Posted on 10/28/2005 11:47:29 AM PDT by pabianice
I disagree. I was impressed by Mr. Fitzgerald. I belive Wilson outed his wife, conspired to discredit the White House in a time of War and lied to the Senate repeatedly, BUT if Scooter knowingly lied to the GJ and did discuss this issue 6 times prior to "just learning", then he broke the law and should be punished.
However, if Mr. Liby's punishment is any stronger than that of Sandy Burglar then there is something incredibly wrong with how we dispense justice. A man who knowingly stole classified materials and destroyed said materials is a greater offense than knowingly misleading a GJ. And given that the underlying crime was not found to be true, he should receive a plea deal with a misdemeanor and a fine. Nothing more. (assuming he does not challenge the indictments).
I was impressed with Mr. Fitzgerald and unless I learn otherwise, I will not cast dispersion on the work he has done. It appears to have been an intelligent examination of facts and his press conference was spot-on. He avoided conjecture, stood his ground to reporters and dismissed many unfounded allegations. The media on the other hand was typically sickening especially when the lady reporter spouted what she called the "Republican Talking Points". Can you image a reporter trying to discount the reaction of the majority of this country before that reaction is even given! No bias there.
> culture of corruption
I've seen this play before. The Labour party in the UK used it to bring down the Conservatives. With them, it was 'sleaze' -- a term that was continually repeated, and parroted by a friendly media. Expect the same here for the next few years.
Originally published October 1998. Partially updated 9/21/00
Please send corrections and additions to THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW
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NOTES
Some of the data has not been updated recently and thus understates conditions. In certain areas, such as anomalous deaths, we have used an extremely conservative count. It is important in considering these fatal incidents to bear in mind the following:
(1) The fact that anomalies need to be investigated further carries no presumption of how a death actually occurred, only that there remain serious questions that require answers.
(2) The possibility of foul play must be taken seriously in a major criminal conspiracy in which over two score individuals and firms have been convicted and over 100 witnesses have pled the Fifth Amendment or fled the country.
(3) If foul play did occur in any of these cases, that fact by itself does not carry the presumption that the White House was involved. Given the footprints of organized crime, drug trade, foreign espionage, and intelligence agencies on the trail of the Clinton story, such a assumption would not be warranted.
ADMINISTRATION RECORDS SET
- The only president ever impeached on grounds of personal malfeasance
- Most number of convictions and guilty pleas by friends and associates
- Most number of cabinet officials to come under criminal investigation
- Most number of witnesses to flee country or refuse to testify
- Most number of witnesses to die suddenly
- First president sued for sexual harassment.
- First president accused of rape.
- First first lady to come under criminal investigation
- Largest criminal plea agreement in an illegal campaign contribution case
- First president to establish a legal defense fund.
- Greatest amount of illegal campaign contributions
- Greatest amount of illegal campaign contributions from abroad
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
- Number of independent counsel inquiries since the 1978 law was passed: 19
- Number that have produced indictments: 7
- Number that produced more convictions than the Starr investigation: 1
- Median length of investigations that have led to convictions: 44 months
- Length of Starr-Ray investigation (7/00): 67 months.
- Number of Starr-Ray investigation convictions to date (including one governor, one associate attorney general and two Clinton business partners): 15
- Median cost per Starr investigation conviction: $3.5 million as of 3/00
- Total cost of the Starr investigation (3/00) $52 million
- Total cost of the Iran-Contra investigation: $48.5 million
- Total cost to taxpayers of the Madison Guarantee failure: $73 million
- Number of Clinton cabinet members who came under criminal investigation: 5
- Number of Reagan cabinet members who came under criminal investigation: 4
- Number of top officials jailed in the Teapot Dome Scandal: 3
CRIME STATS
- Number of individuals and businesses associated with the Clinton machine who have been convicted of or pleaded guilty to crimes: 47
- Number of these convictions during Clinton's presidency: 33
- Number of indictments/misdemeanor charges: 61
- Number of imprisonments: 14
- Number of congressional witnesses who have pled the 5th Amendment, fled the country to avoid testifying, or (in the case of foreign witnesses) refused to be interviewed: 124
CAMPAIGN FINANCE INVESTIGATION
- As of June 2000, the Justice Department listed 25 people indicted and 19 convicted because of the 1996 Clinton-Gore fundraising scandals.
- According to the House Committee on Government Reform in September 2000, 79 House and Senate witnesses asserted the Fifth Amendment in the course of investigations into Gore's last fundraising campaign. [These figures are included in the larger figures elsewhere].
-James Riady entered a plea agreement to pay an $8.5 million fine for campaign finance crimes. This was a record under campaign finance laws.
STARR INVESTIGATION
- Number of Starr-Ray investigation convictions or guilty pleas to date (including one governor, one associate attorney general and two Clinton business partners): 15
- Number of Clinton Cabinet members who came under criminal investigation: 5
- Number of Reagan cabinet members who came under criminal investigation: 4
- Number of top officials jailed in the Teapot Dome Scandal: 3
SMALTZ INVESTIGATION
- Guilty pleas and convictions obtained by Donald Smaltz in cases involving charges of bribery and fraud against former Agriculture Secretary Espy and associated individuals and businesses: 15
- Acquitted or overturned cases (including Espy): 6
- Fines and penalties assessed: $11.5 million
- Cost of investigation: $22.2 million through 9/99
- Amount Tyson Food paid in fines and court costs: $6 million
- Amount Tyson Food still has in annual government contracts: $200 million
- Reasons individuals other than Espy were convicted or pled guilty: Concealing knowledge of gifts to Espy and his girlfriend (1), providing illegal gratuities to Espy(4), illegally supplementing the salary of a government official (2), concealing receipt of illegal funds on behalf of Espy (1) (Espy's chief of staff sentenced to prison in this case)
CRIMES FOR WHICH CONVICTIONS HAVE BEEN OBTAINED
Drug trafficking (3), racketeering, extortion, bribery(4), tax evasion, kickbacks, embezzlement (2), fraud (12), conspiracy (5), fraudulent loans, illegal gifts(1), illegal campaign contributions(5), money laundering (6)
POSSIBLE CRIMES AND SUSPICIOUS MATTERS INVESTIGATED BY SPECIAL PROSECUTORS, CONGRESS,
AND/OR INVESTIGATIVE REPORTERS
Bank and mail fraud, violations of campaign finance laws, illegal foreign campaign funding, improper exports of sensitive technology, physical violence and threats of violence, solicitation of perjury, intimidation of witnesses, bribery of witnesses, attempted intimidation of prosecutors, perjury before congressional committees, lying in statements to federal investigators and regulatory officials, flight of witnesses, obstruction of justice, bribery of cabinet members, real estate fraud, tax fraud, drug trafficking, failure to investigate drug trafficking, bribery of state officials, use of state police for personal purposes, exchange of promotions or benefits for sexual favors, using state police to provide false court testimony, laundering of drug money through a state agency, false reports by medical examiners and others investigating suspicious deaths, the firing of the RTC and FBI director when these agencies were investigating Clinton and his associates, failure to conduct autopsies in suspicious deaths, providing jobs in return for silence by witnesses, drug abuse, illegal acquisition and use of 900 FBI files, illegal futures trading, murder, sexual abuse of employees, false testimony before a federal judge, shredding of documents, withholding and concealment of subpoenaed documents, fabricated charges against (and improper firing of) White House employees, as well as providing access to the White House to drug traffickers, foreign agents and participants in organized crime.
UNEXPLAINED PHENOMENA
- FBI files misappropriated by the White House: c. 900
- Estimated number of witnesses quoted in FBI files misappropriated by the White House: 18,000
- Number of witnesses who developed medical problems at critical points in Clinton scandals investigation (Tucker, Hale, both McDougals, Lindsey): 5
- Problem areas listed in a memo by Clinton's own lawyer in preparation for the president's defense: 40
- Number of witnesses and critics of Clinton subjected to IRS audit: 45
- Number of names placed in a White House secret database without the knowledge of those named: c. 200,000
- Number of persons involved with Clinton who have been beaten up: 2
- Number of women involved with Clinton who claim to have been physically threatened (Sally Perdue, Gennifer Flowers, Kathleen Willey, Linda Tripp, Elizabeth Ward Gracen): 5
- Number of men involved in the Clinton scandals who have been beaten up or claimed to have been intimidated: 10
ARKANSAS SUDDEN DEATH SYNDROME
- Number of persons in the Clinton machine orbit who are alleged to have committed suicide: 9
- Number known to have been murdered: 12
- Number who died in plane crashes: 6
- Number who died in single car automobile accidents: 3
- Number killed during Waco massacre: 4
- Number of one-person sking fatalities: 1
- Number of key witnesses who have died of heart attacks while in federal custody under questionable circumstances: 1
- Number of medications being taken by Jim McDougal at the time he was placed in solitary confinement shortly before his death: 12
- Number of unexplained deaths: 4
- Total suspicious deaths: 46
- Number of northern Mafia killings during peak years of 1968-78: 30
- Number of Dixie Mafia killings during same period: 156
ARKANSAS ALZHEIMER'S
- Number of times Hillary Clinton said "I don't recall" or its equivalent in a statement to a House investigating committee: 50
- Number of paragraphs in this statement: 42
- Number of times Bill Clinton said "I don't recall" or its equivalent in the released portions of the his testimony on Paula Jones: 271
- Total number of facts or events not recalled before official bodies by Bill Kennedy, Harold Ickes, Ricki Seidman, Bruce Lindsey, Bill Burton, Mark Gearan, Mack McLarty, Neil Eggleston, John Podesta, Jennifer O'Connor, Dwight Holton, Patsy Thomasson, Jeff Eller, Beth Nolan, Cliff Sloan, Bernard Nussbaum, George Stephanopoulous, Roy Neel, Rahm Emanuel, Maggie Williams, David Tarbell, Susan Thomases, Webster Hubbell, Roger Altman, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton: 6,125
- Average occurrence of memory lapse by top administration figures while before official bodies: 235
ARKANSAS MONEY MANAGEMENT
- Amount of an alleged electronic transfer from the Arkansas Development Financial Authority to a bank in the Cayman Islands during 1980s: $50 million
- Grand Cayman's population: 18,000
- Number of commercial banks: 570
- Number of bank regulators: 1
- Amount Arkansas state pension fund invested in high-risk repos in the mid-80s in one purchase in April 1985: $52 million through the Worthen Bank.
- Number of days thereafter that the state's brokerage firm went belly up: 3
- Amount Arkansas pension fund dropped overnight as a result: 15%
- Percent of Worthen bank that Mochtar Riady bought over the next four months to bail out the bank and the then governor, Bill Clinton: 40%.
- Percent of purchasers from the Clintons and McDougals of resort lots who lost the land because of the sleazy financing provisions: over 50%
THE MEDIA
- Number of journalists covering Whitewater who have been fired, transferred off the beat, resigned or otherwise gotten into trouble because of their work on the scandals (Doug Frantz, Jim Wooten, Richard Behar, Christopher Ruddy, Michael Isikoff, David Eisenstadt, Yinh Chan, Jonathan Broder, James R. Norman, Zoh Hieronimus): 10
FRIENDS OF BILL
- Number of times John Huang took the 5th Amendment in answer to questions during a Judicial Watch deposition: 1,000
- Visits made to the White House by investigation subjects Johnny Chung, James Riady, John Huang, and Charlie Trie. 160
- Number of campaign contributors who got overnights at the White House in the two years before the 1996 election: 577
- Number of members of Thomas Boggs's law firm who have held top positions in the Clinton administration. 18
- Number of times John Huang was briefed by CIA: 37
- Number of calls Huang made from Commerce Department to Lippo banks: 261
- Number of intelligence reports Huang read while at Commerce: 500
POLITICAL FALL-OUT
- According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, Democrats held a 1,542 seat lead in the state bodies in 1990. As of November 2000 that lead had shrunk to 288. That's a loss of over 1,200 state legislative seats, nearly all of them under Clinton. Across the US, the Democrats controlled only 65 more state senate seats than the Republicans.
Further, in 1992, the Democrats controlled 17 more state legislatures than the Republicans. After November, the Republicans control one more than the Democrats. Not only was this a loss of 9 legislatures under Clinton, but it was the first time since 1954 that the GOP had controlled more state legislatures than the Democrats (they tied in 1968).
Here's what happened to the Democrats under Clinton:
- GOP seats gained in House since Clinton became president: 48
- GOP seats gained in Senate since Clinton became president: 8
- GOP governorships gained since Clinton became president: 11
- GOP state legislative seats gained since Clinton became president: 1,254
as of 1998
- State legislatures taken over by GOP since Clinton became president: 9
- Democrat officeholders who have become Republicans since Clinton became
president: 439 as of 1998
- Republican officeholders who have become Democrats since Clinton became president: 3
See, right there: The Law matters (when it looks like conservatives are breaking it.) But for those of us on the left (who know what's best for the smelly pleabians we lord over) the law shouldn't matter - only our intentions should matter.
skeletor .
If I couldn't close my eyes, I'd be a raving lunatic, too!
To call it "two wrongs" implies that both are of equal weight.
Clinton's crimes wer orders of magnitude more serious and devastating to our national security than what Libby did. Hell, if you don't want to have "two wrongs" make a right, how about if we just agree not to discuss Hillary's documented lies to the prosecutor investigating Travelgate?
So that makes us even.
That still leaves Clinton's conveyanvce to China of critical missile launching technology -- giving China (for the first time ever) the ability to launch long range nuclear missiles to US territory. Clinton's quid pro quo was all those Chinese campaign contributions.
And then there was the 4-day bombing of Baghdad -- without the approval of Congress and justified as a response to Saddam's WMD capabilities -- timed exactly to coincide with the House impeachment vote in the hope of delaying the proceeding until the next term when more Democrats would be seated.
There's more, as we all know, but you get the point, I hope.
So please don't suggest that Clinton's crimes are in any way comparable to the Libby indictment. The American people must never forget what Clinton did to our country.
From today's Federalist:
Much ado about nothing...
Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald will announce in a press conference this afternoon any indictments to be handed down in the outing of already-outed CIA agent Valerie Plame. The buzz is that Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, will be indicted and that Karl Rove will escape for the time being—though there is still the possibility that Mr. Fitzgerald could exercise restraint. Libby will likely collect a perjury charge because he testified that he learned of Plame's identity from reporters, but his own notes indicate that he actually learned about Plame from Vice President Cheney directly.
Oops. In other words, if they had asked him if he had ham and cheese on rye or wheat two years ago, and he recalled wheat but his notes said rye, that constitutes perjury.
Nagging questions that remain include whether Plame's covert status was actually compromised to the media. She had worked conspicuously at Langley headquarters for several years, and she certainly played a role in her husband Joe Wilson's trip to Niger to investigate whether Saddam Hussein had attempted to purchase uranium. Wilson, a Bush-hating bureaucrat of considerable ego, believes that Plame's outing was a grand conspiracy by the administration to avenge his own harsh criticism of President Bush and the case for war in Iraq—which leads us to the shaky nature of two of the pillars of Fitzgerald's case: One is Wilson, whose proven falsehoods and shameless self-promotion long ago wrecked his credibility among fair-minded people; the other is New York Times reporter Judith Miller, whose scattershot and inaccurate notes have earned her the nickname Miss Run Amok.
National security was not compromised because everyone now knows where Valerie Plame commutes each day.
Oh, and nobody would know that Valerie Plame had a desk job at Langley, except for the fact that Wilson launched this whole vindictive political ploy in the press. To be sure, U.S. national security was not compromised in the least simply because everyone now knows where Plame commutes each day.
In the end, our hope is that Mr. Fitzgerald, having conducted a thoughtful and vigorous investigation, decides not to indict; that he exercises restraint and invokes a commonsense playground axiom: No harm, no foul.
NO UNDERLYING CRIME.....same as Martha Stewart, waste of time..if no underlying crime, then NOBODY should be indicted on these BS charges....
Very well put! And I totally agree. What Clinton did was so much worse than Libby it trivializes it to comapre the two.
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