-Caveat Lector-
Kenneth Starr and his accomplices: new aspects of the impeachment conspiracy
By Martin McLaughlin
23 August 1999
Use this version to print
Two developments this past week have shed additional light on the connections
between right-wing political forces, the media and the investigation into the
Clinton White House by Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr, which triggered
Clinton's impeachment and trial by the Senate.
On Wednesday the three-judge panel which appointed Starr as Whitewater
special prosecutor five years ago split 2-1 over the question of whether to
authorize the continuation of his investigation. The panel is required to
review the work of the Independent Counsel and vote annually on his
continuation in office.
It was the first time that the three Appeals Court justices had been divided
over Starr's investigation. The two appointed to the bench by Republican
presidents, David Sentelle and Peter Kay, voted to continue the probe, but
Richard Cudahy, appointed by Democrat Jimmy Carter, filed an unusual
dissenting opinion.
After the Senate trial of Clinton and his acquittal, Cudahy wrote, the Starr
investigation had reached �a natural and logical point for termination, since
it is not clear how additional measures against the principal subject of the
investigation could be pursued.� He argued that �an endless investigation,
which the passivity of the majority invites, can serve no possible goal of
justice and imposes needless burdens on the taxpayers.''
Even more significant was Cudahy's complaint that the other two justices had
rejected his request that the panel formally ask Starr what was left to
investigate. Cudahy said that there had been no review of the Office of
Independent Counsel except �informal contacts� between Sentelle and Starr.
In this context it is worth reviewing who David Sentelle is. While Kay and
Cudahy are senior (retired) Appeals Court justices, Sentelle is a relatively
recent appointment�he was placed on the bench by George Bush�and previously
worked for years as an assistant and political operative for ultra-right-wing
Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina.
Sentelle was chosen by Chief Justice William Rehnquist, another far-right
Republican, to chair the three-judge panel which selects independent
counsels, ahead of several other Appeals Court justices who had longer
experience and less obvious partisan ties to the Republican Party.
In July 1994, after the first special prosecutor, Robert Fiske, had released
preliminary findings that the death of Vincent Foster was a suicide unrelated
to Whitewater, Sentelle intervened on behalf of the extreme-right elements
who sought to use the investigation to disrupt the White House. The
three-judge panel which he chaired fired Fiske and replaced him with Starr, a
figure far more closely identified with the right-wing of the Republican
Party.
Only days before the action, Sentelle was seen lunching with Jesse Helms and
Senator Lauch Faircloth, another North Carolina reactionary. Although both
Helms and Faircloth had been vocal critics of Fiske and had demanded his
replacement by a new special prosecutor, all three denied that this was the
subject of their t�te-�-t�te.
Cudahy's objections confirm that the judiciary played a critical role in the
behind-the-scenes right-wing campaign to destabilize the Clinton
administration. Rehnquist and Sentelle acted not as neutral arbiters of legal
precedent, but ideologically motivated participants in a political struggle
raging within the ruling class.
The three-judge panel could still have a major role to play if, as widely
reported, Starr resigns as Independent Counsel some time this fall. While its
legal authority is not clear, given the expiration last June 30 of the
Independent Counsel Law, the Sentelle panel is expected to select Starr's
replacement.
ABC News reported that Starr discussed his impending resignation with
Sentelle on August 2, and that the Appeals Court justice asked him to forward
the resumes of his three top deputies, one of whom could be chosen to carry
forward the legal attack on the Clintons and their associates.
Another facet of the right-wing destabilization campaign came to light in the
flurry of media reports about the private life of Newt Gingrich. The former
House Speaker filed for divorce from his wife Marianne last month. On August
14, a divorce court judge in Georgia granted Mrs. Gingrich's attorneys the
right to subpoena Callista Bisek, a congressional aide who has been
Gingrich's girlfriend for several years. A media frenzy then ensued in the
New York City and supermarket tabloids, and the identity of Ms. Bisek was
reported by much of the national media.
On August 18 the New York Times �which has yet to report the Bisek
story�published a commentary by Maureen Dowd, the columnist who spent most of
1998 denouncing Clinton's relations with Monica Lewinsky. Dowd noted, almost
in passing, �Newt Gingrich's affair with a young Capitol Hill aide was an
open secret in Washington all during impeachment, and all through his pompous
lectures about America's cultural and moral decline.�
Ms. Dowd refrains, for obvious reasons, from saying what follows logically
from this observation: that the media, including the New York Times and
herself personally, covered up this �open secret� throughout the time that
Clinton's relations with Monica Lewinsky were being used as the pretext for
an attempted political coup d'etat. Dowd herself was awarded the Pulitzer
Prize for her columns during this period.
His personal vulnerability to exposure undoubtedly played a role in
Gingrich's twists and turns during the Lewinsky affair. He first downplayed
the allegations against Clinton, then reversed himself and pledged to talk
about moral corruption in the White House in every speech. Later he declared
that sex and lying about sex were not impeachable offenses, but when Starr's
450-page pornographic report, based wholly on sex and lying about sex, was
delivered to the House of Representatives, Gingrich and the House Republican
leadership decided to release it, in the hope that this would spark public
revulsion against the White House.
Even after Gingrich suddenly stepped down as Speaker and resigned his seat in
the House of Representatives, following Republican losses in the November
1998 elections, the media kept silent about the �open secret� of his
relations with Bisek.
There is no question that Gingrich's resignation was demanded by even more
right-wing elements in the House Republican leadership, spearheaded by
Minority Whip Tom DeLay, who were pushing for an impeachment vote despite the
clear public repudiation in the elections, and regarded Gingrich's foibles as
an obstacle to this campaign. Shortly after Gingrich's ouster, the same
forces compelled his would-be successor, Robert Livingston, to step down even
before election as Speaker, when his own past marital infidelities were made
public.
Gingrich's personal relations are of no greater public interest than
Clinton's, except perhaps as an illustration, for the thousandth time, of the
hypocrisy and cynicism of big business politicians when they claim to
represent morality and virtue. Far more significant is the role of the New
York Times and the media as a whole, which worked systematically to promote
the right-wing campaign against the Clinton White House and to suppress any
information which might undermine it.
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