again. Their moves make much sense - Rovian sense. Worthless and senseless is more like it. But, stir the pot, Karl - go ahead and make a fool of yourself - again. George's followers will eat it up. Gotta hold your 30% voting base together. Right?
Edited to add the URL for the Blmenthal article:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/16431
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