TRIPP CASE LAWBREAKING SHOULD BE PROSECUTED
Senator Inhofe's Website
Published: June 12, 2000
Senate Floor Statement
Mr. President, I have not a speech, but a story to tell. The name
of that story could very well be `What Would Have Happened To
Frankie Vee?'
Now, they say confession is good for the soul. I confess that
during the Memorial Day recess a couple weeks ago I did not work
during the whole recess. I spent some time with my family, with
my wife, with my daughter Katie, her husband Brad, their baby,
and some of the other kids, and we went to south Texas where we
own some property. There is a little town down there called Port
Isabel. There is a restaurant there that none of the tourists go
to. It is just the local people who go there. It is right there
on the channel that goes out ultimately to the Gulf.
There is a guy down there who sings. You sit down and you have
dinner. He has these machines he turns on; they make music. He
has a microphone, and he sings. He has a beautiful voice. The
reason I like it is he sings the kind of songs I know such as
`Your Cheatin� Heart' and `Lord, Help Me, Jesus,' and songs like
that. While he is singing, his wife sways to the music with her
eyes closed. It is just a beautiful setting there.
This was going on when all of a sudden a light went on, and I do
not knowhow this happened, but I was looking at this guy, who is
just an ordinaryperson--he is about my age. He has gone through
tough times in his lifelike I have. He has made money; he has
lost money; but he is just a very typical American. He is someone
who has to obey the laws, has to work hard, and has to pay taxes.
His name is Frankie Vee.
What occurred to me was that if Frankie Vee had blatantly and
knowingly and wrongfully committed a crime like Kenneth Bacon,
blatantly and knowingly and willingly committed a crime, he would
not be singing there and spreading joy in the hearts of many
while his wife is swaying. He would be serving time in a Federal
penitentiary.
People often ask if am outraged by the continuing trail of
lawbreaking and abuses committed under the Clinton
administration. They assume, since I speak out about these things
from time to time, that I am mad.
But I am not outraged; I am not mad; and I am not feeling any
anxiety about this. I guess the best way to characterize my
feelings after the last 7 � years of this administration using
the Justice Department to protect its friends and to punish its
enemies is that it is just something that I feel numb about.
I am proud of two of the mainstream media--only two--that have
been willing to write about these things. And that is Fox News
and the Washington Times.
So in this case, we have talked about comparing the crime that
was committed by Kenneth Bacon with other crimes that were
committed--and I am going to talk about that in just a minute--by
other people in other administrations. But what occurred to me
was that every citizen out here, whether in Wyoming or Oklahoma,
has to obey the law, and has to be punished under the law if that
person disobeys the law, would be prosecuted if there was
justification for prosecution and then would be punished
accordingly--except in this administration.
On Thursday, May 25, on the eve of the Memorial Day weekend and
Congress� week-long recess, the Clinton administration
perpetrated another outrage to add to its long trail of outrages.
In the face of the Pentagon Inspector General�s firm conclusion
that Kenneth Bacon and Clifford Bernath violated the Privacy Act
and broke the law and committed a crime, the Secretary of Defense
announced that he would do nothing meaningful to hold these men
accountable for their actions. This neatly follows the earlier
decision of the Justice Department not to prosecute, after
engaging in a two year cover-up.
As I have said before, this case has broad implications for what
has been done to the rule of law and to the concept of honesty
and integrity in government over the past seven and a half years.
Above everything else, the systematic undermining of these
time-honored principles constitutes the true and lasting legacy
of the Clinton-Gore Administration.
Time after time, again and again, Attorney General Janet Reno and
the Justice Department have used that department to protect the
President�s political friends and to punish the President�s
political enemies.
Today, as a result of this case, millions of federal employees
are on notice that the information contained in their
confidential government personnel records cannot be protected
from politically motivated disclosures. They are on notice that
the Privacy Act can be violated with impunity-- even when the
perpetrators are caught red-handed.
And in an additional outrage, we find out that the administration
has sought to have taxpayers pay the legal bills of these two
individuals who broke the law. We know this because one of the
documents released--perhaps inadvertently--by the Pentagon two
weeks ago was a letter from Pentagon counsels� office to the
Justice Department making this specific request on behalf of Mr.
Bernath.
Let�s quickly recap what happened. In March 1998, about eight
weeks into the Monica Lewinski scandal, Pentagon Public Affairs
director Kenneth Bacon got a phone call from Jane Mayer, a
Clinton-friendly reporter for the New Yorker magazine. Mayer
informed Bacon that she had evidence that a key witness in this
presidential scandal, Linda Tripp, had been arrested for larceny
as a teenager. Tripp was, and still is, a civilian government
employee working at the Pentagon. Mayer wanted to know how Tripp
had replied to Question 21 on her security clearance form, asking
if she had ever been arrested. If she had answered �no� (which
she did), public disclosure of this information�in conjunction
with the new evidence Mayer said she had--would have been clearly
damaging to Tripp�s credibility and reputation and would
discredit her as someone who was bringing charges against the
President.
Soon thereafter, it was discovered that Tripp�s teenage arrest
was the result of a juvenile prank, perpetrated against her. The
judge in the case told her that her record would be cleared.
Nevertheless, once Mayer�s story was published, the damage to
Tripp was done. She was discredited forever.
One could say that Bacon had conspired with Mayer to implement �a
scheme to defame and destroy the public image of Linda Tripp with
the intent to influence, obstruct, and impede the conduct and
outcome� of pending investigations and prosecutions. That is
exactly what the two of them did.
And that is essentially the exact same language with which a
court�26 years ago�condemned Chuck Colson for committing the same
crime during Watergate. It said Colson had implemented �a scheme
to defame and destroy the public image of Linda Tripp with the
intent to influence, obstruct, and impede the conduct and
outcome� of pending investigations and prosecutions. The exact
same thing Bacon and Bernath did.
The actions of Bacon and Bernath then immediately became the
subject of a Pentagon IG investigation to determine if they had
violated the Privacy Act, which is designed to prevent the
disclosure of confidential personnel information on government
employees.
The IG quickly concluded that, yes, indeed, they did violate the
Privacy Act. In July 1998, the IG made a criminal referral to the
Justice Department so the case could be prosecuted. But nobody
knew it. The fact that the IG had concluded his report was
covered up by the Justice Department for two years after that.
The Justice Department sat on the case for two years�doing
nothing. A classic foot-dragging,
stonewalling, Clinton coverup. Finally, in March of this year,
they quietly announced that no one would be prosecuted in the
case. And they call it a department of �Justice.�
The Department said it concluded that Bacon and Bernath �didn�t
intend to break the law,� when they made the disclosure of the
Tripp information�as if that was ever a legitimate excuse for
anything.
The issue was then turned over to Secretary of Defense William
Cohen. He was charged with evaluating the conclusions of the IG
report and taking any action he deemed appropriate, such as
firing both men.
This brings us to a week ago Thursday, when Cohen announced just
what he �deemed appropriate:� He sent Bacon and Bernath personal
letters expressing �disappointment� in their actions�making a
clear point that they were not letters of reprimand and would not
be placed in either man�s permanent personnel file. So it was not
even a slap on the wrist.
In other words, he did nothing. He didn�t fine anyone, suspend
anyone, or fire anyone. He took the IG�s conclusion that the
Privacy Act was broken and walked away without exacting any
measure of accountability or justice.
He did, however, publicly release the IG report and related
documents. These clearly show that the Inspector General
unhesitatingly concluded that Tripp�s privacy was compromised,
that the Privacy Act was violated, and that the law was broken.
The IG totally rejected Bacon and Bernath�s contorted arguments
to the contrary.
In addition, the IG report clearly shows that no serious
investigation was ever conducted into the possible (or probable)
involvement of other Clinton administration officials or friends
outside the Pentagon (such as those in the White House) who may
have been involved in orchestrating the smear of Linda Tripp.
I urge my colleagues to read the front page story in the
Washington Times from Saturday, May 27, 2000. It lays out clear
evidence that Bacon and Bernath did not act alone in this matter
as they claim. It is evidence that the IG did not adequately
follow up. Yet it is the kind of evidence that--as Clinton-friend
Dick Morris has said--would lead to a conclusion �any six year
old� could understand, namely that Bacon and Bernath most
certainly did not act alone.
So let�s go back and reconstruct what happened in this case. I
think it is important we be redundant in this so people will
understand and it will not be forgotten and covered up.
On March 12, 1998, the New Yorker magazine writer Jane Mayer, a
former Wall Street Journal writer, called Kenneth Bacon�who used
to work with Mayer at the Journal�asking him about a line on
Linda Tripp�s personnel file for a story she is writing.
March 13, the very next day, Bacon asks Clifford Bernath�then a
public affairs deputy�to answer Mayer�s question. Bernath writes
in his journal, �Ken has made clear it is a priority.�
Then, later in March, the New Yorker story is published, claiming
that Tripp violated the law.
A few days later, Secretary of Defense William Cohen, calls the
disclosure �certainly inappropriate, if not illegal.� He said,
�Tripp�s file was supposed to be protected by privacy rules.�
Then the Department of Defense Inspector General�s investigation
was initiated�in March 1998. In April of 1999, Cliff Bernath was
deposed by Judicial Watch. He was accompanied by a group of
government lawyers from the Justice Department, the Defense
Department, and the White House�as well as one from the law firm
of Williams and Connally, appearing on behalf of the First Lady,
who was then a defendant in the FBI files suit. Over six hours,
Bernath proceeded to change his story. He previously insisted
that the request was handled in a routine way. In his deposition,
he conceded it was of high priority, per the direction of Ken
Bacon.
On May 21, 1998, at a Pentagon press conference, Kenneth Bacon
declined comment (as he has since repeatedly) to the press,
including refusing to deny whether the White House directed him
to release that information, on the grounds that the IG was still
investigating.
On July 10, 1998, Judge Royce Lamberth ordered the Defense
Department to seize the computer of a Pentagon staffer who admits
releasing information on the security clearance form of Tripp.
Lamberth ruled that the Department's inspector general should
check the computer because Pentagon aide Clifford Bernath deleted
documents although Bernath claimed none of the deleted documents
concerns Tripp. Lamberth's ruling was in connection with a
lawsuit filed by Judicial Watch's FBI files investigation.
On February 9, 2000, at a House Armed Services Committee hearing,
Secretary Cohen has no answer to question from Rep. Buyer on
where the DoD IG's report is.
On March 6, 2000, Judge Lamberth signs an order requiring DoD to
produce records concerning the release of information in Tripp's
DoD files and information on any attempts to withhold information
from the public and/or investigators about the details of that
release.
On March 13, 2000, Judge Royce Lamberth states that "The Tripp
release presents such a clear violation of the Privacy Act."
Lamberth said: "The court finds it impossible to fathom how an
internal investigation into such a simple matter could take so
long to conclude."
In fact, even though that statement was made by the judge in the
court records on March 13, 2000, that internal investigation had
been concluded in July 1998, nearly 2 years before.
(continued)
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Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT
FROM THE DESK OF: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
*Mike Spitzer* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
~~~~~~~~ <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends
Shalom, A Salaam Aleikum, and to all, A Good Day.
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