--- begin forwarded text Delivered-To: ignition-point@majordomo.pobox.com X-Sender: believer@telepath.com Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1998 09:40:16 -0500 To: believer@telepath.com From: believer@telepath.com Subject: IP: Whitewater Probe Continues Mime-Version: 1.0 Sender: owner-ignition-point@majordomo.pobox.com Precedence: list Reply-To: believer@telepath.com Source: Washington Times http://www.WashTimes.com/news/news2.html#link Starr continues Whitewater investigation By Jerry Seper THE WASHINGTON TIMES Kenneth W. Starr's case for impeaching President Clinton is only the first public accounting in a massive ongoing investigation --contrary to White House claims that the Whitewater probe is dead. "All phases of the investigation are now nearing completion," the 445-page report says. The independent counsel "will soon make final decisions about what steps to take, if any, with respect to the other information it has gathered." While it was Mr. Starr's "strong desire" to complete the entire Whitewater inquiry before giving any information to Congress, the report said, it "became apparent" there was "substantial and credible information" of impeachable offenses and he was required under the law to refer the information to Congress as soon as possible. "It also became apparent that a delay of this referral until the evidence from all phases of the investigation had been evaluated would be unwise," the report said. Mr. Starr will soon make decisions on final reports to a three-judge panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and possible indictments, the report added. Mr. Clinton's personal attorney, David E. Kendall, attacked the Monica Lewinsky report this week as a "hit-and-run smear campaign," saying it was nothing but an attempt to damage the president with "irrelevant and unnecessary graphic and salacious allegations." He asked, "Where's Whitewater?" But the report's introduction notes that Mr. Starr's four-year Whitewater probe, all but forgotten in the crush of sordid public revelations of Mr. Clinton's sexual dalliances with the former White House intern, continues to target a number of areas: Legal representation of a failed Arkansas thrift, Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan Association, and a real estate project, Castle Grande, by first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and former Rose Law Firm partner Webster L. Hubbell, the ex-associate attorney general who resigned in disgrace. The firing of seven White House travel office employees to make room for Clinton cronies, and the role Mrs. Clinton may have played in the decision. The delivery to the White House of more than 1,000 secret FBI files on Reagan and Bush administration aides, and efforts to shield White House officials, including Mrs. Clinton, from a public accounting on how the files were obtained and used. The misuse of personnel records of Pentagon employee Linda R. Tripp, whose secret recordings of conversations with Miss Lewinsky began the grand jury investigation. Possible perjury and obstruction of justice concerning an incident involving former White House volunteer Kathleen E. Willey. Mrs. Willey said in August 1997 that Mr. Clinton made sexual advances in the Oval Office in November 1993. The Starr report to Congress said Miss Lewinsky told the president Newsweek was working on an article about Mrs. Willey. Mr. Clinton dismissed the accusations as "ludicrous, because he would never approach a small-breasted woman like Mrs. Willey." Later he asked Miss Lewinsky if she had heard about the Newsweek inquiry from Mrs. Tripp, to which she replied "yes." The former intern said Mr. Clinton asked if Mrs. Tripp could be trusted and then told her to persuade Mrs. Tripp to call White House Deputy Counsel Bruce R. Lindsey about the matter. Newsweek published the Willey story on Aug. 11, 1997. In his Jan. 17 deposition in the Paula Jones case, Mr. Clinton denied the Willey accusation. The Starr probe also is looking into accusations that efforts were made to silence Mrs. Willey. Among those drawing attention is Democratic fund-raiser Nathan Landow. Investigators want to know if he urged Mrs. Willey to deny she was groped by the president. Mrs. Willey has since testified before the Lewinsky grand jury as a cooperating witness. Mr. Landow testified before the grand jury, later telling reporters he took the Fifth Amendment. His daughter, former White House volunteer Harolyn Cardozo, who worked with Mrs. Willey, also testified. In "Travelgate" and "Filegate," papers filed earlier this month in federal court in Washington show the investigations "are continuing and in extremely sensitive stages." Deputy independent counsel Robert Bittman told the court the probes had reached to the "highest level of the federal government" and involved "issues of singular constitutional and historic importance." The Whitewater probe also is examining whether Mr. Hubbell hid his involvement and that of Mrs. Clinton with Castle Grande, a real estate project south of Little Rock, Ark. In September 1996, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Hubbell drafted legal papers that Madison used to deceive bank examiners and divert $300,000 to Mr. Hubbell's father-in-law, Seth Ward. The report said the papers "facilitated the payment of substantial commissions to Mr. Ward, who acted as a straw buyer" in Castle Grande. A straw buyer is one who owns property in name only, having never put up any money or assumed any risk. The FDIC said the Ward payments were in violation of federal regulations. The report did not accuse Mrs. Clinton or Mr. Hubbell of criminal wrongdoing, although it raised serious questions about their involvement in a deal that ultimately cost taxpayers $3.8 million when Castle Grande failed. Prosecutors, the report to Congress said, immediately recognized parallels between the job help provided to Miss Lewinsky by Washington lawyer Vernon E. Jordan Jr., a longtime Clinton friend, and "his earlier relationship" with Mr. Hubbell, sentenced in 1994 to prison for stealing $420,000 from his Rose Law Firm partners. By late 1997, Mr. Starr had evidence Mr. Jordan helped Mr. Hubbell obtain consulting contracts after he agreed to cooperate in the Whitewater probe. In 1994, Mr. Hubbell was paid $450,010 by 17 different persons or entities as a consultant and $91,750 in 1995, despite beginning a 28-month prison term in August of that year. He has yet to explain what work he did for the cash. Some of the payments came from MacAndrews & Forbes Holding Co. in New York after he was introduced to the firm's executives by Mr. Jordan, a director of Revlon Inc. The cosmetics firm, controlled by MacAndrews & Forbes, also offered a job to Miss Lewinsky based on Mr. Jordan's recommendations. With regard to Mrs. Tripp's personnel records, Mr. Starr has been investigating if they were illegally released in an effort to tarnish her reputation in the Lewinsky probe. Assistant Defense Secretary Kenneth Bacon approved the release to a reporter for the New Yorker magazine. The records show Mrs. Tripp was detained by police as a teen-ager 29 years ago and had not noted the arrest in her 1987 security clearance form. The arrest later was shown to have been a teen-age prank, in which she pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of loitering. Former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Harold Ickes was questioned about the documents by the grand jury. Mr. Bacon also testified in the case. In our Investigative Section, a history of the Whitewater investigation. Copyright © 1998 News World Communications, Inc. ----------------------- NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ----------------------- ********************************************** To subscribe or unsubscribe, email: majordomo@majordomo.pobox.com with the message: (un)subscribe ignition-point email@address ********************************************** www.telepath.com/believer ********************************************** --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@philodox.com> Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'