STARR-HAZING
REES, MATTHEW
STARR-HAZING by Matthew Rees THE HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE is likely to hold its first impeachment hearing on November 16. There’s just one problem: Not a single committee Democrat believes the...
...asked Jerrold Nadler, the committee Democrat who requested the audit...
...committee Democrats such as Barney Frank and Martin Meehan have already said they want to question Starr—and Lowell is particularly eager to go after him...
...Carpetbomb Ken Starr, make life miserable for Republicans, and defend the president...
...Afterwards, White House representatives and committee Republicans took questions from the press...
...There’s every reason to believe that these tactics will intensify when the committee reconvenes after WHEN THE IMPEACHMENT HEARINGS CONVENE, DEMOCRATS ON THE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE INTEND TO PUT KENNETH STARR ON TRIAL...
...During the 90-minute meeting, the White House lawyers dominated the conversation, and it became clear that Lowell and Epstein were there primarily to bolster the Clinton defense...
...So what do they do...
...Last week, a government audit of Starr’s office expenses was released, and it noted a strange $56,810 expenditure for a copy machine, plus payments to private investigators...
...Committee Democrats, in chorus with White House officials, will amplify their complaints that the rules are rigged against them...
...Matthew Rees is a staff writer for THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...Four of them have written to Janet Reno requesting information on Starr’s activities...
...Over the past month, journalists have raised questions about Starr’s contacts with Paula Jones’s attorneys prior to Clinton’s January deposition, and committee Democrats have seized on these reports...
...But on October 29, the Washington Post—quoting Democratic committee staffers—reported incorrectly that Starr wouldn’t consider the request for materials unless it was approved by Judiciary chairman Henry Hyde...
...But no one spoke for the committee’s Democrats, indicating to Republicans that the Democrats were content to have the White House speak for them...
...Another line of attack will be that Starr has been a reckless spender...
...The next day, Starr’s deputy, Robert Bittman, responded to this extraordinary request with both a letter and a phone call to Abbe Lowell, the committee’s Democratic counsel...
...The early stages of the Democrats’ offensive played out last week...
...As for Republicans, they will have to put up with feverish committee Democrats, who will protest every Republican move and do everything else in their power to distract, disrupt, and divert...
...They say they want more clarification of the charges against the president and the standards that will be used to judge his conduct...
...The Democrats will then denounce the hearings as a circus—and thanks to the Democrats, what there’ll be is . . . a circus...
...Differences could emerge once impeachment hearings are scheduled...
...Yet with the White House and committee Democrats in total agreement on the one big issue—whether the president should be impeached— their differences will in the end prove trivial...
...There’s just one problem: Not a single committee Democrat believes the president’s behavior is impeachable...
...Democrats pounced: “Why is he wasting the taxpayers’ money...
...The White House would like the hearings to be closed to the public...
...This prompted Bittman to send an angry letter to Lowell (whom he blamed for the misrepresentation), saying the Washington Post account was “absolutely false, and you know it...
...Can Democratic unity be maintained...
...committee Democrats are likely to prefer that the hearings be open...
...On October 27, the committee’s senior Democrat, John Conyers, wrote Starr to request a slew of materials, ranging from notes taken during witness interviews to photos of the Monica Lewinsky/Linda Tripp lunch at the Ritz-Carlton...
...These highly speculative pieces argue that Starr may have been aware of the Linda Tripp tapes earlier than he subsequently let on, that he deceived Reno when he sought to expand his probe’s jurisdiction, and that the Judiciary Committee and the Justice Department should investigate him...
...This posture, say Republicans, signals that committee Democrats are more interested in savaging the independent counsel than in exploring the president’s wrongdoing...
...An eye-opener for Republicans came on October 21, when they met with the committee’s Democratic lawyers, Lowell and Julian Epstein, along with White House attorneys Charles Ruff, Gregory Craig, and David Kendall...
...Nadler is recommending that reporters read recent op-ed pieces by Richard Ben-Veniste, the Democratic counsel on the Whitewater Committee, and Lars-Erik Nelson, an anti-Starr columnist at the New York Daily News...
...Bittman advised that the Office of Independent Counsel would need a few days to respond in full...
...But of course, the audit and the procedural matters are not the real issue: Starr’s investigation is...
...A House Democratic staffer acknowledges that these issues loom large, saying, “There’s no interest in investigating Starr per se, but rather his methods and his motives, which bear directly on his referral...
...Which is awfully good news for Clinton...
...the election...
...If it can be shown that the whole thing was a set-up,” Nadler told me, “then that’s something we should look into...
...The White House fears that, if Starr is called before the committee, he will deliver an Oliver North-like performance, tipping public opinion...
Vol. 4 • November 1998 • No. 9
