a rare challenge to clinton's executive power & lies by the judicial branch. see the book "secret life of bill clinton" by ambrose evans pritchard for more excellent info about the true state of our union. ------- Forwarded Message Date: Fri, 19 Dec 1997 11:40:40 To: believer@telepath.com From: believer@telepath.com Subject: IP: White House to Pay for Cover-Up
From the Washington Times:
White House to pay for health care lies By Paul Bedard THE WASHINGTON TIMES The White House and lawyers defending first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton lied in an effort to keep internal working papers used to develop President Clinton's universal health care plan in 1993 secret, a federal judge said Thursday. Using blunt language in a written order, U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth also accused administration officials at "the highest levels of government" of engaging in a "cover-up" and pressuring the Justice Department to defend its "dishonest" actions. "It is clear that the decisions here were made at the highest levels of government and the government itself is -- and should be --accountable when its officials run amok," Judge Lamberth wrote. "It seems that some government officials never learn that the cover-up can be worse than the underlying conduct," he added, ordering the government to pay legal fees of $285,864 to the doctors trade group that sued the White House in February 1993 to open up the first lady's health care planning meetings to the public. The White House has said taxpayers will pay the bill. "We don't have any comment," White House spokesman Barry Toiv said Thursday. Justice Department spokesman Bert Brandenburg said, "The government has consistently maintained that sanctions are not appropriate. "We disagree with Judge Lamberth's conclusion but we take his opinion seriously. We are reviewing the decision and considering what action is appropriate," Mr. Brandenburg said. "We're pleased at this point to have any reimbursement, but the money was never the issue," said Kathryn Serkes, spokeswoman for the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, the group that brought the initial suit against Mrs. Clinton and her health care task force. "What's important are the conclusions that the judge reached. Without using the president or first lady's name, he points a finger squarely at them," she said. The doctors group filed suit to open up closed meetings of Mrs. Clinton's Health Care Task Force. They maintained the first lady was violating the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which requires that any federal advisory panel that includes a nongovernment worker must always meet in the open. The association said Mrs. Clinton was not an employee of the government, but an appeals court determined that Mrs. Clinton was a de facto federal employee and thus allowed her group to meet privately. The doctors group then tried to open up secret meetings of Mrs. Clinton's larger "working group," which numbered between 600 and 1,000, but Judge Lamberth temporarily blocked that plan when Clinton health care adviser Ira Magaziner said the panel included "only federal government employees." But Mr. Magaziner's March 3, 1993, statement was "actually false," said the judge, who expressed anger that the White House and Justice Department never moved to correct the fabrication. Judge Lamberth relied upon Mr. Magaziner's statement in refusing to open up the working group's meetings as required by the law. In fact, the group included hundreds of nongovernmental members and representatives of special-interest groups who would have profited if the Clintons' universal health care proposal was approved. The proposal never came to a vote in Congress. The legal effort to open the meetings was eventually rendered moot after the White House turned over the working group's internal documents. In addition to revealing the special interests involved in drawing up the Clinton plan, the documents released over time by the White House showed that private-sector members of the group were still trying to complete ethics and conflict-of-interest forms long after their employment had begun. In his decision Thursday, the judge gave the doctors group credit for giving the public a window on the development of the administration's massive health care bill. "All of these working group documents would be safely tucked away in the National Archives had it not been for this litigation. It is only because of this litigation that they are now available for inspection by the public," he wrote. Judge Lamberth subsequently sought a perjury investigation of Mr. Magaziner, but the Justice Department said it wouldn't prosecute the White House aide who oversaw the drafting of the 1,400-page national health bill. He is currently Mr. Clinton's top adviser on policies dealing with the Internet. In Thursday's action, Judge Lamberth said that Mr. Magaziner's misleading statements in March 1993 were part of a cover-up organized by the first lady's attorneys, including Deputy White House Counsel Vincent W. Foster Jr., who died four months later in an apparent suicide, and Associate Attorney General Webster L. Hubbell. In his just-published book, Mr. Hubbell writes that Mr. Foster committed suicide in part because of the pressure Mrs. Clinton put on him to defend her in the case. Mr. Hubbell himself would later resign his post under pressure and plead guilty to stealing from the Little Rock law firm where he, the first lady and Mr. Foster all once worked. "It is clear that Mr. Magaziner relied upon the advice of White House attorneys -- including Vincent Foster ... and Associate Attorney General Webster Hubbell," said the judge. The judge said the "most outrageous conduct by the government" in the case was the administration's failure to correct Mr. Magaziner's misstatement. "That was a determination not made individually by Mr. Magaziner, but by the government through its counsel," he said. "There were no rogue lawyers here misleading this court. ... The executive branch of the government, working in tandem, was dishonest with this court and the government must now face the consequences of its misconduct." He also expressed shock that the Justice Department "succumbed to pressure from White House attorneys" to use false excuses and "strained interpretations" to defend the actions of Mr. Magaziner. "Acting dishonestly, as the government did in this case, is ... acting in bad faith," he said. 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