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WSWS : News & Analysis : North America : Clinton Impeachment
Journalist who turned in Clinton aide
Scoundrel time redux: Christopher Hitchens as a social type
By David Walsh
13 February 1999
These are politically instructive times, and that perhaps has its own
objective significance. At historical turning points a variety of
pretensions and guises fall away. Individuals, as well as social forces,
are obliged to declare who and what they are.
The ongoing crisis in Washington--with its dual conspiracies, the
right-wing Republican effort at a political coup d'�tat, the attempt by the
White House and the Democrats to cover up this conspiracy--has demonstrated
the enormous gap that separates the political and media establishment from
the mass of the American people. The illness afflicting bourgeois
democratic institutions has reached an advanced stage, far more advanced
than is understood by wide layers of the population.
Over the course of the past 13 months left-liberal and radical circles have
demonstrated that they function largely within the orbit of the political
establishment. One would be hard-pressed to name a single organization or
publication that has developed or even set out to develop an independent,
socialist analysis of the forces at work in the Clinton-Starr crisis. In
differing fashions they have each lined up with one or another faction of
the ruling class.
The case of Christopher Hitchens is not a unique one, although it is
admittedly extreme. Hitchens is the British-born radical journalist who
signed an affidavit for House prosecutors February 5 alleging that Clinton
aide Sidney Blumenthal had provided him with information last March
disparaging Monica Lewinsky. Hitchens asserts that Blumenthal told him over
lunch that Lewinsky was a "stalker" and that the president was a "victim"
of the young woman. During his questioning by prosecutors earlier in the
week Blumenthal had acknowledged that Clinton described Lewinsky in that
manner, but denied being the conduit of that story to the media. Shortly
after the release of Blumenthal's videotaped testimony, House Republican
prosecutors released Hitchens' affidavit.
A neat trap, except that nothing in Hitchens' affidavit contradicts
Blumenthal's testimony. The latter told the House prosecutors he had
repeated the story to friends and family. He can hardly have been
attempting to plant the story with Hitchens, a long-time friend and a
well-known Clinton opponent. Moreover, journalist Joe Conason has reported
finding some 430 articles containing the words "Lewinsky" and "stalker"
that predate the Blumenthal-Hitchens lunch date. From the point of view of
nailing Blumenthal on a perjury charge, the whole business is ludicrous,
typical of the heavy-handed operations mounted by the cabal of
right-wingers behind the attempt to oust Clinton. The methods employed
against Blumenthal, including the criminalization of private conversations
and the use of informers, come straight out of Senator Joseph McCarthy's
book.
Hitchens has floated various justifications for his turning stool pigeon.
Asked by CNN's Judy Woodruff, "Why did you decide to come forward now?" the
journalist responded, "Well, I didn't decide to go forward. I was
approached by the House Judiciary Committee." This answer says a great
deal.
First of all, it omits what Hitchens himself has admitted, the fact that he
raised the issue of his conversation with Blumenthal to Republicans. He
acknowledges, in the Nation, that in the course of preparing an article, "I
had a number of conversations with staffers at various House committees.
One of them evidently called the House Judiciary Committee, which contacted
me on Friday, February 5." Asked by Jeff Greenfield on CNN, "Why did you
decide to go ahead and answer--and issue this affidavit rather than simply
saying: I refuse to answer," Hitchens hemmed and hawed, claiming that the
individual he was talking to might have been aware of the story anyway, so
that it would have been "idle to say I don't know what you're talking
about." If prosecutors had known about it, why hadn't they questioned him
before, particularly in the light of their zeal to find a charge to hang on
Blumenthal?
Hitchens supplemented his explanation with this comment: "We are on day
whatever it is of an impeachment trial of the president for some pretty
serious offenses, and it seemed to me that I would be in a position of
possibly withholding evidence if that was true. Also, what I knew revolted
me [i.e., Clinton's alleged attempt to smear Lewinsky]."
According to those in the know, Hitchens is extremely bitter about the
failure of the effort to remove Clinton. Here was an opportunity for him,
with the additional appeal of another opportunity for self-aggrandizement,
to make a last-ditch effort to bolster the Republican case.
In this light, his willingness to collaborate with the ultra-right takes on
the character of open and eager cooperation. Of course, Hitchens wants to
have it both ways. They asked him a question--what was he to do? Even to
Greenfield it was apparent that all Hitchens had to do was say, "It's none
of your business," and hang up the telephone. His instinctive response,
however, was to accede to the demands of the Republican prosecutors.
Cementing a political alliance with the extreme right, on the one hand;
spinelessness, on the other--this is what Hitchens' action amounted to,
although it's unclear in which precise proportions.
Most interesting is what the incident reveals about Hitchens and the
circles in which he travels. The journalist, who came to the US in 1980,
has made a name for himself, in countless publications, as something of an
"iconoclast." One needs an Oscar Wilde to provide the appropriate
definition for that grossly misused term. Hitchens has taken on Mother
Theresa and Princess Diana. He has criticized the US bombing of Iraq. He is
an opponent of the death penalty. He takes positions, in other words, that
draw attention to himself, allow him to stand out in a crowd, but don't
threaten his social position or standing. To get on in the world it helps
sometimes to raise a few eyebrows. In some circles, a British accent, a
little sauciness (but nothing too profound) will do the trick.
Hitchens' affidavit created a controversy. But the reaction, on the whole,
from his colleagues in liberal and media circles has been remarkably muted.
The editors of the Nation, the weekly for which Hitchens has written a
column for more than a decade, feebly criticized him for his action. "The
moral issues involved in Hitchens' actions are clear: We believe there is a
journalistic (and ethical) presumption against using private conversations
with friends for a public purpose without first obtaining permission; and
against a reporter cooperating with, and thus helping to legitimize, a
reckless Congressional prosecutor (in advance of receiving a subpoena, no
less)." Does this rise to the level of a slap on the wrist? Katha Pollitt,
associate editor of the publication, devotes her column to a more
substantial attack, raising the issue of McCarthyism, but it comes across
as a piece of relatively friendly advice from one colleague to another.
Fellow Nation columnist Alexander Cockburn, another officially anointed
nonconformist, has denounced Hitchens as a Judas, but this may fall
somewhere under the heading of over-compensation. Cockburn, a pro-Stalinist
radical, and Hitchens, a left-liberal, have found themselves on the same
side of the barricades in supporting the impeachment drive and ridiculing
the notion that it has anything to do with a right-wing conspiracy. Now
that Hitchens has followed the logic of their argument to its conclusion,
and joined forces with Starr and the House Republicans, Cockburn draws
back. No one, however, should forget his repugnant article in the Wall
Street Journal, the house-organ of semi-fascist Clinton haters, some months
ago ("The Left Has Forgotten How to Enjoy a Good Scandal") in which he
suggested that radicals who are hesitant "to join in the fun on the
Lewinsky scandal ... should learn from ordinary Americans who ... have been
enjoying the sex scandal, without taking it too seriously."
A survey conducted by Salon among left-liberal and media personalities
produced a mixed response. A few supported Hitchens, more criticized him,
and a number were too cynical to express an opinion. (Lewis Lapham, editor
of Harper's, for example, observed: "Maybe if I were Sally Quinn, I'd know
whether to discuss this subject before the soup, with asparagus or before
the sorbet.")
At any rate, it's clear that Hitchens will not suffer for his action. The
sales of his new book on Clinton, due out in April, will not be hurt by the
publicity. A Washington Post profile of Hitchens noted that the inhabitants
of his exclusive world of journalists and politicians "attack one another
all the time, and then sit down and laugh about it over a drink or three."
It has become obvious over the course of the past year that the decisive
control of the political parties, the state apparatus and the media resides
in the hands of a small number of wealthy, reactionary individuals,
intimately linked by a variety of social, professional and personal
networks. Remarkably, the world Hitchens belongs to, of journalists and
bureaucrats, is depicted in much the same terms: tight-knit, incestuous,
prosperous. It's worth citing a few of these accounts.
Lloyd Grove in the February 8 Washington Post describes these circles as
forming "an elite subset of Washington society--the crowd of journalists,
intellectuals, authors and policymakers, mostly in their thirties and
forties, who regularly dine together and dine out on each other." In Salon,
James Poniewozik refers to "a claustrophobic media-government sewing circle
whose interconnections would put the [right-winger Richard Mellon] Scaife
network to shame--an inbred nightmare community where every pseudopod of
the elite-opinion amoeba dines, drinks, goes to bed and marries with
another." Peter Carlson, also in the Post, depicts "a rarefied world where
the top pols and bureaucrats sup with the media and literary elite at
exclusive dinner parties. It's a cozy little club of confidential sources
and off-the-record confidences, and both Hitchens and Blumenthal are
members." In his profile, Carlson has Hitchens desperate to catch a plane
"so he can get to Elaine's, the famous Manhattan literary watering hole,
where he's supposed to have dinner with Graydon Carter, his editor at
Vanity Fair magazine. And he'd like to call ahead so Vanity Fair can send a
limo to pick him up at the airport."
Some scenes speak for themselves. But then one comes across Hitchens' claim
that he is an "extreme leftist" and the obvious question arises: what does
"leftism" mean to Hitchens, to Cockburn, to those at the Nation, the
Village Voice, Salon and to many others? It seems largely devoid of
content. If it means anything, it is generally associated with feminism,
gay rights, black nationalism, ecology. This is a "leftism" that, a priori,
has no association with the needs and concerns of the broad masses of the
population. Hitchens and his circles are nearly as removed from the lives
and problems of ordinary Americans as are Bill Clinton, Kenneth Starr and
Trent Lott.
How else can one explain Hitchens' position on the drive to remove Clinton?
His visceral personal hatred of the current president, despite its "left"
components, has nothing in common with socialist opposition. His railing
about Clinton's "trashing" of women, including Lewinsky, is nearly
demented. He is a disappointed and bitter liberal, a "libertarian," in his
own words, willing now to make common cause with fascistic elements.
Individuals like Hitchens, more than anything else, are mesmerized by the
apparent strength of American imperialism. What they don't see--in their
smugness and comfort--is any social force capable of conducting a
successful struggle against the existing order. A mention of the working
class would simply evoke a sneer. They believe deeply in the permanence of
the system that they pretend to criticize. Behind the nonconformism is a
deep conformism. They long for acceptance. As Hitchens told the Washington
Post, "The fact is: It's true what they say about the United States. It is
the land of opportunity."
The McCarthy era produced more than its share of stool pigeons and
scoundrels. They played a filthy and destructive role. The lessons of their
conduct should be burned into the consciousness of anyone concerned with
the fate of society. Now Hitchens has turned informer the first time
someone tapped him on the shoulder. He belongs to a social layer without
principles, except the defense of its privileges, and without perspective,
except the preservation of its social status. It's scoundrel time again.
In Latin America, they tell of a radical who dabbled in revolutionary
politics. One day he was arrested by the secret police. His conduct earned
him the alias of the Man of a Thousand Blows--one to start him talking,
nine hundred and ninety-nine to shut him up.
See Also:
Nation columnist Christopher Hitchens fingers Clinton aide
[9 February 1999]
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World Socialist Web Site
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~
WSWS : News & Analysis : North America : Clinton Impeachment
Behind the Clinton impeachment trial
Profile of a right-wing conspirator
The case of Theodore Olson
By Martin McLaughlin
13 February 1999
Last November, at a conference of the Federalist Society at Washington's
Mayflower Hotel, attorney Theodore Olson welcomed his audience to "the vast
right-wing conspiracy. In fact, you're at the heart of it."
This was not merely a cynical jest. There is a network of right-wing
political operatives, lawyers and judges which conspired to bring down the
Clinton administration and nearly succeeded. Their goal is not simply to
remove Clinton, but to impose a reactionary agenda which is opposed by the
vast majority of the American people, an agenda which can only be advanced
through anti-democratic methods: dirty tricks, political provocations,
backroom legal and judicial maneuvers.
The career of Theodore Olson provides an instructive example of the
origins, political motivations and methods of those who comprise the
right-wing conspiracy. While Olson is only one of several dozen key
political actors behind the scenes, his name pops up over and over again at
various stages of the campaign to destabilize the Clinton administration.
The 59-year-old Chicago-born lawyer took his law degree from the University
of California at Berkeley in 1965, the year of the Free Speech Movement
which marked the onset of a decade of radical student protest on American
college campuses. Olson was part of the right-wing reaction against the
protest movement. He joined the prestigious Los Angeles law firm of Gibson
Dunn & Crutcher in 1965, as soon as he had passed the bar. A senior partner
in the firm, William French Smith, was the personal attorney for Ronald
Reagan, who was elected governor of California a year later.
Olson made partner at Gibson Dunn & Crutcher in 1972. The century-old firm
is one of the largest in the United States, with a far-flung practice that
includes 14 offices, including several in foreign countries, and a
100-strong Washington office. Olson's specialties included constitutional,
commercial and administrative law.
After Reagan's victory in the 1980 presidential election, William French
Smith was chosen as attorney general in the new Republican administration.
Following Smith to Washington were two up-and-coming right-wing lawyers
from his law firm. Kenneth Starr became Smith's chief of staff. Theodore
Olson signed on as assistant attorney general and head of the Office of
Legal Counsel, essentially the attorney general's attorney.
Scandal at the EPA
In 1982 Olson was drawn into the political controversy over the Reagan
administration's sabotage of the enforcement of anti-pollution laws by the
Environmental Protection Administration. An investigation into the
activities of the EPA led to the forced resignation of EPA Administrator
Ann Gorsuch and of Rita Lavelle, who was in charge of toxic waste cleanup
for the agency. As the scandal unfolded, the Reagan administration claimed
executive privilege to withhold agency documents from congressional
committees investigating the EPA.
Olson was summoned to testify under oath before a congressional committee
in March 1983 about advice which the Justice Department had given the EPA
on the withholding of documents. He subsequently left the Department of
Justice and returned to Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, working out of the firm's
Washington office. In 1986 the Reagan administration was compelled to
appoint an independent counsel, Alexia Morrison, to determine whether
charges should be brought against Olson for his role in covering up the EPA
scandal.
A protracted legal battle followed. Olson filed a legal challenge to the
Independent Counsel Act. He won a decision from the US Court of Appeals for
the District of Columbia that the law was unconstitutional, a decision
written by Laurence Silberman, who served in the Nixon Justice Department
and is another prominent member of the right-wing legal fraternity in
Washington.
This decision was appealed to the US Supreme Court, which handed down an
8-1 decision in 1987 upholding the constitutionality of the independent
counsel law. The sole dissenting vote came from the most conservative
justice, Antonin Scalia. (Several years later, Scalia's son Eugene was
hired by the Washington office of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, where he remains
employed as an attorney to this day, working side by side with Olson.)
Morrison then proceeded to complete her investigation of Olson, concluding
in August 1988 that no charges should be brought. Her 225-page report makes
ironic reading in light of the Clinton impeachment trial, since she
concluded that Olson's testimony about the legal advice he gave the EPA,
while "disingenuous and misleading," was not perjurious. In language later
echoed by Clinton himself in his 1998 grand jury testimony, Morrison wrote
that Olson's testimony "while not overly helpful," consisted of statements
which were "literally true" and therefore within the law.
The perjury investigation did not harm Olson's subsequent legal career. He
went on to handle some of the most politically sensitive cases for the
Republican Party. After Reagan left office in 1988 Olson became his lawyer
in the Iran-Contra affair, dealing with the office of Independent Counsel
Lawrence Walsh and monitoring Reagan's testimony in a series of trials of
White House aides and other administration officials.
Olson represented another high-profile client, Jonathan Jay Pollard, the
CIA analyst convicted of espionage and sentenced to life in prison for
providing a mass of secret US intelligence information to the state of
Israel. An appeal for clemency for Pollard was most recently raised by
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the Wye Plantation talks
last fall. This case has been the occasion for a significant political
alliance, bringing together the most pro-Zionist elements in the American
political establishment with the Republican extreme right, where rabid
anti-Semitism prevails.
Olson became part of a tightly knit network of right-wing political
operatives in the nation's capital. He was on the board of directors, and
at one point secretary-treasurer, of the right-wing magazine American
Spectator.
He also belonged the Federalist Society, an association of several hundred
ultraconservative lawyers co-chaired by Robert Bork, whom Reagan
unsuccessfully attempted to place on the Supreme Court in 1987. Olson heads
the Washington branch of the Federalist Society and also chairs the
executive committee of its Practice Group. The Federalist Society supplied
the bulk of the lawyers who worked on the Paula Jones suit and the Starr
investigation.
Legal-political warfare
After the election of Clinton in 1992 stripped the Republican Party of its
control of the executive branch, the focus of the right-wing attacks
against civil rights laws, environmental protection and other regulations
on business shifted to the court system, where hundreds of ultra-right-wing
lawyers had been appointed to federal judgeships during the 12 years of
Reagan and Bush.
Olson played a prominent role in the ongoing legal-political warfare. He
represented Virginia Military Institute in a lawsuit brought by female
students denied admission to the state-supported college because of its
males-only rule. He argued the successful lawsuit that resulted in the 1995
Hopwood decision in Texas, overturning affirmative action rules at the
University of Texas Law School. This case was brought with the backing of
the Center for Individual Rights, a right-wing legal aid center financed by
Richard Mellon Scaife, the multimillionaire whose name has surfaced
repeatedly in connection with the campaign to drive Clinton from the White
House.
The court system was not only an avenue for pursuing politically motivated
litigation, but a base for launching direct attacks on the Clinton White
House. But first it was necessary to manufacture the pretexts. Two of them
were presented: the Clintons' real estate dealings in the late 1970s
(Whitewater) and the Paula Jones case.
The Whitewater realty deal was first reported (or misreported) by the New
York Times in March 1992. It was revived as an issue in the fall of 1993
when a former Little Rock judge, David Hale, facing prosecution for fraud,
began to allege that he had awarded a $300,000 loan to Susan McDougal, one
of the Clintons' partners in Whitewater, at the urging of the then Arkansas
governor. A media firestorm followed, and Clinton was compelled to
authorize the appointment of a special prosecutor in January 1994.
At about the same time, in December 1993, the American Spectator magazine
published its notorious "Troopergate" article alleging that Arkansas state
troopers had procured women for Clinton during his years in Little Rock,
and giving the first name of one woman, "Paula," who had allegedly been
willing to be Clinton's girlfriend.
Three months later, at the Conservative Political Action Conference in
Washington, Paula Jones, whose last name was never mentioned in the
American Spectator article, held a press conference denouncing Clinton and
declaring she would file a sexual harassment lawsuit against him. This suit
immediately became the rallying point for all the Clinton haters on the
extreme right.
The politically orchestrated nature of the Jones lawsuit was demonstrated,
not only by the venue where it was launched--a political gathering of the
ultra-right--but by its legal form. Although Jones claimed to be motivated
by a desire to clear her name, she did not sue the American Spectator,
which had falsely claimed that "Paula" had been a willing consort to
Clinton. Instead she sued the president.
The Arkansas Project
There is considerable evidence to suggest that Olson was involved in the
launching of the Jones suit. According to press accounts, Richard Mellon
Scaife approached the American Spectator in 1993, within months of
Clinton's inauguration, and agreed to give $2.4 million to finance an
investigation to dig up dirt about Clinton's past.
Three lawyers, two of them linked to the magazine, Theodore Olson and David
Henderson, and the third a right-wing activist in Virginia, Stephen
Boynton, met at the American Spectator's offices in November 1993 to work
out the plans for what became known as the "Arkansas Project."
Boynton and Henderson were to head up the effort, which expended the huge
sums supplied by Mellon Scaife to hire investigators and operatives in
Arkansas, and to pay fees to those who were willing to provide derogatory
information about Clinton, regardless of its veracity or reliability. A
pipeline was opened up from extreme-right and racist elements in Arkansas,
including segregationists and ex-Klansmen, leading directly to the American
Spectator, the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal and the news
pages of supposedly more objective publications, including the New York
Times and Washington Post.
David Hale, the principal "cooperating witness" in the Whitewater
investigation, was one of those who received cash payments from the
Arkansas Project. According to an investigation published in Salon magazine
last year, Hale received cash routed through Parker Dozhier, a longtime
political enemy of Clinton's in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Dozhier himself
received $48,000 from the American Spectator for his services to the
Arkansas Project.
In the spring of 1986 the Senate committee investigating Whitewater
subpoenaed Hale to testify. Hale declined to appear without a grant of
immunity, which committee investigators and Chairman Alfonse D'Amato were
reluctant to offer, since it would detract from the credibility of his
testimony. Hale needed a Washington attorney to handle the negotiations
with the committee, and, through his Arkansas Project handlers, he obtained
one of the very best--Theodore Olson.
Joining Olson in the talks with the Senate committee was another Gibson
Dunn & Crutcher attorney, John Mintz, who was recently retired as the
assistant director of the FBI. How Hale, a bankrupt Little Rock ex-judge
and convicted con man, was able to afford the services of a former
assistant attorney general and a former assistant FBI director has never
been explained.
In the fall of 1997 the Arkansas Project was closed down, in part because
of a conflict between Mellon Scaife and American Spectator's publisher
Ronald Burr. The magazine published a commentary conceding that Vincent
Foster had not been murdered at the order of the Clintons--a theory which
Mellon Scaife has relentlessly promoted. Moreover, Burr demanded an audit
of the expenses of the Arkansas investigation.
Olson was brought in to conduct damage control. At a board meeting, Burr
was fired, then induced to keep silent with a $384,000 severance payment
which included a gag order drafted by Olson. An internal investigation of
the Arkansas Project was launched--headed by Olson--to clear the magazine
of charges that illegal payments were made to David Hale--Olson's former
client! A few months later, when the secret payments to Hale were finally
made public, a grand jury was empanelled in Ft. Smith, Arkansas to
investigate possible witness tampering and bribery charges against Mellon
Scaife and his hirelings.
Olson and Kenneth Starr
Throughout this entire period Olson remained on close personal terms with
his former law partner Kenneth Starr, who had served on the US Circuit
Court of Appeals and then as Solicitor General under the Bush
administration. In August 1994 Starr was appointed Independent Counsel in
the Whitewater case, after a three-judge panel, headed by right-wing
Republican David Sentelle, a former aide to Jesse Helms, fired his
predecessor, Robert Fiske.
Starr was himself a member of the Federalist Society, and a far more
conservative and politically active Republican than Fiske. Nonetheless, the
media downplayed the extraordinary intervention of the three-judge
panel--whose chairman, Sentelle, was seen lunching with ultra-right-wing
North Carolina Senator Lauch Faircloth the day he fired Fiske.
One of those frequently quoted by the media in its efforts to portray Starr
as a respected moderate who would conduct the investigation fairly was his
longtime associate and former law partner. Typical was an exchange with a
critic of Starr's published in the online magazine Slate in January 1997,
when the Starr investigation was at low ebb. Olson responded to a
perfunctory criticism of Starr with a vitriolic attack on the White House
nearly five times as long, which portrayed Starr as the personification of
judiciousness and objectivity.
Olson wrote, "I have known Starr since he joined my law firm as a young
associate in the early '70s," and concluded, "I believe if Clinton had to
be investigated, he should be grateful that his investigator is Kenneth
Starr."
At the same time, Olson was working closely with the Paula Jones lawyers.
In early 1997 he and Robert Bork held a moot court--a mock trial
proceeding--to help prepare the Jones lawyers for their arguments before
the Supreme Court, which culminated in the ruling which cleared the way to
compelling Clinton to give deposition testimony about his sex life.
In February 1997 Starr announced that he would step down as Independent
Counsel, effective August 1, to become head of a legal institute at
Pepperdine University, whose campus is in the wealthy Los Angeles suburb of
Malibu. A volley of criticism erupted from right-wing circles. Theodore
Olson, Starr's longtime friend, was widely quoted saying that Starr was
unlikely to take such a step if he was about to embark on "a historic
prosecution." Starr cited Olson's comments at a press conference four days
later, when he announced he was withdrawing from the Pepperdine job and
would remain as special prosecutor.
Two months later, it was revealed that investigators for Starr's office had
begun questioning women in Arkansas who were rumored to have had past
liaisons with Clinton--including Gennifer Flowers. Starr claimed
disingenuously that they were not being questioned about Clinton's private
life, but about any knowledge they might have gained of Whitewater. A clear
signal had been sent, however, that the Office of Independent Counsel was
now coordinating its activities with the Paula Jones lawsuit. The course
was set that would lead ultimately to impeachment and the Senate trial.
In the two years since then, Olson has remained in contact with both the
Paula Jones lawsuit and the Starr investigation. During this time another
Olson, his wife Barbara, has become one of the most prominent media
defenders of Starr. A regular on the talk show circuit, she is invariably
described as a "former federal prosecutor," rather than as a rabid
Republican partisan married to one of Starr's closest friends.
Barbara Olson was the lead counsel to the Government Oversight committee
which investigated the "Filegate" and "Travelgate" affairs--both matters
referred to Starr's office. Mrs. Olson recently discussed her relations
with the Independent Counsel, revealing that the Olsons still socialize
regularly with the Starrs, although they--of course not--never discuss the
Clinton investigations.
Barbara Olson now works for the Independent Women's Forum, a right-wing
group funded by Richard Mellon Scaife. To complete the circle, the
Independent Women's Forum in 1994 discussed filing a friend of the court
brief in support of Paula Jones's lawsuit. The attorney with whom the IWF
discussed the brief was--Kenneth Starr, then a million-a-year partner at
the Chicago-based law firm of Kirkland & Ellis. Starr did not divulge this
contact a few months later, when he was selected as Independent Counsel,
just as he did not reveal his contacts with the Paula Jones lawyers when he
approached the Justice Department in January 1998, seeking jurisdiction
over the Monica Lewinsky affair.
See Also:
The Impeachment of Clinton
[WSWS full coverage]
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