A Reputation For Good

...On September 17, 1999, Smith adopted Mandanici's complaint, alleging that the Office of the Independent Counsel had tried to control his testimony...

...The juxtaposition of the two rulings prompted the Washington Post to comment: "Whatever one thinks of Mr...

...50 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR ¦ April 2001...

...The American Spectators Byron York aptly noted that the investigation was not so complicated that it should have dragged on for years...

...The Justice Department investigation centered on the issue of leaks, but after beginning with a public announcement seeking to discredit Starr, the investigation was eventually put on hold...

...Starr and Mr...

...After the Lewinsky story broke, the charges that Starr was leaking information, unethically or even illegally, became louder and more insistent...

...At the same time Kendall was attacking Starr in Congress, he was intensifying his demands that Janet Reno open a Justice Department investigation against Starr and his deputies...

...This would allow Clinton's lawyers an inside track into Starr's investigation of their client, the president...

...Judge Susan Webber Wright, along with two other judges, dismissed Mandanici's complaint because Mandanici could not show he had standing as an affected party...

...On September 13, 1999, the D.C...

...She also ruled that President Clinton's lawyers could participate in the investigation against Starr...

...Again, the White House called on Janet Reno to open another investigation into Starr's conduct...

...The allegation was based on Starr's conduct as a private attorney...

...In the first week of February 1998, David Kendall publicly accused Starr of being "obviously out of control when it comes to leaking," and accused Starr of an "appalling disregard" for the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, specifically Rule 6(e), prohibiting the disclosure of grand jury evidence...

...Nangle described as "meritless" and "completely frivolous" Smith's allegations that he had been pressured by Starr commencement of a criminal investigation by this office" against Ken Starr for alleged wrongdoing in his representation of General Motors Corporation in 1995...

...York was exactly right, which is why two separate federal courts ruled that no illegal leaks came from the Starr investigation...

...These sessions provided Clinton's lawyers with the same information that Starr had, which means they could have been responsible for all the leaks they were accusing Starr of making...

...In March 1999, the Special Division of the Federal Appeals Court ruled that the Justice Department could investigate the independent counsel...

...Early in the Lewinsky scandal, with Dick Morris holding polling evidence suggesting substantial public sentiment for the president's resignation, Clinton and his aides opted for a counterattack against Kenneth Starr and his deputies, to divert Starr's energies from prosecuting Clinton to defending himself...

...After three years, Frank Mandanici finally succeeded in finding a judge to hear his allegation that Ken Starr had a conflict of interest in investigating the president...

...He said that the abuse of power claims against Starr were "nonsense...absolutely ridiculous...

...Further, the [independent counsel] prevailed in 17 out of 18 appeals in matters it was handling...

...The conflict was a supposed connection between Starr and Clinton critic Richard Mellon Scaife, who was a contributor to Pepperdine, which had offered Starr a job...

...Following Judge Wright's ruling that Mandanici lacked standing to bring the case, Stephen A. Smith, a convicted Whitewater defendant, stepped in to fill the breach...

...But perhaps now more fair-minded people are ready for the true story of the most effective Clinton smear of all...

...Starr was vindicated on every charge...

...Steele's attorney, Nancy Luque, in her motion to intervene in the Mandanici action, accused Starr of suborning Steele's perjury...

...Clinton, was the one with ethical problems...

...Ultimately, the court of appeals restricted the participation of Clinton's lawyers in the investigation because it would be "an unnecessary detraction from the main business of the grand jury's investigation" and would allow the possible targets of a grand jury investigation too much information about the case being built against them...

...Steele presented "absolutely no evidence that the OIC ever directly or impliedly [sic] asked her to lie...

...Specifically, he charged that Starr's plan to accept a position at Pepperdine University was improper in that one of the university's major contributors was Clinton nemesis Richard Mellon Scaife...

...The scandals of Clinton's parting days have prompted even the former president's most staunch allies in the media to reassess their views of Clinton...

...In a meeting at the Justice Department in mid-November 1998, just four days before his scheduled appearance at the House Judiciary Committee's impeachment hearings, Reno informed Starr that she planned to investigate his conduct...

...Even then, they were barely publicized...

...Within less than a year, Judge Kern submitted his findings to Judge Johnson, completely clearing Starr of leaking secret grand jury information...

...Right on cue, Congressman John Conyers, senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, asked Attorney General Janet Reno to investigate whether Starr should be removed or disciplined for "repeated instances of alleged misconduct and abuses of power...

...The judicial ruling was kept under seal, and when it was revealed, it was barely reported by the media...

...When Judge Johnson's sealed ruling was made public, other legal documents came to light revealing the extreme extent to which Clinton's lawyers had tried to impede Starr's investigations...

...In June 1997, Clinton lawyer David Kendall accused Starr of an unethical "leak-and-smear" campaign against the president, and leaks would remain a key charge through the impeachment trial...

...In dismissing all three ethics complaints by Mandanici, Smith, and Steele, Judge Nangle said, "There is not one shred of support in the hundreds of pages of documents submitted by Mandanici to support these subjective opinions...

...The judge ruled that Ms...

...Few's complaint alleged that Starr had withheld from the court evidence that his client had committed perjury...

...Lee J. Radek, chief of the Justice Department's public integrity section, found insufficient evidence "for the Lewinsky scandal to 24 media outlets...

...Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously overturned Judge Johnson's order that Kenneth Starr face criminal contempt proceedings for allegedly leaking grand jury information to the New York Times...

...Circuit held "that the disclosures made in the New York Times article did not constitute secret grand jury information covered by Rule 6(e...

...A Justice Department spokesman said the department would review the congressman's request...

...The next volley against Starr arose from his interview with the magazine Brill's Content...

...Some questioned whether it was coincidental that this complaint against Starr involved perjury, the very crime most central to Starr's investigation against President Clinton in the Lewinsky matter...

...Judge Nangle referred to the claim that Starr violated the Independent Counsel Act by testifying to Congress as "ridiculous...

...Over the coming months, Clinton's lawyers and henchmen would accuse Starr and his assistants of violating Justice Department guidelines, conflicts of interest, illegal leaks of secret grand jury information, colluding with Paula Jones's attorneys to entrap the president, and more...

...A week later an Arkansas Supreme Court panel called for President Clinton's disbarment for lying under oath and obstructing the judicial process...

...and multiple abuses of power...

...Judge Johnson, said the court, applied too expansive a reading to Rule 6(e...

...nications were leaks at all, stating that they were proper background briefings having nothing to do with grand jury secrets...

...tampering with witnesses...

...Even on that charge, she found no reason to take further legal action aside from expressing her disapproval of the tactic, though the Justice Department would later make noise about inquiring into this issue...

...The questions involved are so narrow...that it could have been wrapped up in a few months at most...

...Two of them were filed in federal court and five with the Justice Department...

...Only after Clinton's fate was determined did the facts begin to come out about the illegitimacy of the charges against Starr...

...Frank Mandanici also filed a complaint with the Justice Department concerning Starr's alleged conflicts of interest...

...Kendall Few, a South Carolina attorney who had opposed Starr in litigation involving General Motors, filed a complaint with the Justice Department asking it to investigate Starr for obstruction of justice...

...Judge Nangle referred to charges that Starr violated the Independent Counsel Act as "ridiculous" and the abuse of power claims as "nonsense...

...In a sealed ruling dated April 28, 1998—but not made public until December 4,1998, giving Clinton's propagandists nearly two-thirds of a year to misrepresent the facts—federal district judge Norma Holloway Johnson cleared Starr of all but the immunity charge...

...Starr learned after the meeting that Newsweek was about to publish a story on Reno's decision to review his conduct—a leak that would obviously undermine his credibility with Congress...

...by david limbaugh Even in the wake of Bill Clinton's revolting performance in his last few days in office, those on Clinton's team who spent years slandering Ken Starr, and those in the media who helped spread the slanders, persist in maintaining, in the words of Jeffrey Toobin, that "Clinton was by comparison the good guy in the struggle...

...When Judge Johnson's sealed ruling appointing a special master became public in late October, White House Counsel Gregory Craig jumped at 48 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR ¦ April 2001 another opportunity to lash out at Starr...

...putting partisan interests above the rule of law...

...Nangle added, "It is important to remember that not only are prosecutors allowed to be zealous in their positions, they have a duty to be zealous...

...Federal district judge Norma Holloway Johnson questioned Starr about his alleged leaks, and in a sealed violations of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure...

...When Urborn disqualified himself because of a potential conflict of interest, the chief judge appointed district judge John F. Nangle to preside...

...In the interview, Starr candidly revealed his background contacts with various media outlets concerning his investigation...

...This lends credence," said Craig, "to what we have been saying all along...

...Prosecutors' statements about their investigations...

...House Democrats made his conduct, rather than Clinton's, the focus of their questioning...

...General Motors said Starr's representation of the company "was proper in every respect" and that any accusations to the contrary were "unfounded...

...The New York Times, for example, titled one of its stories, "Starr Admits to Leaks, Denies Acting Illegally...

...House Democrats made his conduct, rather than Clinto' s, the focus of their questioning...

...numerous criminal leaks of grand jury information...

...After further review of the evidence, Judge Johnson, in another sealed ruling on September 25, 1998, found that Starr had committed "serious and repetitive" Starr appeared before the House on the first day of the impeachment hearings...

...She ordered him to "show cause" why he shouldn't be held in contempt...

...implicate the Rule only when they directly reveal grand jury matters...

...By the time he resigned, he and his office had been accused by President Clinton, his lawyers, or other Clinton allies of: suborning perjury...

...in early February 1999, around the time the Senate was conducting its final deliberations in President Clinton's impeachment trial...

...Even before the Lewinsky news broke, the White House had ratcheted up its attacks against Starr...

...Every charge against Starr proved false...

...The validation of Starr's efforts is evident in his record of 14 convictions in complex, high profile cases...

...On October 12, 1999, Julie Hiatt Steele, whom Starr prosecuted for obstruction of justice to a deadlocked jury, also joined Mandanici in his complaint against Starr...

...Congressional Democrats filed two separate complaints with the Justice Department alleging illegal leaks and demanding an investigation, and Monica Lewinsky's attorney, William Ginsburg, piled on with his own leak allegation...

...A record this successful could not have been established on baseless evidence...

...improper collusion with Paula Jones's attorneys...

...Rather than come to the same conclusion, the Justice Department merely let its own investigation fizzle out...

...Of course, Mr...

...The president's lawyer, David Kendall, similarly derided Starr on a litany of grounds, from not being present personally during witness interviews and testimony to the familiar refrain about grand jury leaks...

...It is time they reconsider Ken Starr as well...

...A court may not use Rule 6(e) to generally regulate prose-cutorial statements to the press," said the D.C...

...On October 8, 1998, the House of Representatives voted 258 to 176 to launch an inquiry to determine whether President Clinton had committed impeachable offenses...

...But Starr denied his commuruling on June 19, 1998, she found that a prima facie case—evidence that at first sight supports an allegation—for contempt of court had been established against him...

...When Starr was appointed, he was one of the most respected jurists in the United States...

...The media reported that in mid-January Janet Reno had written a letter to Ken Starr, advising him that the Justice Department was going to formally investigate the conduct of the Office of the Independent Counsel...

...She appointed John W. Kern III, a senior judge on the D.C...

...In the first six weeks following Clinton's denial that he had sex with Monica, no fewer than seven formal complaints were filed (or appealed) against Starr...

...entrapping the president...

...While Kendall and various Clinton aides bludgeoned Starr publicly for leaking, Clinton's lawyers routinely debriefed the grand jury witnesses...

...According to the Times, the material being disseminated was a summary of Kendall Few's complaint against Starr with the Justice Department...

...In 1997, attorney Frank Mandanici had filed a bizarre ethics complaint against Starr in federal district court in Little Rock alleging that Starr had conflicts of interest that should preclude him from serving as independent counsel and subject him to disciplinary action...

...And Kendall filed a sealed motion in federal court in Washington seeking to have Starr held in contempt and his office investigated...

...Another very suspiciously timed leak by the Justice Department would occur Among the complaints were that Starr abused his authority to convene grand juries, improperly pressed witnesses, and illegally leaked secret grand jury information, and once again that Starr had violated Justice Department rules by discussing an immunity agreement with Monica Lewinsky without her lawyer being present...

...falsely imprisoning Monica Lewinsky...

...It was as though the executive branch of our government had been turned over to Abbie Hoffman and the Chicago Seven, who decided to terrorize a "straight" prosecutor with every power at their disposal—from pornogra-phers to the Justice Department...

...But the week's events made pretty clear which of the lawyers in this battle, Mr...

...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR ¦ April 2001 49 In addressing the many conflict of interest charges against Starr, Judge Nangle used the following language: "very dubious," "the stuff that dreams are made of," "this court has never heard a more absurd argument," "it is totally illogical," and "there is no evidence to support it...

...Special Master John W. Kern had been appointed by Judge Norma Holloway Johnson to determine whether Starr illegally leaked secret grand jury information concerning the It was as though the executive branch had been turned over to Abbie Hoffman and the Chicago Seven, who decided to terrorize a "straight" prosecutor with every power at their disposal...

...The White House incessantly accused Starr and his deputies of abusing Monica Lewinsky at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, saying they denied her permission to call her lawyer, held her prisoner in the hotel room, and improperly discussed an immunity deal without her lawyer being present...

...The chief judge then appointed district judge Warren K. Urborn to hear it...

...Among their gambits was an unsuccessful effort to subpoena Starr "to appear at their office and testify on July 13, and from day to day thereafter until completed...

...The D.C...

...to lie...

...On December 21, all seven federal judges in Little Rock recused themselves from the Mandanici-Smith-Steele case...

...In addition to Kendall's complaint with the federal court in Washington, D.C., there was also action in another federal circuit...

...Eventually, however, Whitewater defendant Steven Smith would step in to adopt Mandanici's complaint, allowing the proceeding to go forward...

...Starr's performance as a lawyer for the General Motors Corporation in the early 1990s...

...conflicts of interest...

...The New York Times reported that just a week after Starr called Sidney Blumenthal before the grand jury, Clinton's aides "circulated a batch of material critical of Mr...

...The article suggested that Starr orchestrated the "leaks" to pressure Monica Lewinsky and her attorney into cooperating with Starr's investigation...

...On May 18, 2000, Judge Nangle issued a scathing order refusing to appoint a special counsel to investigate Ken Starr...

...Starr appeared before the House Judiciary Committee on November 19, 1998, the first day of its impeachment hearings...

...In the article, Steven Brill identified twenty-four news stories that supposedly came from Starr's office...

...On NBC's Meet the Press, James Carville said repeatedly that the independent counsel was engaged in a systematic leak of grand jury information in "a concerted effort to get the president...

...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR ¦ April 2001 47 The majority involved allegations of leaks, but there were other charges...

...The Democrats' chief attorney, Abbe Lowell, conspicuously avoided any discussion of the evidence Starr marshaled against Clinton, reserving his time for berating Starr for his alleged misconduct...

...civil and criminal contempt of court...

...Circuit Court of Appeals, as special master to investigate and report back to her...

...The media lent legitimacy to the charges against Starr by persistently referring to Starr's discussions with the press as "leaks...

...Circuit...

...Starr's investigation, and we have expressed our own reservations, Judge Nangle's opinion offers powerful vindication on some of the leading ethical charges...

...being sexual perverts...

...refusing to allow Lewinsky to call her attorney and unethically discussing an immunity deal with her without her attorney being present...