Lloyds of Clinton

...Perhaps Fiske reasonably does not think that withholding information from Congress in unsworn testimony is a crime, because if it is 82 The American Spectator October 1994 Altman is certainly guilty of it...

...circuit to fix the outcomes of cases by importing liberal "visiting" judges to stack the three-judge panels...

...Though he was able to portray these two contacts as his sole role in the controversy, largely unnoticed evidence was developed in the House that Stephanopoulos had (continued on page 82) The American Spectator October 1994 29 DAVID BROCK (continued from page 29) been involved in the ouster of former RTC chief Albert Casey in March 1993, which put Altman in control of the agency...

...Stephanopoulos testified that in two telephone conversations on the 25th, one with Altman (with Ickes on speakerphone) and one with Steiner, he merely inquired about how Stephens was hired...

...Let's take just one contact—the infamous September 29 meeting between Hanson and White House lawyers Bernard Nussbaum and Clifford Sloan—as an example of the OGE's approach...

...The Secret Service was acting on orders from the president, Rolla said...

...Yet according to those who have seen it, the Fiske deposition of Bill and Hillary Clinton shows that he didn't ask the first couple if they had spoken to Foster about Whitewater before his death...

...This is doubtful, since, even in the unlikely event that Stephanopoulos was unaware of the foregoing chain of events, as he testified, he could have learned of the Stephens hiring in the February 17 edition of the Washington Post, which reported that Pillsbury, Madison & Sutro, Stephens's firm, had been hired by the RTC to investigate civil claims against Madison...

...McLarty had a personal secretary named Patsy...

...attorneys in February 1993...

...Rep...

...The Senate did not depose Lyons...

...Mikva is neither a skilled lawyer nor a distinguished judge...

...Logue-Kinder then instructed Katsanos to brief Hillary Clinton's press secretary, Lisa Caputo...

...A "to do" list prepared by Podesta's shop said, "Line up a Senator or two (e.g...

...That answer should trigger a review by Starr of Stephanopoulos's role...

...24 The American Spectator October 1994 Rep...

...The weakness of the Abrams case, which amounted to nothing more than the criminalizing of policy differences, ought not rule this out...

...The low point of the entire two weeks was of course achieved in the House, when Democratic Rep...

...Ms...

...It might have been a way to chart Foster's movements during the five hours or so between the time he left the White House and his death, had investigators preserved the numbers...

...The report was designed so that this possibility could not even be explored...

...Cutler's replacement as White House counsel, one of the few top jobs in government where one actually has to do one's own thinking and writing, is Judge Abner Mikva, a former Democratic congressman...

...prosecutors assess the likelihood of success differently, and Fiske did not present his evidence, citing grand jury secrecy rules...

...In the end, the report's conclusions are hedged to such an extent that they are virtually worthless...

...As a result, certain key witnesses were still being interviewed by committee lawyers as the hearings were proceeding...

...Even if the contacts don't lead to an obstruction charge, Stephanopoulos's testimony—as well as that of many of the administration officials who testified in a cavalcade of poor recollections—may provide grounds for the filing of secondary charges, such as making false statements and lying to Congress...

...Those policies say that on investigative or regulatory matters, contacts must go through the White House counsel's office...

...Once it was completed, Cutler deployed the report to great effect with the public, never tiring of pointing out that the head of OGE, Stephen Potts, is a Republican...

...The Senate was able to uncover the fact that Logue-Kinder had called RTC public affairs director Steve Katsanos in October 1993 for information about reporters' inquiries on the Rose Law Firm's representation of Madison Guaranty...

...Neil Eggleston, a Nussbaum aide, called Hanson to find out how Stephens got hired...

...Yet according to those who have seen it, the Fiske deposition of Bill and Hillary Clinton shows that he didn't ask the first couple if they had spoken to Foster about Whitewater before his death...

...Bentsen's collusion with Cutler foreshadowed his thoroughly dishonorable conduct on the stand...

...Steiner testified that he heard about it from either John Podesta or his deputy Todd Stern...

...Schmidt [of the Washington Post] may have been conveyed by Ms...

...The upshot is that new independent counsel Kenneth Starr will want to take a fresh look at the series of contacts—provided that the full court press by Clinton lawyer Robert Bennett questioning his independence does not intimidate Starr, who is said to be susceptible to liberal media pressure, into accepting Fiske' s judgment...

...If so, Fiske should have cleared the air and stated in the report that he was applying the standards of the Justice Department, and not the unjust standards of Walsh (who was Fiske's law partner in New York...

...Cutler posed as Mr...

...The question of his own candor aside, however, as the head of an embattled organization, Bentsen had the duty to either forthrightly defend his subordinates before the committee, or concede that the criticism leveled against them was correct...

...Even if not, there are cases when "I don't recall"—a phrase used thirty-one times in Stephanopoulos's Senate deposition—would constitute perjury...

...Rather than denying information to the Congress, prior White Houses have always negotiated with Congress to make even highly sensitive documents available to some select group of members or staff...

...He merely lifted the OGE's Cutler simply withheld certain information by routinely redacting out portions of documents that he deemed "non-responsive...

...Hanson's disclosure of information other than that relating to the President would seem to go beyond what was necessary to achieve her stated purpose of assisting the White House with its press function...

...He rebuffed Hanson during a January 1994 meeting when she asked RTC officials to provide her with copies of the Whitewater criminal referrals so that Altman could fend off Republican demands that the deadline for filing civil charges in the Madison case be extended by announcing that the case was closed...

...But the few bits of evidence that emerged in the hearing made it look as if the administration had interfered with the investigation, as the park police's chief criminal investigator, Charles Hume, told the Senate in a sworn deposition...

...But why would 26 The American Spectator October 1994 Lindsey have been concerned about the legality of getting a heads-up on information gleaned from press inquiries, which he had no intention of acting on...

...In civil litigation, if a document is deemed responsive in part, the entire document is held to be responsive...

...Cutler achieved a kind of super-executive privilege through the back door, with no check or means of appeal...

...Secondly, Altman's statements came while an investigation was proceeding, while Abrams's didn't...

...When documents are denied and motions to compel are brought, judges assess the merits of such claims in camera...

...First off, there is a difference between withholding information for a national security reason—Abrams had made an absolute pledge of confidentiality to a third country in a sensitive foreign policy initiative—and the situation in Whitewater, where there was a private reason for the withholding, arguably to conceal an abuse of power by high government officials for personal gain...

...Did someone in Arkansas take the checks and other evidence and deep-six them...

...Orrin Hatch of Utah called attention to his ducking...

...Fiske also failed to interview Ben Nye, who was Altman's special assistant after Steiner left his office to join Bentsen's staff...

...A bigger question still is whether the White House obstructed the investigation of Foster's death...

...Moreover, he appears to have made no effort to determine the source of carpet fibers and hairs found on Foster's clothing, nor did he even mention that semen was found on Foster's undershorts...

...In fact, among the documents obtained by Senate investigators was a White House copy of a March 3 Bentsen statement to the press announcing the OGE review, the day before Fiske subpoenaed White House officials on the contacts...

...In a curiously sweeping sentence that followed a more detailed section on obstruction, Fiske wrote, "We have also concluded that the evidence does not justify a criminal prosecution for violation of any other federal statute," an apparent reference to false statements charges...

...And Hanson testified that Steiner told her that people at the White House wanted to get rid of Stephens...

...Steiner or Mr...

...Sloan's notes would suggest that information other than that contained in the press inquiry from Ms...

...After an October 14 meeting with Treasury Department public affairs director Jack DeVore about the checks, Lindsey testified, he called the custodians of the campaign contribution records in Little Rock and requested copies of them...

...Rather, it shows that by failing to convincingly lay to rest the niggling inconsistencies surrounding the death scene, the Fiske report in its sloppiness and lack of initiative provided fodder for conspiracy theorists...

...Incredibly, the prosecutor did not bother interviewing the pathologist who conducted Foster's autopsy...

...Note that in the same conversation, Altman revealed he was going to recuse himself from the Madison case, leaving Stephens unchecked...

...Roger Altman and Elliott Abrams The main question before Fiske concerned Roger Altman's unsworn testimony February 26 before a congressional oversight hearing...

...The Ethics "Report" Cutler, therefore, was left to brandish the Office of Government Ethics report issued on the eve of the hearings, but it generally escaped notice that the OGE report examined only the conduct of the Treasury Department officials, not of the White House staff...

...In this conversation, Lindsey learned that reporters were asking questions about who had endorsed checks written on Madison Guaranty 1 There is a technical legal question about whether the RTC's civil investigation constituted a "pending proceeding" under the criminal code...

...Instead, the cowardly Bentsen was permitted by the Senate and a deferential press corps to step out of the line of fire and disassociate himself from the controversy...

...A ssuming that Hillary Clinton's fears about the independent counsel "poking into 20 years of public life in Arkansas" are not misplaced, the major revelations of the Whitewater scandal are yet to come...

...The Two Lloyds Acting, incongruously, as both advocate for and judge of his client, Cutler did not behave as if the Clintons were innocent...

...Rolla told the sergeant where to locate the spare key, the Secret Service took the pager, and this evidence was lost...

...But Fiske may have concluded that he could not prove that this was a lie...

...The White House expected a rough time...

...Openness, making a big point of Clinton's having waived executive privilege, yet behind the scenes he was achieving unprecedented control over the flow of information to Capitol Hill...

...Hanson also said Steiner suggested that the civil case be transferred from Kulka and Stephens and assigned to Robert Fiske—a suggestion that originated in early February with Nussbaum, who obviously believed that Fiske was less aggressive...

...RTC vice president William Roelle testified that to his knowledge the RTC had never before provided insider notice of criminal referrals...

...The disclosures arguably put the president in a better position with respect to his personal liability or exposure in an investigation of events that occurred before he became president...

...Altman's claim that he knew of only one "substantive" contact, when in fact there were 40 White House–Treasury contacts, was a crimped and artificially constructed answer designed to mislead...

...Fiske's conclusion notwithstanding, some banking committee lawyers believe a good case could still be made against Altman...

...Lloyds of Clinton Lloyd Cutler and Lloyd Bentsen's unseemly cooperation in suppressing investigations into the Washington phase of Whitewater is only one of many new facts emerging in the wake of this summer's hearings—all of them suggesting that we ain't seen nothing yet...

...For example, Hanson and deputy chief of staff Harold Ickes met on February 2. The IG asked Ickes what information he received at the meeting, and what he immediately did with it...

...If the witness had credibility problems, Fiske's judgment in taking his word for anything without further sourcing is suspect...

...For example, they didn't depose John Bowman, a Treasury attorney who worked for Hanson and had extensive responsibilities for the RTC beginning in 1993 and ending with the appointment of Ellen Kulka as RTC general counsel in early 1994...

...On the first standard, the OGE found that the criminal referrals were indeed "nonpublic," but it went on to argue that Hanson's disclosure served "an official interest' rather than a private one...

...He therefore would have had to pursue a dicier charge that Altman withheld information from Congress—for example, when he failed to disclose that his recusal was discussed in the course of the contact...

...One upstart committee member admonished Cutler to return to the witness table...

...According to the Cutler chronology, Lindsey then asked the counsel's office whether it was legal for the White House to be getting the information Hanson was providing...

...Before testifying, Cutler importuned treasury secretary Lloyd Bentsen—supposedly a subject of the ongoing investigation—to supply him with copies of interviews White House staff had given to the inspector general of the Treasury Department, which provided raw data for a separate Office of Government Ethics review...

...he then passed on the information to the White House...

...Wright said she "probably forgot" to file them...

...What if Hanson's contacts with the White House (which she says were either ordered by or known to the president's friend Altman) were intended not for the "proper White House function" of answering press calls—as the OGE report assumes—but to allow Clinton to alert others targeted in the referrals, talk to witnesses, shred documents, and the like...

...This ensured that the questioning would be soft...

...But the hearings produced hints that Fiske may not have seriously considered whether Altman's testimony was indictable...

...The originals had disappeared from the county clerk's office...

...Senate sources say that last November—shortly after word that the civil case was back in play reached the White House—Stephanopoulos was involved in a White House decision to pull the plug on the troubled nomination of Republican Stanley Tate to head the agency, leaving Altman in place for several more months...

...All of this is not to suggest that Foster was murdered or that he died somewhere other than where his body was discovered...

...Bowman was physically on site at the RTC during the entire period under investigation...

...The clearest indication that the disclosures were not made pursuant to an "official function" is that the information was never actually used for any official purpose—neither to brief the press, nor, as Cutler testified, to keep the president from "embarrassing or compromising encounters" with those targeted in the probe...

...Furthermore, Abrams's testimony came in response to an unexpected question for which he was not briefed, while a briefing memo for Altman specifically listed the recusal issue...

...Think of him as the Henry Gonzalez of the Court of Appeals...

...On the question of whether the disclosure constituted preferential treatment for the president, the report concluded that it did not, noting, "There was an assumption here, arising from the unique nature of the Office of the President, that the contacts were made pursuant to a proper White House function...

...T he most familiar ethics rule prohibits government employees from using their office for financial gain...

...And Senate investigators, not Fiske, unmasked the sequence of contacts between the White House, including the president himself, and Eugene Ludwig, the comptroller of the currency...

...Interestingly, Steiner testified that Fiske did not ask him about these particular contacts with Hanson...

...He said he also "blew off steam," since he believed Stephens was out to get Clinton for removing him and all other U.S...

...Yet distinctions between a president's official and private interests and actions are recognized all the time: Otherwise, the Justice Department would be representing Clinton in the independent counsel's inquiry on Whitewaterand the Paula Jones case...

...Li'l Abner in Dogpatch Worse still for Clinton, in this next round he won't have the services of a smoothie like Cutler to pull the wool over everyone's eyes...

...Fiske regarded the testimony of the so-called confidential witness who discovered Foster's body as highly credible in establishing certain facts, such as the time of death and the position of the body...

...That is, the rule was conceived as a minimum, not a maximum, and certainly not as a way of frustrating the process...

...Altman, on the other hand, was informed within a few days that his testimony was incorrect and continued to fail to correct it...

...Senate investigators are quick to concede that the press of time meant that they, too, were unable to depose all of the potentially relevant witnesses...

...As a general matter, courts of appeals have broadly construed the term "proceeding" to include preliminary inquiries by agencies...

...The two Lloyds also set up their two probes to run simultaneously with the congressional hearings, leaving the House and Senate committees competing with the White House and Treasury for access to witnesses...

...An entry in the Steiner diary, which Steiner was not able to convincingly disavow, read: "George then suggested to me that we needed to find a way to get rid of him [Stephens...

...Can evidence be found that Stephanopoulos knew of the Stephens hiring before the 25th...

...He then insolently used the verb "directed" six more times, even after GOP Sen...

...Hume was supposed to testify but mysteriously didn't show up...

...El The American Spectator October 1994 83...

...The Jay Stephens Thicket White House officials first learned of the Stephens hiring during the week of February 14...

...To make matters worse, banking committee chairman Henry Gonzalez had appropriated no funds for the investigation, nor had he hired a lawyer for the majority...

...Stephanopoulos testified that he first learned of the Stephens hiring on February 24 or 25...

...A related bit of evidence was unearthed in an unsworn interview with House investigators...

...But Fiske couldn'tfind any such person...

...We now know where this trail is likely to lead: right into the Oval Office...

...The false statements charges filed against Oliver North and John Poindexter for their testimony during the Iran-contra investigation seem more warranted...

...As he was being questioned during the Senate hearing about this call, Lindsey flashed a satanic grin and referred to contemporaneous written notes of the conversation that he had failed to surrender in the Senate's document request...

...Once one dislodges this false notion, the Hanson disclosures could be construed both as preferential treatment for Clinton and as use of nonpublic information to further his private interests...

...Steiner, too, contacted Hanson and asked how Ellen Kulka hired Stephens...

...I understand you even attend church regularly...

...Two months later, when the Washington Post was finally able to break the story about the fishy checks, Susan Schmidt reported that "former Clinton campaign aides saidthey would not make their own records from the 1984 campaign available...

...Did Stephanopoulos's inquiries mean something more, particularly since the White House already knew not only that Stephens had been hired but also how...

...As congressional investigators deposed various witnesses in preparation for the hearings, they discovered that some witnesses had never been interviewed by Fiske, and some lines of inquiry had not been pursued in the interviews that Fiske did conduct...

...at a minimum, White House aides George Stephanopoulos—who improperly brought the FBI into Travelgate—and Harold Ickes broke those rules...

...Certainly Hanson had no official purpose in mind when she later attempted to get RTC general counsel Ellen Kulka to brief the Clinton' private attorney on the referrals...

...In violation of a House rule requiring that written testimony be submitted to the committee 48 hours prior to a witness's appearance, Cutler handed over his report on White House contacts 30 minutes before he was to begin testifying...

...Yet he gave no credence to the witness's statement that there was no gun in Foster's hand when he came upon the body, which may have contradicted Fiske's predetermined conclusions...

...Of a September 30 phone call from Hanson to Sloan, the OGE said: Mr...

...The American Spectator October 1994 25 analysis of the behavior of implicated Treasury officials and grafted it onto the conduct of the White House staff that he was supposedly evaluating...

...If nothing else was clear after the dust had settled, the Clintons' efforts to thwart the investigation have soiled the reputations of everyone whose help they have engaged...

...Boxer, Murray, Sarbanes) to counterpunch...

...But when asked "did you ever tell, request, ask, or suggest that Mr...

...Contrary to impressions, there was no independent review of the White House staff...

...How could it be that thirty House Democrats and eleven Senate Democrats could look at the same set of facts so differently...

...Whether recently dismissed independent counsel Robert Fiske operated with the same White House filter is not known...

...This gave the White House lawyer time to iron out any bothersome inconsistencies in the testimony, and it violated Bentsen's own instruction to Treasury officials not to be in contact with the White House during the investigation...

...The implication, of course, is that one might reasonably conclude that the conduct did violate the standards...

...Stephens," Stephanopoulos retreated to the nonresponsive assertion that he "never directed anyone to take any action to impede an investigation...

...Contrary to Cutler's suggestion, executive privilege is very rarely asserted...

...Clinton had been told by Lindsey of the referrals before the first meeting, but Lindsey denied telling Clinton that Tucker was named...

...Gonzalez and Frank defended the gavel-pounding with constant references to the five-minute rule, conveniently ignoring that the original concept of the rule was to ensure junior members the chance to get into the game...

...Nonetheless, in a later section of the report, the OGE managed to undermine its own key assumption...

...Nonetheless, White House claims that the so-called Washington phase of Whitewater has received a "clean bill of health" should not go unchallenged...

...In the hearing, Bentsen flatly denied being briefed about the White House–Treasury contacts, despite testimony and memoranda from Altman, Hanson, and Steiner indicating that he had been...

...Clinton asked Ludwig for advice about Whitewater at the December 1993 Renaissance Weekend, and Ludwig secretly funneled copies of reporters' FOIA requests on Whitewater to Bruce Lindsey...

...And if Fiske couldn't be trusted on the little things, Starr is going to have to start from scratch on the big ones...

...With the exception of Rep...

...On the•most important question before him—why Foster killed himself—Fiske concluded emphatically that Whitewater played no role...

...And unlike their Senate counterparts, House members had difficulty developing a line of questioning because Gonzalez limited each member to five-minute intervals...

...The sticking point in the report is that all of the contacts involving the president are regarded on their face as "official," and if there are only "official" interests, there can be no violations...

...Among several witnesses deposed by the Senate, but not interviewed by Fiske, was Joan Logue-Kinder, Treasury's assistant secretary for public affairs...

...Time and again during this summer's House and Senate hearings, Clinton officials, led by White House counsel Lloyd Cutler, took the witness stand and said that no laws or ethical rules were broken in the White House–Treasury contacts on Whitewater...

...What About George and Bruce...

...Eric Fingerhut of Ohio, House Democrats treated the hearing with derision and a cavalier attitude bordering on contempt, while the Senate treated the matter with the utmost gravity and seriousness...

...This is the sort of charge that Iran-contra prosecutor Lawrence Walsh forced Reagan State Department official Elliott Abrams to plead guilty to...

...Although it is obviously irrelevant to the Washington phase of Whitewater, both Cutler and the Treasury IG spent the bulk of their time explaining why that standard was not violated...

...Altman or anyone else for that matter find a way to fire or get rid of Mr...

...Stephanopoulos testified that he did not recall asking Steiner if the RTC could get rid of Stephens...

...During a break, the man who insisted that he was not a special pleader for the president, but rather was representing the institution of the presidency, was seen on the dais reserved for members and staff, whispering with administration point man David Brock is the author of The Real Anita Hill (Free Press), recently issued in paperback, and an investigative writer for The American Spectator...

...Bentsen, for instance, testified that Fiske did not even ask him about what he knew about the circumstances surrounding Altman's testimony...

...More plausibly, Lindsey may have wanted to know whether he legally could have nonpublic information coming from inside the RTC that was far more detailed than that which the press could have conveyed, and that reached well beyond a simple heads-up for dealing with press calls...

...Park police investigator John Rolla testified that a police sergeant called him at home the evening of the death and ordered him to turn over the key to his desk to the Secret Service—or it would be busted open...

...In civil litigation, if a document is deemed responsive in part, the entire document is held to be responsive...

...But in the one aspect of his investigation where he did publish his evidence, the death of Vincent Foster, Fiske's methods don't inspire confidence...

...Cutler testified that Hanson's information "was coming to her [Hanson] from the press," not through regulatory channels...

...Fishy Fiske A second component of the administration's defense was the deification of special counsel Robert Fiske, who had concluded that no laws were violated in the White House–Treasury contacts...

...For more on Ickes, see sidebar on p. 27) Close observers know that if there is a way of construing a set of facts so that there is no violation, OGE will unfailingly protect executive branch officials, unless their name is spelled Sununu...

...Two days after Bentsen, in an interview, denied knowledge of a February 2 meeting at the White House attended by Altman and Hanson, the IG received Bentsen's calendar log showing meetings with his two subordinates on February 1 and 3. Yet the IG didn't go back and ask Bentsen about these logged-in meetings...

...Waters asked presidential counselor Mack McLarty...

...Copies of FBI interviews with Lyons supplied to Congress indicate that Fiske did not question him about his contacts with Lindsey...

...He did not add that Potts also likes his job...

...Maxine Waters of California took up a line of questioning designed to show a panel of White House aides as God-fearing, hardworking, well-intended people...

...According to Hanson's deposition, Steiner called back and said that Ellen Kulka should be fired for hiring Stephens...

...28 The American Spectator October 1994 accounts to the Clinton gubernatorial campaign that were at issue in the referrals...

...The notation appears to be a message to chief of staff Mack McLarty from deputy White House counsel Joel Klein...

...Nor was there consideration of White House ethics policies that set a standard above the OGE's...

...Shortly thereafter, the RTC reversed its position on extending the statute in the Madison case from favorable to opposed...

...Bentsen had the Treasury official phoned at home on a Saturday night and ordered to fork over the material...

...nor is it clear that Fiske had them...

...Ickes answered that he passed it on to Clinton, but since Ickes's conduct was not being evaluated, he wasn't asked for details of the conversation...

...Though Bentsen, former deputy secretary Roger Altman, Bentsen chief-ofstaff Joshua Steiner, and Hanson provided conflicting accounts of their roles in the White House contacts, Bentsen was the only one of the four to escape grilling by both the committee and the inspector general...

...Yet Nussbaum failed to instruct Lindsey not to tell Clinton, suggesting an ulterior motive...

...The two relevant rules say a government official should not improperly use nonpublic information to further his own private interest or that of another, nor should an official act partially or give preferential treatment to any individual...

...Another problem concerns Fiske's conclusion that although Foster's head was "straight up" when found, a blood stain on his right cheek that came from contact with the shoulder of his blood-stained shirt indicated that the head must have been moved by someone who came upon the body before the confidential witness...

...Hanson, for example, disclosed that Arkansas Gov...

...Jim Guy Tucker was named in the referrals, which the press was then unaware of...

...White House staff secretary John Podesta (who was not interviewed for the OGE report) revealed that he remembered that in a meeting with Nussbaum on March 1, Nussbaum said that he had briefed White House aide Bruce Lindsey on the referrals back in September, following the contact with Hanson, because Lindsey handled press calls on Arkansas matters...

...by David Brock "I smell a rat here...

...As with the ethics report, that conclusion should be subject to closer scrutiny, because Congress and the Treasury inspector general were almost certainly able to develop a more complete picture of the contacts than Fiske did...

...More Sham The House was outgunned by the Senate...

...The upper body, for example, had former Treasury counsel Jean Hanson in for twenty-six hours of depositions, while the House interviewed her for less than six hours...

...The Foster Suicide Second-guessing prosecutors, of course, is difficult if not impossible...

...Hanson...

...If not, all of his story should have been weighed...

...he spent most of his time clumsily attempting to use his position as chief judge Of the D.C...

...The problem for Stephanopoulos involves his discussions with Steiner and Altman about Jay Stephens, a Republican former prosecutor who was hired by the RTC in mid-February 1994 to pursue the civil case against Madison...

...Clinton aide Betsey Wright was quoted as saying she was "unable to locate" copies of post-election contribution reports required to be filed by state law...

...Belying the Cutler line that no, wrongdoing occurred since the investigation was not in fact influenced, the statute proscribes not only a successful obstruction but also any endeavor to obstruct, provided there is corrupt motive.1 After learning of the referrals, Lindsey spoke by telephone on October 4 or 5 with Denver lawyer James Lyons, who had authored a false report for the Clinton campaign to deflect reporters' questions about Whitewater...

...On the basis of our review," the OGE said, "we believe that you might reasonably conclude that the conduct detailed in the report of officials presently employed by the Department of the Treasury did not violate the Standards of Ethical Conduct for Employees of the Executive Branch...

...At the bottom someone scrawled, "Mack, Per Joel, 'This wilt cover us so we don't have to do anything further'—P...

...Three independent and mutually corroborating sources provided evidence suggesting Stephanopoulos's real motive...

...Fiske was replaced before he could issue findings...

...In addition to personal effects, the desk contained Foster's White House pager, which would have stored the numbers called in that day even if turned off...

...Altman testified that Stephanopoulos suggested firing Stephens...

...Cutler used to be regarded as a Zeus-like figure in Washington, but he has now been exposed as just another well-heeled hired gun...

...Nussbaum testified that he also learned of it at this time and complained to other White House staffers of its unfairness...

...Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat...

...Finally, the Cutler chronology revealed that Clinton himself expressed concern to deputy chief of staff Ickes about Stephens...

...And lastly, on the sole point on which Abrams's testimony was wrong, no government official contacted him in the ensuing weeks to tell him so...

...Though the media focused heavily on Altman and Hanson, the two most promising areas of further probing on criminal obstruction of justice charges, according to congressional investigators familiar with the evidence, involve Bruce Lindsey and George Stephanopoulos...

...Cutler, however, simply withheld certain information by routinely redacting out portions of documents that he deemed "non-responsive...

...Toby Roth (R-Wisc...

...Fiske concluded emphatically that Whitewater played no role in Foster's suicide...

...Neither Nussbaum nor Lindsey shielded the president from twice meeting with Tucker, a subject of the referrals, on October 6 and again on November 18...