-Caveat Lector- from: http://www.aci.net/kalliste/ <A HREF="http://www.aci.net/kalliste/">The Home Page of J. Orlin Grabbe</A> ----- Impeached POTUS Starr Is Sure He Has Constitutional Authority to Indict Clinton in Office by Don Van Natta Jr. WASHINGTON -- The independent counsel, Kenneth W. Starr, has concluded that he has the constitutional authority to seek a grand jury indictment of President Clinton before he leaves the White House in January 2001, several associates of Starr said this week. While the President's legal team has fought in the Senate chamber for the President's political survival, Starr and his prosecutors have actively considered whether to ask a Federal grand jury here to indict Clinton before his term expires, said Starr's associates, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. But these associates emphasized that Starr had not decided whether, or when, to ask the grand jury to charge Clinton with perjury and obstruction of justice in the Monica S. Lewinsky matter. "He is persuaded by precedent and logic that a sitting President can be indicted," said an associate who speaks frequently with Starr. "But he has given no hint about whether he would do it, either now or sometime down the road." Before taking such unprecedented action, Starr would be guided by a number of factors, including the impact that an indictment of the President would have on the nation and the Government, said the associates and others with whom Starr has discussed the matter. The associates say that Starr agrees with the conclusion of his office's two constitutional law scholars, who say that the Constitution and legal precedent provide a prosecutor with the authority to seek the indictment, trial and conviction of a sitting President. The scholars concluded that the 1997 Supreme Court decision allowing the Paula Jones sexual misconduct lawsuit to proceed while the Clinton was in office greatly increased the chances that an indictment of the President would survive a constitutional challenge by his lawyers, the associates said. Although most constitutional scholars say that a sitting President can be indicted, the majority of them who have written or spoken on the subject believe that a trial would have to wait until the President left office. Lawyers in Starr's office have been poring over the record of the debates within the office of Leon Jaworski, the Watergate special prosecutor, over whether to indict President Richard M. Nixon, both before and after his resignation, the associates said. To do that, Starr's lawyers scoured autobiographies, including Jaworski's, and obtained copies of prosecution memorandums in the National Archives written by the Watergate prosecutors, the associates said. These discussions in Starr's office occur at a highly sensitive time. Several Senate votes on procedural issues this week made it all but certain that there was not the two-thirds majority, 67 votes, required to convict Clinton on the two articles of impeachment and remove him from office. Starr and his prosecutors have had no communications with the House managers or the White House about the possibility of including Clinton's future criminal jeopardy in negotiations over a censure, the associates said. Charles G. Bakaly 3d, the spokesman for Starr, declined to discuss the matter. "We will not discuss the plans of this office or the plans of the grand jury in any way, shape or form," he said. Clinton Lawyers Cite Possible Indictment As recently as this week, the President's lawyers had argued in the Senate trial that they were deeply concerned that the Office of Independent Counsel would seek the indictment of Clinton after his term expired on Jan. 20, 2001. David E. Kendall, one of the President's personal lawyers, has demanded that House managers provide access to about 55,000 pages of unreleased documents compiled by Starr that lawyers for Clinton said he would need to defend himself against a criminal indictment. Kendall also threatened to seek testimony from witnesses in the Senate trial to explore what he said was improper collusion between Ms. Jones's lawyers and Starr's prosecutors in late 1997. Bakaly has denied that there was collusion between his office and Ms. Jones's lawyers. Starr's associates said that the independent counsel had several options in the coming weeks or months. It is possible that he could choose not to seek an indictment of Clinton, they said. Or he could decide to seek the indictment after Clinton's term expires. Another option that has been discussed is to seek an indictment in the next few months, but asking a judge to keep it under seal, meaning that it would remain a secret for some time. If Starr chose to postpone a trial of the President until after he left office, a sealed indictment would keep the charges secret and spare Clinton the indignity of trying to lead the country while under the cloud of a public indictment. A fourth option would be to indict him while he is in office, but ask the court to postpone a trial until after he leaves office. Starr's associates said that neither the outcome of the Senate trial nor the public's wishes expressed in opinion polls would affect his decision. "Prosecutors do not take polls to decide what to do," another associate of Starr said. "Ken has proven he is immune to polls." Those polls show that most Americans view Starr as an overzealous prosecutor who has pursued Clinton, both in criminal court and in his impeachment referral to the House of Representatives in September. Last summer, Starr and his prosecutors subpoenaed Clinton to appear before the grand jury, but then agreed to withdraw the subpoena after the President decided to voluntarily testify, which he did from the White House on Aug. 17. On Sept. 9, Starr sent his 445-page referral, which was full of sexual detail, to the House. And on Nov. 19, he testified before the House Judiciary Committee as an "aggressive advocate" for impeachment, in the words of his ethics adviser, Samuel Dash, who resigned in protest over the tenor of Starr's testimony. Besides his investigation of the Clinton-Lewinsky case, Starr has filed multiple criminal cases against Webster L. Hubbell and Susan H. McDougal, two associates of the Clintons who say they are being singled out unfairly because they will not provide damaging evidence to Starr's continuing Whitewater inquiry. Hubbell and Ms. McDougal face trials later this year. More recently, Starr indicted Julie Hiatt Steele, a Virginia woman who cast doubt on statements by Kathleen E. Willey that Clinton had made an unwelcome sexual pass at Ms. Willey inside the White House in November 1993. In Alexandria, Va., Ms. Steele was charged with three counts of obstruction of justice and one count of witness tampering. Her lawyer called the charges "a glaring example of Starr's gross abuse of his prosecutorial power." Starr's office has defended the Steele indictment. Starr Keeps Quiet About His Intentions Starr has not said publicly what he will do in his still active criminal inquiry of the President. In his testimony before the House Judiciary Committee on Nov. 19, Starr was asked whether the President, after he left office, was subject to criminal prosecution for offenses that he might have committed while in office. Starr said that he thought that the framers of the Constitution "did intend for there to be separate proceedings" in the criminal courts and the Congress. He also indicated that the question of an indictment would be assessed "after this body has done its duty and reached its judgment." Starr said: "Before we ever seek an indictment, we engage not only -- and I would hope any prosecutor's office would do that -- in a very careful assessment of the facts, the elements of the offense and the like. We go through each of the elements. We look at the witnesses and the documentary evidence and the like, and then we have to satisfy, following Justice Department standards: Is it more likely than not that a fair-minded jury would convict based on these facts, beyond a reasonable doubt?" At a November breakfast meeting with reporters here, Bakaly, the independent counsel's spokesman, said that Starr had not ruled out the option of seeking an indictment of Clinton after his term ended, but Bakaly quickly added: "I don't want to send any signals here. There's no statute of limitations problem. We have developed a criminal case." Inside the Independent Counsel's Office, a group of prosecutors believes that not long after the Senate trial concludes, Starr should ask the grand jury of 23 men and women hearing the case against Clinton to indict him on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice, the associates said. The group wants to charge Clinton with lying under oath in his Jones deposition in January 1998 and in his grand jury testimony in August, the associates added. The five-year statute of limitations for a perjury charge would not expire until 2003. The grand jury's 18-month term expires in March, but one associate said that Starr could ask the presiding judge for a six-month extension. If Starr chooses to seek an indictment of Clinton after September, however, he would need to impanel a new grand jury and either hear from witnesses all over again, or have the testimony read to them, the associates said. 2 Consultants Look at Constitutionality Since early last year, the constitutional question has been exhaustively researched by two constitutional law experts who are paid consultants to Starr: Ronald D. Rotunda of the University of Illinois Law School and William Kelley of the University of Notre Dame. Both Rotunda and Kelley have concluded that the 1997 Supreme Court decision in the Paula Jones case suggests that the Constitution does not prohibit a prosecutor from seeking an indictment, trial and conviction of a sitting President, the associates said. With unanimity, the Supreme Court ruled that neither the Constitution nor public policy justified allowing the President to delay the pretrial proceedings and the Jones trial itself until after Clinton had left office. In an editorial published by The Legal Times in July 1997, Rotunda said the Court's reasoning in Clinton v. Jones suggested "that the Constitution provides no bar to the indictment, trial and conviction of a sitting President for a Federal crime, although the trial court might not be able to impose a sentence until the President's service of office is completed." In his court papers filed in the 1974 Watergate tapes case, United States v. Nixon, Nixon argued that a President could not be criminally prosecuted. "If the President were indictable while in office," he said, "any prosecutor and grand jury would have within their powers the ability to cripple an entire branch of the national Government." At that time, Jaworski was advised by lawyers in his office that they had concluded that Nixon could be indicted while still in office. But Jaworski rejected that advice, believing that an indictment of Nixon would most likely fail to withstand a constitutional challenge. In 1973, Robert Bork, the Solicitor General at the time, filed a brief arguing that the Constitution barred any criminal indictment of a sitting President. He concluded then, and still believes, that the impeachment process is the only remedy for criminal acts by a President. Henry S. Ruth Jr., a Watergate deputy special prosecutor, said in an interview this week that he thought there was nothing in the Constitution that prevented the indictment of a sitting President. "But my own view at the time, which I expressed to Leon, was that the indictment of a President is such a momentous event that the impeachment process should go first," said Ruth, who is now retired and living in Tucson, Ariz. In their discussions, the lawyers in Starr's office have cited the arguments made in the Watergate era during their deliberations about whether to proceed with such drastic action, associates of Starr said. Those in favor have cited a view held by some prosecutors in Jaworski's office that "a failure to indict the incumbent President, in the face of evidence of his criminal activity, would seriously impair the integrity of the criminal process," a Starr associate said. Another argument in favor is that "prosecutors should pay no heed to considerations of national interest," an associate of Starr said. As one prosecutor in Jaworski's office said in 1974: "We have a duty to act without regard for external factors. It is not for us to weigh the political effects." But several of Starr's prosecutors have also said that the Nixon-era prosecutors considered both the risk that the Supreme Court would ultimately strike down an indictment and the impact on the nation. Several times since the President's Senate trial began on Jan. 6, Kendall has argued that the proper forum to try Clinton on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice is a criminal courtroom. "Those comments are seen by some in the office as an invitation," one associate of Starr said. The New York Times, Jan. 31, 1999 Single Currency Mafia Prints Millions of Counterfeit Euros Clueless Italians think the notes are already in circulation THE Italian Mafia has printed millions of counterfeit euro banknotes which are already in circulation, police intelligence sources have told The Telegraph. The disclosure is the first "concrete evidence", as one officer described it, that criminal gangs are stockpiling huge amounts of euros in order to flood the currency markets when the notes are officially brought into circulation in 2002. Officers from Britain's National Criminal Intelligence Service, which gathers information about international crime, said that the emergence of fake notes so soon after the euro's launch this month confirmed what they have long feared - that the new European currency will be accompanied by a huge rise in money-laundering, counterfeiting and bank robberies. The new evidence comes just weeks after Serge Bertholme, the treasurer of the Bank of Belgium, gave the most candid acknowledgment yet by a European central banker of the dangers the new currency poses because of its susceptibility to organised crime. He told a conference organised by the London law firm Stephenson Harwood: "The risk for counterfeiting will be very high since the euro banknotes will be widely used. Organised crime is increasing and modern reproduction technology offers the opportunity to produce fairly good copies of any printed picture." He said that the European Union's institutional framework for fighting forgers was "far from . . . satisfactory". Although the euro would circulate freely inside and outside the euro-zone, legislation and law enforcement agencies were nationally based. This "dramatically" increased the counterfeiting threat, Mr Bertholme admitted. Italian police, who have been liaising with NCIS and Europol, the EU-wide police force, say that the fake notes have been designed using the website on the internet which contains details of the currency. The notes are in circulation because many people in Italy believe they are already legal tender and have been duped into exchanging them for lire. Although the euro has been traded by banks since January 1, notes and coins will not be introduced until January 2002. Police in Britain, which initially is staying outside the "Euroland" of 11 EU countries signed up to the euro, have also uncovered evidence that organised criminals throughout Europe are buying huge amounts of sterling in preparation for the launch. Gangsters throughout Europe will have to transfer their illegal cash - more than £100 billion of cash in Europe is of dubious origin - into a form that will survive the pulping of the 11 Euroland currencies in 2002. For some, this will mean buying gold, diamonds or non-European currencies. But for others it will mean turning to EU currencies not involved in the Euro. Wayne Smith, the head of specialist crime at NCIS, said there already were signs that criminals were shifting their assets into sterling. He said: "We have identified a significant rise in the number of people already coming to Britain to exchange large sums of cash into pounds at bureaux de change." The London Telegraph, Jan. 31, 1999 Bribery Going for the Gold in Swiss Banks Olympic adviser faces inquiry on $1.5m AN adviser to the International Olympic Committee faces questioning by a Spanish judge over million-dollar payments into a Swiss bank. A total of $1.5 million (£937,000) went into an account controlled by Manuel Romero, a close associate of the IOC's president, Juan Antonio Samaranch, around the time of the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. The latest controversy is likely to increase pressure on Mr Samaranch to step down. He has so far insisted that he will stay despite the resignation of six IOC members over alleged bribes offered by cities wanting the Games. Mr Samaranch has promised reforms if he is confirmed in his post at an IOC meeting in March and has played down the extent of corruption because of the relatively small sums involved. Mr Romero rose to prominence as the chief technical co-ordinator of television coverage in Barcelona. The payments emerged during a three-year investigation into the collapse of the Spanish electronics company PESA which held the contract to supply audiovisual equipment in Barcelona. A judge in Madrid tracked four payments in 1991 and 1992 to a bank account in Lausanne. Swiss authorities disclosed that the account was controlled by Mr Romero, a member of the IOC's television commission. An employee of Spanish state television before the Games, Mr Romero was seconded by the Barcelona Olympic Organising Committee to run broadcasting. After the Games' success, he was so highly regarded by the IOC that his private Atlanta-based company, International Sports Broadcasts, was appointed to manage coverage for the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. It has since won multi-million dollar contracts for Salt Lake City, Sydney and Athens. Last week, after the Spanish daily El Mundo published details of the payments, Mr Samaranch said he was surprised, "because Romero is one of the best professionals in the world in television and the Olympic Games". He also promised an inquiry. Barcelona's Olympic Foundation distanced itself from the affair and justified the award of the contract to PESA because it had submitted the cheapest tender. Josep Miquel Abad, the chief executive of the committee, said the payments were related to Mr Romero's private business interests and had nothing to do with the Games. Among the documents included as part of the Madrid court's investigations are invoices justifying the payments as part of a deal with Panasonic for the loan of 400 cameras and other television equipment. A spokesman for Matsushita, the parent company of Panasonic, confirmed that these invoices were false. Under the contract between Matsushita and PESA for services to the Barcelona Olympic Committee, the cameras were loaned free. In an interview last week with the Spanish radio station La Cope, Mr Romero, 58, confirmed the payment of $1.5 million but insisted that it was for professional services to Panasonic. Mr Romero's links with the Olympics date back to Mexico in 1968. He moved to America in 1994 to organise the coverage of the World Cup and founded the company which has since dominated the bidding for Olympic contracts. He is currently in Vail, Colorado, preparing to broadcasts the World Ski Championships which start tomorrow. However, he confirmed that he was eager to testify to the judge. "In all my business relationships I have always behaved appropriately and lawfully. In 1991 and 1992 a company I founded had a legitimate relationship with Panasonic that was unrelated to the Olympic Games. My company rendered valuable services to Panasonic, in Europe and elsewhere, for which it was appropriately compensated," he said. Meanwhile, on Friday, USA Today reported that Tom Welch, the driving force in securing the 2002 Winter Olympics for Utah, had a joint bank account with an IOC member. Mr Welch's lawyer, Thomas Schaffer, confirmed the existence of the account but said: "It is not illegal to be a signatory on somebody's bank account." Salt Lake City Olympic leaders allegedly showered gifts, medical care, scholarships and cash payments worth $600,000 (£375,000) on IOC members in hopes of persuading them to vote for their city to host the Games. The London Telegraph, Jan. 31, 1999 Impeached POTUS Prosecutor Homes in on Clinton's Golf Partner Vernon Jordan is vulnerable PROSECUTORS in President Clinton's impeachment trial have identified Vernon Jordan, his golfing partner and trusted adviser, as the weakest link in the chain of allies protecting him before the Senate. They want to exploit a series of apparent discrepancies between evidence previously given by Mr Jordan and testimony from other witnesses including Monica Lewinsky, undermining his denials that the President was not involved in an attempt to obstruct justice. Mr Jordan, 62, a lawyer and Washington power-broker, will be cross-questioned by members of the House prosecution team and then by lawyers defending the President on Tuesday. Miss Lewinsky will be cross-examined tomorrow in the Washington hotel in which she first met House prosecutors last weekend. On Wednesday Sydney Blumenthal, a senior White House adviser, will have his turn. Like Mr Jordan, he will be questioned in a discreet Senate room normally reserved for the committee which oversees the US intelligence services. All three witnesses will be videotaped, to be watched in private by senators, and on Thursday the Senate will decide whether to allow House prosecutors and the President's own lawyers to screen segments of their testimony in public to help make their cases. Mr Jordan, the grandson of a sharecropper, is one of the President's closest friends and one of the most influential black men in Washington. He has a reputation as a "ladies' man" and, at least until the Lewinsky affair broke, enjoyed trading locker-room banter with Mr Clinton. As a lawyer who now sits on the boards of 11 major companies, Mr Jordan is used to handling himself in the crossfire of a courtroom. He has given evidence to the grand jury investigating the President on five separate occasions. But friends have privately admitted fears that his account of events surrounding his search for a job for Miss Lewinsky - central to the charge that the President attempted to buy her silence - may not withstand close scrutiny. Mr Jordan will be questioned by Asa Hutchinson, who represents a district of Arkansas in the House of Representatives and who, in his previous career as a lawyer, once prosecuted the President's brother, Roger, in a drugs case. Mr Hutchinson, impressive during earlier stages of the senate trial, is expected to focus on discrepancies which have come to light since Mr Jordan last testified to the grand jury on June 9. In the weeks that followed, evidence was given by the White House secretary Betty Currie, by Miss Lewinsky and then by the President himself. The points on which he will press Mr Jordan include: * Did he help Miss Lewinsky draft her false affidavit in the Paula Jones trial, denying her affair with Mr Clinton? * Did he have breakfast with Miss Lewinsky in the Park Hyatt Hotel on December 31, 1997, and when told of notes from her to the President, tell her to "go home and make sure they're not there", as she says he did? He denied instructing her to destroy evidence, but he also denied the meeting with Miss Lewinsky, for which there is evidence in the form of an itemised receipt. * Did he really not know of the improper sexual relationship between the President and Miss Lewinsky before January 18, when the story first became public? Miss Lewinsky said she had a discussion with him the previous month in which she hinted strongly at an affair with the President, and Mr Jordan suggested she was "in love" with Mr Clinton. * Did he know about Miss Lewinsky's subpoena by lawyers in the Paula Jones case when he met her on December 22 to discuss her hunt for a job? He previously said they did not discuss it, but Miss Lewinsky said one reason for the meeting was to find out whether he had informed the President of her summons. House prosecutors intend to contrast Mr Jordan's testimony with what they regard as the more reliable recollection of Miss Lewinsky. In doing so they will make the crucial point that Mr Jordan's efforts to find her a job were motivated directly by the President's need to keep her happy, and ensure that she stuck to her false denials of an affair. They believe that if they can pick enough holes in Mr Jordan's previous account of events for it to begin to unravel, they may cause some senators to rethink their position on the President's guilt. The prosecutors maintain that there is still a slight possibility of securing the President's removal from office, especially if the examination of the witnesses proves revealing. Mr Clinton continued his parallel presidency last week seemingly oblivious to the momentous events unfolding in the Senate, although aides did concede that he was kept informed. Friday's news that the economy grew at 5.6 per cent at the end of last year, and of a budget surplus expected to mushroom rapidly from the $107 billion (£64 billion) forecast this year, provided a huge morale boost for Mr Clinton. Meanwhile George W. Bush, Texas governor and son of the former President Bush, said yesterday that he was prepared to face the media scrutiny that would accompany a run for the White House. Mr Bush, the likeliest Republican candidate for next year's presidential race, told an interviewer: "Your question is . . . 'Is your skin thick enough?' You bet it is." The London Telegraph, Jan. 31, 1999 ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, Omnia Bona Bonis, All My Relations. Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End Kris DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! 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