Presswatch/Hil/'s Rats

...Later that afternoon, Fleming reports, Totenberg called Seidman (a staffer) and Lichtman (a grouper) to tell her the story would run the next day...

...The Alliance concluded the woman was Hill, and its director, Nan Aron, then "passed" the allegation to a Metzenbaum staffer, William Corr...

...I understand that Kamen caught some grief for mentioning the news media in this way, but he was telling the truth, which the Fleming report has now amplified...

...Or, it seems possible, if you are Anita Hill...

...Fleming says it came from "an unidentified friend of Hill's who had described her allegations at a dinner party" in Washington...

...hile this chronology shows the W interplay of groups and staffers opposing Thomas, and their effort to find Hill and steer her to the Judiciary Committee, the depositions Fleming took probably contain information about other contacts between the groups and the staffers, and probably between the groups and Hill, or other persons, including journalists...

...he told her he was preparing a memo for Metzenbaum on sexual harassment and wanted to include a description of the allegations contained in her statement to the committee...

...Hill asked the reporter to read it...

...American Spectator Reprints Available Copies of Michael Fumento's report on Magic Johnson and AIDS (February 1992), David Brock's investigation of Anita Hill (March 1992), and Robert Novak's report on Bill Clinton (June 1992) are available to American Spectator readers...

...On September 9, Ricki Seidman, the Kennedy staffer brought over from People for the American Way, phoned Hill, who said she would talk about her charges against Thomas on a confidential basis...

...Hill, Ross, and Brudney talked with each other by phone over the next four days...

...In hallway conversations afterward, Senator Simon and Kate Michelman of the National Abortion Rights Action League were heard talking about the "Oklahoma thing...

...On September 10, Brudney called Hill...

...Fleming did that and did it well, and his lengthy, detailed report turns out to have achieved the additional purpose of describing what Fred Barnes has called Washington's "New Iron Triangle"—the triangle formed at the time of critical judicial nominations by liberal Senate staffers, such as James Brudney...

...Last October, in a front-page mid-hearing analysis, Al Kamen of the Washington Post did not use Barnes's term, but might as well have, when he pointed to "an increasingly symbiotic relationship between committee staffers, liberal interest groups, and the news media" in a confirmation "role once played almost exclusively by the Senate...

...The American Spectator, P.O...

...One: $5 Twenty-five: $75 Five: $20 Fifty: $130 Ten: $35 One-hundred: $250 (Quantity discounts apply only to orders for the same report...

...Fleming's reconstruction of events begins in July with the Alliance for Justice doing "some research" into a rumor about an unnamed woman claiming to have been sexually harassed by Thomas...

...If you are able to gain admission to one of Anita Hill's $10,000 lectures, here is an area you will want to ask about before the police escort you off...

...They want those wonderful people all to themselves...

...Send for your copies today...

...And under the standards developed in the lower federal courts, judicial enforcement of a subpoena most likely would have occurred...

...Whenever a member of the executive branch is accused of making false statements to Congress, journalists typically join with members of Congress in calling for a criminal investigation...

...As to whether she should do so, Ross, "with Hill's authorization," consulted with Judith Lichtman of the Women's Legal Defense Fund...

...His report states: "Witnesses were not sworn, but were advised of our view that they were subject to the penal sanctions of 18 U.S.C...

...Although largely ignored, it is "must" reading for anyone who wants to understand the triangular politics of judicial confirmation and the peculiar political culture of the nation's capital...

...Given Buzenberg's public comments, Totenberg had the statement in hand...

...To which Jarvis said no, an answer she repeated to Aron the next day...

...He found, among other things: that on September 23 Hill had telefaxed a statement of her charges to the Judiciary Committee...

...each time Hill denied giving out her statement...

...Given four months to do the job, Fleming interviewed more than a hundred people, including senators, Senate staffers, members of liberal interest groups, and Anita Hill herself...

...Both denied leaking...

...But as Fleming suggests, she might have been puzzled as to its authenticity, especially if her copy was the unsigned and undated statement Hill had faxed to Brudney...

...But his report does show staffers and groupers hard at work against Thomas...

...Phelps, he found, did not have a hard copy but reported Hill's allegations on the basis of a "source" who had seen it...

...On the morning of October 5, after one of her conversations with Totenberg, Seidman called Brudney, telling him that "Totenberg had spoken to Hill and said Hill would answer questions but would not provide her affidavit," which Seidman, from the Fleming report, appeared to think Totenberg did not have...

...Hill said she had not...

...It was Seidman, by the way, who also was in constant conversation that same week with Newsday's Phelps...

...On May 5 the Senate released the 171-page report of Peter E. Fleming, Jr., the New York lawyer asked to find out who leaked Anita Hill's confidential allegations of sexu al harassment against then–Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas...

...From George Kassouf of the Alliance for Justice, she "received a full account of their information about Thomas...

...Curiously, Fleming does not point out this contradiction, but this leaves the obvious question: Was this just a memory lapse, or was Hill covering for Brudney...

...Fleming writes that the staffers then decided to "draw back from any active involvement with Hill's allegations...

...B ut the groups and the staffers— and the journalists—would not be denied...

...What the press has been interested in, of course, is making sure that there won't be another Fleming-like investigation focusing on every Tom, Dick, and Harriet staffer in a position to know what happened...

...Whenever the press is incurious about some important public business involving the Fourth Estate, someone else needs to step in and find out and report as much as can be known...

...We learn, too, that Metzenbaum was upset when he heard from Senator Biden that the FBI report referred to his staffers generally and to Brudney by name...

...She "recalls Brudney's stance as more persistent and says she told him on several occasions it was her decision to make...

...But he believes she was given Hill's statement early the next week...

...1001...

...Neither the Constitution nor any Supreme Court decision entitles the press in this way...

...At this point in the report's chronology there is a gap, for we are not told what Seidman or Brudney did after their phone conversation...

...Totenberg did...

...Reporters don't want another Fleming "chilling" their sources...

...You're allowed to lie to Congress if you are a member or a staffer...

...On September 5, Gail Laster of Metzenbaum's staff talked by phone with Hill, evidently Hill's first contact with a staffer...

...Instead, we learn that Hill and Totenberg talked by 50 The American Spectator July 1992 phone, and that in this conversation Totenberg said she had Hill's affidavit...

...Hill faxed three and only three copies of her statement...

...George Mitchell's office professed to have run out of copies early on...

...Fleming's investigation only went so far as the two reporters and the Senate Rules Committee allowed him...

...The one that went to Brudney is the only one that could have been copied and somehow "delivered" to Totenberg...

...Brudney specifically denied giving a copy of his document to anyone...

...On the facts Fleming established, however, Brudney remains the main suspect...

...The two that went to the Judiciary Committee were guarded like sacred writ...

...According to Hill, "she questioned Brudney closely about his need for the statement and the appropriateness of sending it to him outside Committee channels...

...Fleming reports that neither Corr nor Lichtman remembered her using those precise words, and Lichtman denied to Fleming ever seeking or receiving Hill's affidavit...

...It was therefore always available for copying—and passing on to someone else...

...Fleming was unable to identify the leaker(s), but this failure alone cannot account for the skimpy coverage his report received...

...Hill "disagrees with Brudney's claim that he was entirely neutral," writes Fleming...

...And there is a final, legal point...

...She was Susan Ross, a Georgetown law professor recommended to Hill by .. . Brudney...

...Not only did the press make no such demand in this case, the coverage of the Fleming report failed even to mention the perjury that evidently occurred...

...porters (Timothy Phelps of Newsday being the other) to break the sexual harassment story on October 6. Fleming concluded that Hill herself had not leaked a copy of her statement to Totenberg...

...We do not know from Totenberg what caused her to track the Hill story only after the Committee had voted on Friday, September 27," writes Fleming...

...that on September 25 she faxed an identical statement, typographical errors having been corrected, to the committee...

...Box 549, Arlington, VA 22216-0549 Yes, please send me: copies of Michael Fumento's "This Magic Moment" $ copies of David Brock's "The Real Anita Hill" $ copies of Robert Novak's "The Trouble With Clinton" $ Total enclosed $ Name: Address: City: State: — Zip Code: RP9207 51...

...Having received assurances he would hold it in confidence, Hill faxed Brudney a copy of The American Spectator July 1992 49 her statement, although not of the statement she had sent to the committee, for what Brudney received was neither signed nor dated...

...By September 18, Hill had acquired a legal adviser familiar with the law of sex discrimination...

...Corr's notes of his conversation with Lichtman contained a sentence attributed to her: "I going [sic] after affidavit...

...Fleming reports a meeting in Metzenbaum's office on October 2. Attending were "Senators Metzenbaum, Simon and Kennedy, certainof their staffers and various representatives from the groups opposing the nominee...

...But the Rules Committee did not have the guts to back Fleming...

...Seidman told her that she might be more comfortable talking to "a person she knew"—Brudney, who went to the Yale Law School when Hill did...

...Nor will we know all that Fleming found out about events after Hill's first fax of September 23...

...From the Fleming report, it appears that Brudney operated as a counselor of sorts to Hill, facilitating her contact with the Judiciary Committee and encouraging her to press her charges there...

...The Freedom of Information Act does not apply to Congress, of course...

...Brudney, we learn, told the Kennedy staff about Hill's submission of a statement to Judiciary, and about her FBI interview, and that Kennedy's people, in turn, told Leahy's staff...

...and note this: having completed his memo on sexual harassment for Metzenbaum on the same day that he'd asked for a copy of Hill's Judiciary statement, Brudney did not destroy it but kept it in his briefcase until after the story broke...

...Phelps and Totenberg were soon on the story...

...Seidman in fact told Phelps that, in regard to Anita Hill, he "might be on to something...

...So were Brudney and Wade Henderson of the NAACP...

...To Fleming, Lichtman denied doing any such thing, but by this point—the weekend of September 28—word of Hill's allegations was spreading "among the interested Washington community...

...It was the first of at least thirteen phone conversations they would have between that date and September 23—when Hill faxed her statement to the committee...

...When the Senate considered and then decided to have a leak investigation, journalists pooh-poohed the whole idea, inanely arguing, as the New York Times put it, that the Senate runs on leaks...

...Phelps and Totenberg refused to talk about their sources...

...Someone—Fleming does not say who, but how about Brudney?suggested that Hill prepare a written statement...

...On September 23 she faxed the statement to the Judiciary Committee, afterwards calling Brudney to tell him not only about this transmission but also about an interview two FBI agents conducted with her that same day...

...Later, she refused to answer the counsel's questions...

...Sources should feel free to call me, by the way...

...These writers understood the political significance of the report, which demonstrates without saying so that, as Simpson put it, "Senate staffers worked closely with interest groups not merely in an attempt to defeat Thomas but specifically in an effort to bring Hill's charges before the public...

...Fleming established—a major point buried in news stories about his report—that "the document" in Totenberg's possession "originated from the Senate...

...liberal interest groups, such as the Alliance for Justice and People for the American Way...

...and that while the contents of the FBI report on the Hill charges were not leaked either in whole or in part, "hard copy" of Hill's Judiciary statement was leaked to National Public Radio's Nina Totenberg, one of the two reTerry Eastland is a resident fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center...

...Leahy ran through third-party possibilities, including the press...

...Taking a page from the play-books of Richard Nixon and Oliver North, Totenberg destroyed this document...

...Hill worked on her statement on September 21-22...

...so those depositions probably will never be reported, absent a gusher of a leak...

...Fleming decided to subpoena them, but the Rules Committee did not back him, refusing, in effect, to compel reporters' testimony...

...He wanted a copy...

...Do not, of course, expect the press to pursue Brudney or Hill...

...When the report was issued, the pundits who shape the journalistic fashions in Washington blasted away quite predictably: "a farce" (Clarence Page), "ridiculous" (Chris Matthews), and "stupid" (Totenberg...

...More specifically, someone in the Senate lied to Congress, since Fleming represented Congress in this case...

...As Fleming points out, NPR's vice president for news, William Buzenberg, actually told Vanity Fair that Totenberg had Hill's "affidavit" five days before she "spilled the beans...

...Corr and Brudney called Lichtman of the Women's Defense Fund and Wade Henderson of the NAACP, advising them not to look to Metzenbaum's office "for any initiative on Hill's allegations...

...Another Corr note of a call with Brudney showed Lichtman as having said that she had "authorized a friend to talk to Nina," meaning Nina Totenberg...

...that on the same day she faxed a copy of what was apparently a draft of her Judiciary statement to Metzenbaum staffer James Brudney after he requested a written description of her charges...

...Ricki Seidman made a similar note of "almost identical substance...

...The Senate Rules Committee having denied Fleming's request that it compel her (and Phelps's) testimony, he was unable, as his report puts it, "to identify the Senate source of the document delivered to Totenberg...

...Two days later Brudney called Hill...

...There can be little doubt that few reporters bothered to read the Fleming report...

...On October 2, Nan Aron of the Alliance was back in Fleming's chronology, calling Hill's former roommate, Sonia Jarvis, whom Hill had kept informed, to ask whether the Oklahoma law professor was "prepared to go public...

...Only Glenn R. Simpson of Roll Call in the one lengthy analysis I found, and the Washington Times in editorials written by David Brock (author of the March TAS blockbuster, "The Real Anita Hill"), engaged in any thoughtful way the contents of the report...

...During the October hearing, Hill, under oath, was asked repeatedly by Senator Leahy whether she had given a copy of her statement to anyone other than the Judiciary Committee and, later, her lawyer...

...The law The American Spectator July 1992 does not give reporters some kind of right to silence...

...The origins of this rumor remain murky...

...on both days she spoke with Brudney by phone about her progress...

...And Fleming reports "no evidence of communication between Brudney and Totenberg or any other journalist," a statement that begs another question: What about communication with the groups...

...That was easy to do, since they had a substitute team ready to take the field the groups...

...Whereupon Hill agreed to cooperate, and a tape was rolled...

...To learn for certain what Fleming had learned, you would have needed your own copy, and Sen...

...These reports are ideal for distribution to your friends, business colleagues, teachers, and political representatives...

...That law, a 48 The American Spectator July 1992 criminal statute, prohibits making false statements to the government...

...Metzenbaum staffer Bonnie Goldstein, Fleming drily writes, "had taken an interest in allegations of personal misconduct which had been collected by groups opposing the Thomas nomination...

...By this point, other Metzenbaum and also now some Kennedy staffers, all working in concert with the groups, were on the case...

...What Fleming also does not say, but one may reasonably infer from his report, is that someone in the Senate—and again Brudney, who denied leaking his copy of Hill's statement, is the main suspect—lied to him...

...In August the Free Press will publish his latest book, Energy in the Executive: The Case for the Strong Presidency...

...Now we know, however, that she had also faxed a copy to Brudney...

...According to Fleming, Hill first talked with Totenberg on October 3. Totenberg by this time was very busy: She talked back and forth with not only Hill but also Seidman and Lichtman...

...and members of the press, such as, first and foremost, NPR's Totenberg...

...And the press has lacked the decency to report the merits of the legal arguments in this case, much less the manifest weakness of its own...

...From Fleming's account of the SeidmanBrudney conversation, Seidman, who told Brudney she did not understand the "significance of Hill's statement," could have learned from Brudney that he had a draft copy...