Washington Times-EDITORIAL � July 12, 2000
'No underlying offense'
If, as the Justice Department charges in its oddball
contempt-of-court case against Charles G. Bakaly III, the former
spokesman for Independent Counsel Kenneth W. Starr did confirm to
a New York Times reporter that President Clinton might face
indictment by the independent counsel, it's hard to summon the
requisite outrage to clamor for putting the man behind bars.
After all, any independent counsel worth his independence might
indict a target of his investigation. No one needs Deep Throat to
figure that out.
Nonetheless, when the article first appeared in January,
1999, during Mr. Clinton's impeachment trial in the Senate, the
White House feigned the appearance of being shocked, shocked,
prompting U.S. District Judge Norma Holloway Johnson to initiate
an investigation into whether Mr. Starr or his staff had violated
grand jury secrecy rules.
This was not the first time Judge Johnson, who oversees the
grand jury, had opened a leaks inquiry. Nor was it the first time
the judge would be overruled on the matter.
Recall that beginning in February 1998, David Kendall, Mr.
Clinton's personal lawyer, opened a daring new front in the
public relations war by charging that the Office of Independent
Counsel (OIC) was leaking confidential grand jury information. An
appeals court ultimately judged the charges groundless, but they
certainly impressed U.S. District Judge Norma Holloway Johnson,
who has consistently ruled against the OIC on Mr. Kendall's leak
charges. Her rulings have not exactly stood the test of time. At
last count, Judge Johnson had been reined in on three separate
occasions by a federal appeals court for her rather extravagant,
even Kendallian readings of grand jury secrecy rules � which, if
allowed to stand, would outlaw most lawyer-reporter exchanges
outside lunch orders.
The New York Times article is a case in point. Having
determined that the article contained no grand jury secrets, an
appeals court panel unanimously overruled Judge Johnson in
September 1999, thus preventing her from initiating contempt
proceedings against Mr. Starr and the OIC staff. (Even the
Justice Department, appointed by Judge Johnson as prosecutor
against the OIC, agreed there had been no violation of grand jury
secrecy rules.) So how is it that Mr. Bakaly now stands trial for
charges stemming from the same article?
The answer verges on the Kakfaesque. Mr. Bakaly stands
accused, not of leaking grand jury secrets, but rather of falsely
denying that he gave what the Justice Department calls "nonpublic
information" to a reporter � presumably concerning the possible
indictment of Mr. Clinton. His lawyers contend that he was simply
confirming "a truism." In their pretrial brief, they also argue
that the three sworn statements in question were edited and
amended against Mr. Bakaly's wishes by OIC prosecutors to reveal
as little as possible to Mr. Clinton's lawyers, even to the point
of suggesting that Mr. Bakaly had provided no information
whatsoever to the reporter � not even a truism. Does the phrase
"frivolous case" begin to form in the cranial cavity? As even
Julian Epstein, the Democratic counsel on the House Judiciary
Committee and one of Mr. Starr's harshest critics, put it, this
is a "terrible" case, a "semantical game of gotcha. There is no
real underlying offense here," Mr. Epstein said this week.
It certainly makes you wonder � especially considering that
if Judge Johnson wants to slap contempt citations on offenders
against her court, she's overlooking the most deserving candidate
of all: Bill Clinton.
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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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