Clicking on banner ads keeps JWR alive
Jewish World Review Oct. 4, 1999/24 Tishrei, 5760

David Limbaugh

David Limbaugh
JWR's Pundits
World Editorial
Cartoon Showcase

Mallard Fillmore

Suzanne Fields
Arianna Huffington
Tony Snow
Michael Barone
Michael Medved
Lawrence Kudlow
Greg Crosby
Kathleen Parker
Dr. Laura
Debbie Schlussel
Michael Kelly
Bob Greene
Michelle Malkin
Paul Greenberg
MUGGER
David Limbaugh
David Corn
Marianne Jennings
Sam Schulman
Philip Weiss
Mort Zuckerman
Chris Matthews
Nat Hentoff
Larry Elder
Cal Thomas
Jonathan S. Tobin
Don Feder
Linda Chavez
Mona Charen
Thomas Sowell
Walter Williams
Ben Wattenberg
Bruce Williams
Dr. Peter Gott
Consumer Reports
Weekly Standard

Econophone

Clinton and his media enablers


http://www.jewishworldreview.com -- NOW, THIS SHOULD BE interesting. It seems that Bill Clinton has decided to turn his politics of personal destruction on his own executive branch.

Where are Woodward and Bernstein when you really need them?

The president is a little peeved that the FBI is beginning to make headway in its investigation into his campaign finance shenanigans. Or maybe he's angry because in the process they are blowing the whistle on his institutional guardian, the Justice Department.

On Sept. 22, FBI agents assigned to the campaign-finance task force told the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee that Justice Department officials had blocked their efforts to pursue crucial investigative leads -- including information that Charles Yah Lin Trie was bringing in duffel bags full of cash to the Democratic Party.

According to the Washington Times, the FBI agents described Justice Department lawyers overseeing the (campaign finance) probe as "nonaggressive prosecutors who sought to impede or delay the investigation with ludicrous restrictions." Ivian Smith, the special agent in charge of the FBI's Little Rock field office, wrote to Bureau Director, Louis Freeh, to complain about the Justice Department's interference with the investigation.

Though Freeh didn't personally reply to Smith's letter, we now know that within three months of receiving it, he sent a memo to Bill Clinton's consiglieri Janet Reno, recommending that she seek the appointment of an independent counsel to investigate the campaign finance scandal.

Oh, in case you forgot, Reno declined to follow Freeh's suggestion, and to this date, has never released his incriminating memo to her.

If you think this is outrageous, you ought to hear the particulars. Smith and three fellow agents testified to the committee that their Justice Department supervisor, Laura Ingersoll, prevented them from getting a search warrant to conduct a search of Trie's office where they believed Trie's assistant was destroying evidence that had been previously subpoenaed.

Ingersoll said she didn't believe the agents had established probable cause that a crime had been committed. We need to find out where she went to law school! How much is it going to take before the liberal press starts to do its job? Remember how this same Justice Department refused to authorize an FBI wiretap on suspected Los Alamos spy Wen Ho Lee? The ordinarily unflappable Clinton is more than a little defensive about this inquiry -- as well he should be, considering he knows all the sordid facts related to this scandal.

Clinton went so far as to ban from the White House a reporter from Investors Business Daily simply because he asked him when he was going to have a press conference about the illegal money from China and the campaign-finance scandal.

But even more bizarre than Clinton's banishment of the reporter was his response to the reporter's question. Obviously still fuming from the FBI's testimony to the Senate Committee last week, Clinton turned his sights on that pesky agency. "The FBI wants you to write about that rather than write about Waco," he snapped.

With that response, Clinton revealed that anyone, even his own FBI, is expendable if they come close to implicating him in the course of their duties. With Clinton, it is always someone else's fault.

His impertinent remark is designed to make us believe that these four FBI agents are lying about the Clinton Justice Department's obstruction of justice to divert attention from their own misdeeds at Waco. To quote rock-and-roll philosopher Chubby Checkers, "How low can you go?" The Clinton retort is interesting for another reason. We all know about his reputed gift for compartmentalization, but this takes the cake. Does he still fail to grasp that as president, he is accountable for all these agencies? Whether it's the Justice Department's malfeasance with Chinagate or the FBI's with Waco, he is the chief executive.

We should have known that Clinton's visceral contempt for law enforcement would surface eventually. When they are no longer of any political use to him he drops them like hot potatoes.

Alas, we've come to expect this behavior from Bill Clinton. But a scandal of equal magnitude is the mainstream media's astounding apathy and conspiratorial silence in the face of such overwhelming corruption by their ideological soulmate.


JWR contributor David Limbaugh is an attorney practicing in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, and a political analyst and commentator. Send your comments to him by clicking here.

Up

09/29/99: Reagan: Big-tent conservatism
09/27/99: The Clinton/Gore taint?
09/22/99: Have gun (tragedy), will travel
09/20/99: Hillary's blunders and bloopers
09/15/99: GOP must remain conservative
09/13/99:Time for Bush to take charge, please
09/10/99: Bush's education plan: Dubya confounds again
09/07/99: Pat, savior or spoiler?
09/02/99: Character doesn't matter?
08/30/99: Should we judge?
08/25/99: Dubyah's drug question: Not a hill to die on
08/23/99: Should Dubyah start buying soap ... for all that mud?
08/16/99: 'W' stands for 'winner'
08/11/99: The truth about tax cuts
08/09/99: Hillary: Threading the needle
08/04/99: What would you do?
08/02/99: No appeasement for China
07/30/99: Hate Crimes Bill: Cynical Symbolism
07/26/99: It’s the 'moderates', stupid
07/21/99: JFK Jr. and Diana: the pain of privilege
07/19/99: Smith, Bush and the GOP
07/14/99: GOP must be a party of ideas
07/12/99: Gore's gender gap
07/08/99: Clinton’s faustian bargain: our justice
07/06/99: The key to Bush's $36 million
06/30/99: Gore: a soda in every fountain
06/28/99: 'Sacred wall' or religious barrier?
06/23/99: GOP must lead in foreign policy
06/21/99: Crumbs of compassion
06/16/99: Compassionate conservatism: face-lift or body transplant?
06/10/99: Victory in Kosovo? Now What?

©1999, CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.