WASHINGTON -- A Miami lawyer is seeking
the removal of Kenneth Starr as independent counsel
because Starr, at the same time he was investigating the
Clintons, worked for a company wholly owned by the
Chinese government.
"This is one of the most egregious examples of
conflict of interest and ethics violations I have
seen,” lawyer Jack Thompson said, explaining his
motion seeking Starr’s ouster. The motion was
filed this week with Attorney General Janet Reno, a
federal ethics official, and the three-judge panel that
appointed Starr.
In his motion, Thompson claims that Starr violated
the conflict of interest provisions of the Office of
Independent Counsel law.
According to the 1994 independent counsel statute,
only the attorney general can remove a court-appointed
independent counsel.
Thompson said he also filed the motion with the
three-judge panel that appointed Starr "because
there is nothing in the law prohibiting them from
finding Starr violated conflict of interest
rules.”
Thompson also has requested the panel use its power
to order his motion appended to all reports Starr has
filed or will file with the court.
Specifically, Thompson notes that at the same time
Starr was independent counsel he served as a paid legal
counsel to CitiSteel, a Delaware steel company wholly
owned by CITIC. CITIC -- or the Chinese International
Trust and Investment Company -- is considered the
financial arm of China’s People’s Liberation
Army and is chaired by Wang Jun.
According to court records, Starr represented
CitiSteel in a case before a federal appellate court.
Starr argued that the new Chinese owners were lawful
when, after they bought the company, CITIC refused to
recognize the company’s union. The court agreed
with Starr and the Chinese owners in a ruling issued in
1995.
Wang Jun is a shadowy, high-level communist official
who also is chairman of Poly Group, another enterprise
controlled by China’s PLA. Poly Group was mired in
controversy in 1996 when it was revealed that Wang Jun
had met Bill Clinton at the White House. Days after the
meeting, the administration moved to waive customs
restrictions and allowed the company to import
semiautomatic rifles into the United States.
Thompson said the Chinese connection raises so many
questions about Starr's "independence" that
Starr should be removed from office.
In his motion to Reno, Thompson wrote, "You
should treat as a red flag the fact that Ken Starr, a
man reputed to be highly sensitive to any appearance of
improprieties by the OIC, did not even alert you to this
Chinese connection. This is very troubling."
Thompson, a conservative Republican who once opposed
Reno in an election for the post of Miami-Dade’s
prosecutor, reminded Reno that the independent counsel
statute prohibits Starr from representing "in any
matter any person involved in any investigation or
prosecution under this chapter."
"It has been widely publicized that Wang Jun
attended a White House fundraising 'coffee' for Clinton,
that the Chinese government made efforts to help the
Clinton-Gore '96 campaign. And it is also clear that
Starr was on Wang Jun’s payroll at the same time
he was supposed to be prosecuting the Clintons,”
Thompson told NewsMax.com.
Press reports have indicated widespread attempts by
the Chinese government to influence the American
electoral process. The Washington Post has reported that
the FBI concluded the Chinese funneled millions of
dollars to Democratic National Committee coffers during
the 1996 election.
"The Year of the Rat," a 1998 book authored
by two former House investigators who examined campaign
finance abuses, details close ties between the Chinese
and Bill Clinton -- ties dating back to his days as
governor of Arkansas.
Thompson’s motion also notes that Starr’s
China connection raises another conflict in the person
of Webster Hubbell.
"There is a Starr indictment pending against
your former No. 3 person at Justice, Mr. Webster
Hubbell, for alleged receipt of $600,000 in hush money
and failure to pay federal income taxes thereon. It is
alleged that much of this hush money to Mr. Hubbell was
paid by the Indonesian Riady family. The Riadys have
direct ties to the ... People's Liberation Army arms
merchant, Wang Jun."
Thompson said that, while Starr may be willing to
"inconvenience" Clinton by pushing the
Lewinsky case, there's an even more important issue to
consider. With an obvious conflict of interest, is he
willing to "inconvenience" his client, Wang
Jun?
"To be more direct, if the money trail leads
from Hubbell to the Riadys to Wang Jun, the American
people deserve, and the statute specifically mandates,
an independent counsel unfettered and not compromised by
loyalties to clients in following that money
trail," Thompson wrote to Reno.
A spokesperson for the Office of the Independent
Counsel said that Starr had no comment on
Thompson’s actions.
Thompson agrees that Starr has made a serious effort
to prosecute the president on the Lewinsky matter, but
added that the independent counsel’s performance
has been less than stellar.
"You have to remember, Starr never really
received Monica’s cooperation against the
president. So his case that Clinton obstructed justice
is a weak one. If the Senate doesn’t convict,
Starr may have put us on a wild, sexual goose chase.
"Starr has had many areas to investigate, from
the death of Vincent Foster, the Whitewater matter, the
Travelgate scandal, witness tampering, and the
outrageous FBI Filegate case, and Starr claims he found
no evidence of wrongdoing by the Clintons in any of
these matters.
"It’s time he be removed and a new
independent counsel be appointed to properly finish the
job,” Thompson said.
