On the Prowl
"On the Prowl" The Green Monster The rift is widening between conservative House Republicans and their Speaker. House majority whip Tom DeLay was said to be furious with Newt Gingrich for not...
...And what about his clout with the president himself...
...Hinson told the committee that the FAANalujet deal was still in the works on Wednesday, June 12...
...Meanwhile, no one is asking what having Powell on the ticket will add to Dole's shaky appeal among conservatives...
...Everybody went to bed Wednesday thinking Valujet would be allowed to continue to operate a reduced schedule," he says...
...Livingstone was the advance man...
...the investigation had discovered the crash did not result from a maintenance problem but rather a stupid mistake by one of the airline's contractors...
...Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr is looking into the Parks murder...
...He suspects some other factor...
...Recently, Shuster held hearings to question Hinson and other FAA officials about the White House meeting...
...Freshmen Republicans led by Idaho's Helen Chenoweth confronted DeLay on Gingrich's greenish leanings, but his attempts to resolve the dispute were met by silence from the Speaker's office...
...House majority whip Tom DeLay was said to be furious with Newt Gingrich for not backing conservative attempts this spring to roll back federal environmental policies approved by the Clinton administration in 1993...
...On Capitol Hill, eyebrows went up after investigators learned the announcement came just hours after Hinson and Transportation Secretary Federico Pena met at the White House with George Stephanopoulos and Leon Panetta -"noted aviation his relationship with majority leader Dick Armey...
...But the question that no member asked was: Had there been any earlier contact between the White House and the aviation bureaucracy...
...Although Livingstone now says he had virtually no contact with Clinton, he was singing a different song in a much-cited 1994 profile published in his hometown paper the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette...
...According to his widow, this sudden cash flow came from the first installment of long-delayed payments from the Clinton campaign...
...Here's what is known so far: On Tuesday, June ii, FAA chief David Hinson went to Capitol Hill to brief Transportation and Infrastructure Committee members on his investigation into the crash of Valujet flight 592...
...He asked the general to keep an "open mind," and Powell replied that, despite public pronouncements, he hasn't ruled out anything...
...When Hinson went to the White House on Monday, the decision had been made," says one congressional investigator...
...Jerry Parks (cont...
...But someone else apparently did...
...After making monthly pay ments on the loan for two and a half years, Parks prepaid the $32,000 balance in June 1993, three months before his murder...
...The groundwork may have already been laid at a June fundraiser for Virginia Senator John Warner, where Dole met with Powell for an hour...
...Hinson assured chairman Bud Shuster that the FAA had found nothing to warrant a shutdown of Valujet...
...There's reason to be suspicious...
...Hinson said the FAA and Valujet were on the verge of an agreement that would allow the airline to continue operating on fewer routes with fewer planes...
...Look for more hearings...
...And the article offers some proof in its description of Clinton's visit to the Tin Angel, a Pittsburgh restaurant where the president dined with British Prime Minister John Major in February 1994...
...First, Livingstone won kudos from the Clinton team for his work keeping errant First Brother Roger Clinton out of sight during the 1992 campaign...
...The White House counsel's office never seems to learn...
...One night at 11 o'clock [Livingstone's] private phone rang," the restaurant owner told the Post-Gazette...
...The stuff in the shutdown order is essentially the same that was known ten days before...
...Then, six days later, the FAA announced that Valujet would be shut down-effectively killing the airline...
...Why haven't local homicide investigators been given access to these records...
...On the morning that FBI Director Louis Freeh was to release his initial report on the White House Personnel Security Office's requests for former White House employee personnel files, the counsel's office requested an advance copy of the Freeh report, citing the need to prepare a response for the press...
...After 14 August r996 • The American Spectator experts," in the words of one Hill staffer...
...The breaking point came when Armey learned that Gingrich went behind his back to negotiate a scheduled vote 0 on a minimum-wage increase-having promised Armey he would not...
...Freeh denied the request, and later cut loose with the harshest criticism of the White House by an FBI head in decades...
...Despite denials all 'round, some congressional investigators remain suspicious...
...Despite across-the-board White House denials of responsibility, a few clues are emerging...
...Next, he caught Hillary Rodham Clinton's eye after he was given the task of controlling "unauthorized access" to the candidate's hotel suites in New York during the Democratic convention...
...Afterward Dole was extremely upbeat and asked his staff to try to schedule at least three more "long" meetings with Powell before the San Diego convention...
...The decision, Hinson told the committee, had been made by FAA officials in Atlanta...
...As reported in the June TAS, in 1989 Parks received a large SBA backed loan financed by the Arkansas Teachers Retirement System, a sign of some political clout...
...Hinson insisted there had been no interference, that the meeting was simply to inform White House officials of the impending shutdown...
...The mystery surrounding the 1993 murder of Luther Gerald Parks deepens...
...Heads Up...
...Parks's loan file, newly obtained by TAS, contains another surprise...
...The fact that more than $50,000 worth of computer and photocopying equipment-plus two rental cars -"disappeared" on Livingstone's watch as head of security for the inaugural committee seemed to have little impact on his rising stock...
...Parks says, a team of eleven agents from four separate federal agencies showed up at her house to inspect her late husband's papers...
...Armey denied that such a meeting took place...
...Shortly after the murder, Mrs...
...But they say the story is more complicated than first believed...
...Gingrich's recent deviations have further undercut this betrayal Armey and Gingrich did not speak for ten days...
...I am absolutely skeptical of the official proposition that five bureaucrats in Atlanta did a 18o-degree change overnight...
...He also won a nickname: "The Babysitter...
...Livingstone said he saw Clinton almost daily and sat in on an occasional meeting with him...
...It thus appears that Parks, who was trying to collect a much larger sum for his services, began to receive some of it earlier than previously reported...
...Does he have an obstruction of justice case in the works...
...The local police investigation into the murder has focused on personal feuds-and ignored Parks's political ties...
...strong-armed the FAA at the White House meeting...
...Adding insult to injury, Gingrich then endorsed a series of environmentalist measures, such as a broadened endangered species list, new logging limits, and the creation of new environmentally protected land tracts...
...Parks, whose firm provided security to Clinton campaign headquarters in 1992, was shot dead at a rural intersection just west of Little Rock on September 23,1993...
...Powell didn't help himself on this score when he declined an olive branch from Ralph Reed and the Christian Coalition, turning down their request that he mediate an Atlanta meeting with black ministers in the wake of recent church burnings...
...Shutdown Touchdown Did the White House orchestrate the decision to shut down Valujet Airlines...
...Why didn't the pension funds officials come forward to help in the investigation, or for that matter Clinton campaign officials Dee Dee Myers and Betsey Wright, whom Parks had dunned for his money...
...It was the president's operator asking a question for Clinton...
...Then on Thursday, they changed their minds...
...Then he won over Clinton friend Harry Thomason when he was able to provide everything from wheels to barbecue during the transition...
...Aides say Shuster accepted Hinson's explanation and believes it is unlikely that Stephanopoulos & Co...
...Only the president's office calls him on that phone and when it rang he said, `That's the big guy' and left the room...
...Meanwhile, one would think that large and unusual cash flows were relevant facts in a murder investigation, but local police may not have heard of them...
...Hinson said the Atlanta staff made the decision after discovering new violations in Valujet maintenance...
...O N THE PROW L The Green Monster The rift is widening between conservative House Republicans and their Speaker...
...Pressuring Powell Among senior Dole campaign staffers it's known as the "io percent solution": If their man fails to close the poll gap between himself and Bill Clinton by convention time, the full-court press to sign up Colin Powell for the vicepresidential nomination will begin...
...That's bull," says the congressional investigator...
...15 The American Spectator • August 1996...
...When told of the ATRS loan, Tom James of the Little Rock police Special Investigations Division said, "I didn't know about that...
...The Bouncing Babysitter Just how did recently departed White House filemeister Craig Livingstone get his job...
...Then, on Thursday the 13th, the FAA changed course and opted for the shutdown...
...Once inside the White House, Livingstone collected IOU's from a number of folks for whom he had secured permanent security passes not only to the Old Executive Office Building but also to the West Wing, while sparing them the customary full-background searchesThomason, Susan Thomases, Harold Ickes, Ira Magaziner, and Rahm Emanuel, among others...
...Gingrich broke the silence after staffers heard rumors that Armey had met with several Republican freshmen from western states who want Armey to challenge Gingrich for the speakership should the GOP retain control of the House this fall...
Vol. 29 • August 1996 • No. 8
