On the Prowl
ON THE PROWL Empty Lott Even before concluding budget talks with the White House, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott was catching flak from all quarters, including his own staff on Capitol Hill....
...In his report to Congress, Klayman notes that by testifying under oath in the Judicial Watch case, "Huang waived any Fifth Amendment rights he may have been able to assert...
...He betrayed us," says a House leadership budget analyst...
...Before November 3 he spent two weeks criss-crossing the country to appear in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Cincinnati, Albuquerque, and finally Houston on behalf of Democratic House candidates...
...Enough's Enough After the yeoman work he did blocking and obfuscating the Senate's campaign finance investigation, Sen...
...Phone Sex "He really poured it on thick," says a White House press aide about the lobbying President Clinton performed on House Democrats soon to vote on an impeachment inquiry...
...Dead Ringer Republican Rep...
...The Clear Vision Thing Texas expects to have a $3 billion budget surplus for the last fiscal year, so Gov...
...If we had a nickel for every time Clinton invoked the words 'children's future,' the federal surplus would be another five billion richer...
...Anger with Lott isn't confined to Senate Republicans...
...From his talks with the House and Senate leadership, he sensed that if he just came out and told Democrats how he knew he had betrayed them, he could have them eating out of his hand again...
...It didn't go unnoticed that Nickles voted against the budget deal," says the Lott aide...
...His campaign people say Jackson is gearing up for the future by compiling a national fundraising database for future campaigns, maybe for the Senate, maybe for something bigger," said a Republican consultant in California...
...Top Secret Diaries Judicial Watch director Larry Klayman calls them a potential "Rosetta Stone" to understanding the secret workings of Clinton fundraising techniques...
...They" are the 12-volume diaries in which the late Commerce Secretary Ron Brown's chief of staff, William Ginsberg, detailed the buying and selling of influence by Brown and the Clinton White House...
...In fact, Lott undermined Republicans on issues they were touting...
...Names and money are just the beginning...
...John Glenn was rewarded by Bill Clinton with a return trip into space...
...That may be so...
...marshals (and the press...
...This allowed three Democratic senators locked in tight races— South Carolina's Ernest Hollings, Wisconsin's Russell Feingold, and Washington's Patty Murray —to spend a long weekend campaigning at home, while their House Republicans challengers Bob Inglis, Mark Neumann, and Linda Smith remained stuck inside the Beltway...
...In the days before the vote both the president and his wife called some seventy-five Democrats thought to be on the fence...
...Until now, the Clinton Justice Department has never sought to interview Huang—nor, and this is harder to fathom, have any of the congressional committees investigating the Clinton scandals...
...For us, it's a disastrous budget deal...
...Dunces How badly did Democrats outflank Republicans during the budget baffles...
...He's Going Places Rep...
...Jackson was happy to help because he wants a slot on the House Appropriations Committee, and was promised one by Frost before he arrived in Frost's neighborhood...
...Only one speech was used, by Pennsylvania Rep...
...Meanwhile the Democrats have the president talking about kids nonstop," complained a House GOP Conference Committee staffer...
...Jackson brought along his own campaign staffers, who used the various stops to approach other candidates' donors and finance people...
...has become a hot commodity...
...Both pressed Nickles to challenge Lott, particularly if the Republicans fail to gain seats in the Senate...
...Frost, a key House Democratic leader who faced a tough reelection race, was counting on Jackson to mobilize the large black voter block in his district...
...His wife, Sandi, is often by his side, taking down the names and addresses of ministers, elected officials, and others for a growing database of supporters and potential supporters...
...While even the speaker has been impressed with Graham's performance during the impeachment procedurals, he is loath to give Graham any opportunities...
...The speaker knows he's going to have to do something with Graham," says a congressman in the leadership...
...Now the retiring Glenn wants nothing to do with politics in Washington...
...For Jackson, a shoo-in for re-election in a district covering part of Chicago's South Side and suburbs, travel means extending his family's political network...
...But according to the administration's own motion to keep the diaries from becoming 14 December 1998 • The American Spectator court evidence, Ginsberg also commented on the relationship of top DNC contributors such as Loral President Bernard Schwartz to Clinton administration officials, including his boss, Ron Brown...
...He knew he was putting them in a tough spot, when he closed with that line," says the press aide...
...Bill Goodling...
...Judicial Watch came into prominence in October 1996 when it successfully cornered former Lippo Bank official, Commerce Department appointee, and DNC fund-raiser John Huang at a time he was successfully eluding U.S...
...House members were particularly irked that, while the House remained in session, Lott allowed the Senate to go into recess during part of the budget negotiations...
...But don't expect Newt Gingrich to go along...
...Lindsey has his supporters among us, but he may just have to wait a few more months before we can find something for him that the speaker is comfortable with...
...And he may very well have hurt the Senate with his actions during the budget negotiations...
...Klayman has sent a 145-page legal brief and 4,000 pages of supporting documentation to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry Hyde, hoping to convince Hyde to expand his impeachment inquiry to include Filegate, the Clintons' abuse of the IRS, Commerce Department fundraising activities, and the Clintons' legal defense "trust" fund, which Klayman claims violates anti-bribery statutes...
...Sometimes they just make it too easy...
...There was more to this campaigning than collegiality...
...Dismayed by Lott, Senate Majority Whip Don Nickles held meetings with Howard 9 Phillips, head of the Conservative Caucus, and James Dobson, head of Focus on the 0 Family...
...Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, is being talked up by colleagues for some kind of leadership post in the io6th Congress...
...We had a sense he would, but it's still disappointing that the leadership couldn't put up a solid front...
...NEA cuts, cuts in federally subsidized abortion and birth-control programs, and the Senate's attempt to wipe out the marriage-tax penalty were removed from the Senate version of the omnibus bill even before negotiations with the White House began...
...Jesse Jackson, Jr...
...He never tried to set up a united front with Gingrich, and the White House was able to beat us over the head," says a Senate leadership aide in Lott's office...
...Things got so bad, he said, that his committee wrote ten "theme" speeches on education and asked members to deliver them on the floor...
...Martin Frost's district...
...Lott basically allowed Gingrich to make concessions we never should have made...
...Judicial Watch discovered the existence of the Ginsberg diaries during depositions of current and former administration officials in its effort to document the selling of seats on taxpayer-sponsored foreign trade missions to top DNC donors such as Schwartz...
...We couldn't get a Republican to speak out on what Republicans were doing for education...
...Despite what he says, George W. wants to run for president in 2000," says a campaign consultant who worked on father George Bush's 1992 presidential re-election campaign...
...After apologizing for his behavior, the Prowler has learned, Clinton would exchange small talk with the congressman on the other end, then finish the call with this line: "I ask for you to be faithful to me as I was not faithful to you...
...Congressional Democrats, led by Dick Gephardt, Tom Daschle, and David Bonior, held more than 15o press conferences and events to hammer home Democratic positions on school children and education...
...Republicans countered with nothing, even though the education bill became the central battleground in the budget fights...
...This contrite come-on apparently worked...
...And besides, he's giving his people a bigger tax cut than Gingrich ever gave his...
...Though Republicans did score by ensuring that local school boards would receive money from state-dispersed block grants, they lost the P.R...
...The American Spectator December 1998 15...
...The White House had expected about 45 to 5o Democrats to break ranks and vote for the inquiry...
...That's because Graham was one of House whip Tom DeLay's ringleaders in his attempt to oust Gingrich two years ago...
...George W. Bush plans to announce in early January that he is giving $2.5 billion back to state residents in the form of a tax cut...
...In Texas, Jackson toured and spoke at a number of churches in Rep...
...The administration is understandably trying to keep the 3,600 pages of notes under wraps, arguing that they contain "state secrets" because Ginsberg took them during meetings at the National Security Council and the Commerce Department at which highly-classified information on satellite surveillance, intelligence personnel and capabilities, and encryption was discussed...
...He knows that tax cut will help him with the fiscal conservatives and the Christian Coalition...
...When Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle asked Glenn to be ready to leave Cape Canaveral if his vote was needed on the budget bill, Glenn flatly told him no...
Vol. 31 • December 1998 • No. 12
