Barrett told the court that his office had "ceased all investigative and prosecutorial activities and does not intend to initiate any others." (He evidently made that decision sometime between last September and March, but exactly when is not clear.) Barrett further told the court that his primary remaining responsibility was writing the final report of his investigation.
That report could be quite controversial. Some people familiar with the situation believe the Justice Department barred Barrett from investigating things that, in the words of one source, "cried out to be investigated." This would include actions by the Justice Department itself — and the report may say so. "The Department of Justice is incapable of investigating itself, and you can carve that in granite," says the source. (A current official at Justice insists, "Nobody here was attempting to protect the Clinton administration from an investigation.")
It could be that Barrett was overreaching. Certainly one of the three federal judges who oversee his office has expressed serious reservations. In court papers filed in June 2001, Judge Richard Cudahy wrote that "whether a cost-benefit analysis at this point would support Mr. Barrett's efforts is a question to which I have no answer." But Cudahy added that the judges could do almost nothing to stop Barrett. "The [independent counsel] law literally construed may be that Mr. Barrett can go on forever," Cudahy wrote, "so long as he claims or shows active grand jury activity, no matter how unpromising. Who is to contradict his evaluation that what he is doing is full of promise?"
It should be noted that Cudahy is a Carter appointee who sometimes made trouble for independent counsels investigating the Clinton administration. In 1999, he voted (unsuccessfully) to shut down the Kenneth Starr investigation, and in 2000 he leaked information that then-independent counsel Robert Ray had started a new grand-jury probe into whether Bill Clinton could be indicted after he left office. (Cudahy later apologized for "inadvertently" releasing the information.)
Still, Cudahy has raised legitimate questions. Barrett will have to present some very good reasons for conducting such a long investigation, especially one whose primary goal was achieved in September 1999, when Cisneros pled guilty. It could be that Barrett is right — even Cudahy conceded that the "continuation of Mr. Barrett's efforts may indeed justify these lavish expenditures if there is any prospect of unearthing skullduggery by officials to help Mr. Cisneros."
When Barrett hands in his final report, the three-judge panel will have to decide whether to release it publicly. If there was ever a case in which the public had a right to know how its money has been spent and how its prosecutors have exercised their power, this is it. Maybe the investigation was a wild goose chase. If so, the public should know about it. But if the Justice Department obstructed a legitimate inquiry, the public should know that, too. Reputations are at stake — maybe more than just David Barrett's.
— Byron York, NR's White House correspondent, is the author of the new book The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy: The Untold Story of How Democratic Operatives, Eccentric Billionaires, Liberal Activists, and Assorted Celebrities Tried to Bring Down a President — and Why They'll Try Even Harder Next Time.
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Well .. I'm surprised Byron left out the fact that for several months if not more than a year, Hillary's lawyers have been fighting the release of this report in court - and finally succeeded in getting over 400 pages redacted.
So .. if anybody is to blame for this taking so long - Hillary has to be among those on the list.
I heard this information on Tony Snow's program when it first became known that Kerry and Dorgin had placed an amendment to the appropriations bill in order to stop the release of the report.
And .. at the time Barrett was conducting this investigation - the DOJ was run by Reno and Gorelick - who would have killed their own mothers in order to protect the Clintons.