On the Prowl
ON THE PROWL Daschled Hopes A verbal onslaught unleashed by Bob Kerrey against pro-Clinton colleagues in a closed-door meeting of Senate Democrats got so heated, minority leader Tom Daschle...
...Powerless House Judiciary Committee minority counsel Abbe Lowell knows for whom he works, and it isn't ranking committee Democrat John Conyers...
...They were supposed to note any odd interaction between the president and any young female staffers or guests," the source says...
...N. The American Spectator • November 1998 17...
...Outgoing House Democratic leader Vic Fazio—not seeking re-election this year—was offered a "special counsel to the President" title, but turned it down...
...When he saw himself later on videotape, he cursed himself for never having learned his lesson from the Ron Brown funeral," says the White House source, referring to the time a laughing Clinton abruptly turned teary-eyed when he noticed a television camera...
...The next day, he and his agents released this statement: "In my view, there is no correlation between my situation and the political issues being discussed in the California governor's race...
...He'd started pointing at Rockefeller, Torricelli, and then he came to Daschle...
...A source at the Washington Post/Newsweek book division, one of the companies affected, says the explanation from its Chinese partners was oddly personal...
...And the information the Star claimed it received from 'sources' is the kind of detail that could have only been pulled from his FBI file," says the Hill source...
...So those of you who read the sports pages over the last year, let me remind you of Latrell Sprewell...
...It was pointless, but they believed these ABC types were just as bad as Isikoff at Newsweek or Scaife's people...
...The White House wanted to make sure anything Judd had, they would have seen first...
...The Obsessed ABC News and its Washington-based correspondents Jackie Judd and Chris Bury aren't popular at the White House, which thinks the two reporters and their team of producers for the nightly news and "Nightline" "are out to get the president...
...And when the White House told minority leader Dick Gephardt it had offered a similar job to lobbyist and former House member Mike Barnes, Gephardt told them not to bother...
...Burton is said to believe there were few other ways the press or anyone else could have developed the story...
...Before staffers left the room, Kerrey began singling out specific senators who had "carried the president's water for far too long...
...But that support may not be as strong after Lungren compared law enforcement unions to . Latrell Sprewell, the ne'er-dowell NBA basketball star who tried to choke his coach...
...Some estimate binding arbitration could cost the state as much as $150 million a year in legal expenses...
...He was concerned not only to get the words right, but to cut back on his trademark lip-biting...
...Seems it does pay to come through for major donors, whether foreign or domestic...
...I'd have to do this almost once a week if I didn't hear from them," says the former White House worker...
...He provided the FBI with updated financial data, and the child-support documentation was part of that...
...This source recalls a late night when several White House colleagues reviewed hours of internal video tapes of events inside the White House and at fundraisers around the country going back to 1994...
...The hot issue among police and state government unions in California this year is "binding arbitration" —which allows workers about to be laid off to seek redress and possible rein16 November 1998 • The American Spectator statement through a court or civil hearing...
...While Burton's name was not among the goo-plus files sent to the White House in File-gate, investigators from Ken Starr's office are said to have looked into the possibility that information about Burton's illegitimate child and ensuing child support payments, which was fed to the Indianapolis Star, came from his FBI file...
...But in reality, no one with House experience would sign on to the president's team...
...Kerrey was angered by criticism Sens...
...It proved a smart move...
...He's worried that it has become too caricatured," says a White House aide...
...He's had to sit through too many meetings where people like Kerry keep telling the Liebermans and the Moynia hans that they have to give the president time or they have to get behind the president or whatever the White House is asking for that given week...
...Now a lot of people don't know what binding arbitration is," Lungren said in a debate against Davis...
...I'd be asked to call several female interns I knew to ask if Judd or one of her producers had contacted them...
...Gephardt was said to be so upset he refused to meet with the press afterwards, leaving Conyers to comment on discussions he was only a spectator to...
...It's suspicious that at the same time people are shopping stories about Henry Hyde's affair, other people were shopping the story about Dan Burton...
...Reportedly present at the rehearsal were chief of staff Erskine Bowles and Democratic consultant Bob Shrum, who reportedly also assisted in preparing Clinton for his disastrous August 17 broadcast...
...In the weeks leading up to the House vote on impeachment proceedings, Lowell showed he knew who's boss by seeking out Gephardt to brief him on the various facets of the Lewinsky evidence before sitting down with Conyers...
...He simply didn't have the gravitas or the influence to make a difference in the minds of House leaders...
...This Old House The Washington conventional wisdom is that the White House brought back former legislative liaisons Susan Brophy and Steve Ricchetti to fight for President Clinton on the Hill because both had lobbied the Senate in their earlier jobs...
...As to why Burton's name has never appeared on a list of files previously held by the White House, an FBI source says, "We've never been able to confirm it, but there are some who strongly believe the White House had more than 1,20o files in its possession at one time in 1993, including FBI files on congressmen and senators...
...A Republican Judiciary source tells the Prowler that Lowell also passed along to Conyers talking points from Gephardt's staff on what to tell the press...
...A Crying Shame The night before President Clinton's faux mea culpa at the annual White House prayer breakfast, he spent more than an hour practicing in front of a video camera in the White House residence...
...Kerrey's had it with the lot of them...
...They said the reason cited by their government was that they didn't want to embarrass this president...
...That it was a sensitive time in China's relationship with the U.S...
...Dan Burton suspect he was the first official to be publicly slimed by information culled by White House hacks going through Republican FBI files...
...Jay Rockefeller and John Kerry directed at Joseph Lieberman for his floor speech chastising the president over the Lewinsky scandal, and by Kerry's request that colleagues withhold any "overtly negative" comments about Clinton until he had been given a "suitable period of time to defend himself" That's when Kerrey took the floor...
...We've never received what could be termed an `accurate and final' count on how many files the White House held...
...Quite frankly, I'd prefer to be left out" So there...
...At a closed-door meeting of Speaker Newt Gingrich, Gephardt, Judiciary Chairman Henry Hyde, and Conyers, Gephardt did most of the talking for the Democrats while Conyers quietly sat by...
...The president's advisers spun that the president wanted to focus his lobbying on the Senate side, because that would be where the actual impeachment vote would come," says a White House press operative...
...A former White House aide now working elsewhere in the administration tells the Prowler that some White House aides are obsessed with Judd and Bury and any projects they might be working on...
...publishers were blocked from importing copies of The Starr Report and other quicky books filled with materials released by the House Judiciary Committee...
...All Choked Up Dan Lungren, California's Republican nominee for governor and the sitting attorney general, was banking on major support from law enforcement in his race against Gray Davis...
...As a result, Gephardt did the hiring and Conyers was shut out...
...ON THE PROWL Daschled Hopes A verbal onslaught unleashed by Bob Kerrey against pro-Clinton colleagues in a closed-door meeting of Senate Democrats got so heated, minority leader Tom Daschle interrupted to ask senior staffers present to leave the room...
...Remember the guy who tried to choke his coach out...
...The White House had floated offers to a number of people who might carry weight in both houses of Congress—including former Senate majority leader George Mitchell...
...The last time the FBI ran a check on Burton was in 1992, and that is the first time they noted child-support payments in the report," says a Capitol Hill source familiar with Burton's situation...
...Sprewell took umbrage as well...
...As the finger pointing continued, Daschle cut Kerrey off and ordered all staff out...
...The results this time weren't much better: For instance, during the prayer breakfast TV viewers saw Clinton steal glances to check if he was still on camera when he should have had his head bowed in prayer...
...It's Payback Time At least three companies with joint operating agreements with U.S...
...The police unions are upset at the suggestion they have a chokehold on taxpayers...
...Senator Kerrey wasn't about to let Rockefeller and Kerry off the hook for blindly defending a man he rightly believes has disgraced his office and the Democratic Party," said a source in Kerrey's office...
...Normally Conyers and his staff would have done the hiring for this critical job, but minority leader Dick Gephardt doesn't believe Conyers is up to the task of running his side of the committee...
...Filegate Plus Capitol Hill allies of Rep...
...As it happens, that meeting was brief Gingrich and Hyde informed Gephardt there'd be no deals cut for the president, and no negotiations on that front either...
...Barnes was deemed a nonstarter," says the White House source...
...and they didn't want to anger the president...
...They're especially interested in a story Judd is said to have been slavishly pursuing for months: the possibility that a second White House intern had experiences similar to Monica Lewinsky's...
...That was when everyone was ordered out...
Vol. 31 • November 1998 • No. 11
