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Jewish World Review Sept. 15, 1998 / 24 Elul, 5758
Thomas Sowell
AFTER FINISHING HIS WORK on potentially impeachable offenses growing out of the Lewinsky
scandal, Kenneth Starr is still investigating other activities by the president and others,
which could add to the list of potentially impeachable offenses by the president and
criminal indictments against others.
The Clintons were partners with Jim and Susan McDougal in the Whitewater Development
Corporation, whose accounts were kept in the Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan, run by
Jim McDougal, with Hillary Clinton as an attorney. Federal bank examiners testified that
Madison Guaranty was a "politically corrupt institution that routed millions of dollars to
politically connected Arkansans."
In the more reserved language of an official report, Madison Guaranty was the scene of
"embezzlement," "money laundering," "falsification of loan records and board minutes,"
"wire fraud" and "illegal campaign contributions" -- among other crimes.
Part of the money looted by Jim McDougal found its way into the Whitewater account and
into Bill Clinton's political campaign funds. These frauds left the Federal Deposit Insurance
Corporation to pay more than $60 million to depositors with accounts in Madison
Guaranty. That was more than all the years of Kenneth Starr's investigations cost.
Why was a special prosecutor necessary? Because the Clintons had used their political
clout to obstruct the investigations and corrupt the normal processes of government, at
both the state and federal levels. This was not just Bill Clinton's method of operation when
dealing with scandals in "his private sex life." It was a technique used by both Clintons in
matters having nothing to do with sex, long before anyone ever heard of Monica Lewinsky.
When both state and federal investigators first moved in, Hillary Clinton was able to stop
the state officials from closing down Madison Guaranty. She was more than just another
lawyer appearing before state officials. She was the wife of the governor who appointed
those officials.
The Clintons could not interfere with the feds, however -- at least not until they were in the
White House. By then, Madison Guaranty had been closed down and federal investigators
were on the trail of the frauds. By firing all U.S. Attorneys shortly after becoming president
-- something no other president had ever done before -- Bill Clinton got rid of the U.S.
Attorney in Arkansas who was investigating the Whitewater-Madison Guaranty scandals
and replaced him with Paula Casey, a Clinton protege and one of his political campaign
workers.
The president's Arkansas appointee had no experience as a prosecutor, but she had
political ties to the people being investigated -- including the Clintons and Arkansas
governor Jim Guy Tucker.
Other federal authorities who sent information to Ms. Casey for criminal investigations of
Tucker and the Clintons got nowhere. She officially declined the criminal referrals. She
even kept the information from reaching Justice Department headquarters in Washington,
until others went over her head to tell the top brass at Justice in D.C.
Other investigators in another federal agency were told that higher-ups would take "a dim
view" of their pursuing the Whitewater-Madison affair. When these investigators failed to
take the hint, they were put on administrative leave in August 1994, without warning and
without explanation.
Meanwhile, White House lawyers and the Clintons' private attorneys were being briefed
repeatedly on how much dirt the feds had dug up on the Clintons back in Arkansas. It was
a complete violation of the rules and practices for federal investigators to reveal what they
had found out to those who were being investigated.
All that kept this cover-up and obstruction of justice from succeeding was the appointment
of a special prosecutor. Kenneth Starr could not be put on administrative leave. He got
more than 20 felony convictions out of an Arkansas jury in an overwhelmingly Democratic
state, despite later White House spin that this was all just Republican "partisanship."
Against this background, it is easy to see why various records showing Hillary Clinton's
work for Madison Guaranty were destroyed and others stolen by Webster Hubbell and
"lost" in the White
Hillary Rodham Crook?
Let's go back to square one. This all started with the appointment of a special prosecutor
to look into financial frauds in Arkansas, in institutions connected with Hillary and Bill
Clinton.
Billary: Like husband, like wife?
Or is it the other way around?
9/14/98: Taking stock
9/11/98: Moment of truth
9/04/98: Random thoughts
8/31/98: The twilight of special prosecutors?
8/26/98: "Doing a good job"
8/24/98: America on trial?
8/19/98: Played for fools
8/17/98: A childish letter
8/11/98: Hiding behind a woman
8/07/98: A flying walrus in Washington?
8/03/98: "Affordability" strikes again
7/31/98: Random thoughts
7/27/98: Faith and mountains
7/24/98: Clinton in Wonderland
7/20/98: Where is black 'leadership' leading?
7/16/98: Do 'minorities' really have it that bad?
7/14/98: Race dialogue: same old stuff
7/10/98: Honest history
7/09/98: Dumb is dangerous
7/02/98: Gun-safety starts with
parental responsibility
6/30/98: When more is less
6/29/98: Are educators above the law?
6/26/98: Random Thoughts
6/24/98: An angry letter
6/22/98: Sixties sentimentalism
6/19/98:Dumbing down anti-trust
6/15/98: A changing of the guard?
6/11/98: Presidential privileges
6/8/98: Fast computers and slow antitrust
6/3/98: Can stalling backfire?
5/29/98: The insulation of the Left
5/25/98: Missing the point in the media
5/22/98: The lessons of Indonesia
5/20/98: Smart but silent
5/18/98: Israel, Clinton and character
5/14/98: Monica Lewinsky's choices
5/11/98: Random thoughts
5/7/98: Media obstruction of justice
5/4/98: Dangerous "safety"
5/1/98:
Abolish Adolescence!
4/30/98: The naked truth
4/22/98: Playing fair and square
4/19/98: Bad teachers"
4/15/98: "Clinton in Africa
"
4/13/98: "Bundling and unbundling
"
4/9/98: "Rising or falling Starr
"
4/6/98: "Was Clinton ‘vindicated'?
"
3/26/98: "Diasters -- natural and political"
3/24/98: "A pattern of behavior"
3/22/98: Innocent explanations
3/19/98: Kathleen Willey and Anita Hill
3/17/98: Search and destroy
3/12/98: Media Circus versus Justice
3/6/98: Vindication
3/3/98: Cheap Shot Time
2/26/98: The Wrong Filter
2/24/98: Trial by Media
2/20/98: Dancing Around the Realities
2/19/98: A "Do Something" War?
2/12/98: Julian Simon, combatant in a 200-year war
2/6/98: A rush to rhetoric
