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Tag: whitewater
GOP 'Investigations' Rerun Is The Lowest Form Of Political Comedy

GOP 'Investigations' Rerun Is The Lowest Form Of Political Comedy

Now that the Republicans have eked out a tiny majority in the next Congress, their leaders have announced the party’s legislative agenda – zero legislation but endless “investigation.”

Nobody except small children could have been surprised by the House Republican announcement, which was like a rollout touting the next sequel of a mediocre sci-fi franchise. While this show too will attract diehard fans, it sorely lacks freshness or appeal.

In 1994, when Republicans took control of Congress for the first time in 40 years, Newt Gingrich’s first order of business was to order up investigations on every conceivable front. Both House and Senate Republican leaders named special committees to excavate the Whitewater “scandal” – a long-ago land deal in rural Arkansas that had cost Bill and Hillary Clinton around $45,000 after a swindle perpetrated by their business partner, a mentally ill operator named James McDougal they had met through mutual political associates. Despite the Clintons’ thoroughly documented financial loss, the Republicans and the media endlessly promoted a false version of the story that supposedly implicated the Clintons criminally.

Neither the Congressional investigations nor the parallel probe by the late Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth Starr -- which squandered tens of millions of dollars -- ever proved any of the baroque assertions, which came to include a fantastic tale of the Clintons smuggling cocaine through a rural airport. And while those probes provoked episodes of hysteria in the press, none had much impact on voters, who reelected President Clinton overwhelmingly in 1996.

Flash forward to the Obama administration, which came under similarly hollow inquisitions by Congressional Republicans after the 2010 midterm. They busied themselves with conspiracy theories about the Internal Revenue Service and other smears, only to see President Obama easily reelected.

Then came the infamous Benghazi investigation, with yet another special House committee assigned to produce redundant nonsense after nine other investigations cleared the Obama administration and specifically Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of any wrongdoing. Kevin McCarthy himself famously blurted the true purpose of that fiasco, when he boasted that its entire motive was to damage Clinton’s reputation before the 2016 election cycle.

And now we hear again from Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), the excitable former wrestling coach credibly accused of covering up the sexual abuse of Ohio State students, who promises that GOP investigations will “frame up the 2024 election.” Anyone who observed Jordan in frantic and fruitless action during the Benghazi hearings -- especially that epic day when Hillary testified for 11 hours – can anticipate his upcoming antics. But he will face heavy competition from the equally manic Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who reportedly has elbowed her way onto the House Oversight Committee in a deal to support McCarthy for Speaker.

When Republicans take power on January 3, 2023, the political abuse of congressional authority is set on rerun. The coming attractions touted by Jordan and Rep James Comer (R-KY) focus on the international business dealings of Hunter Biden, alleged for years to have entangled the president and other family members. Promising proof of bribery, money laundering, and other offenses, the incoming inquisitors point to a laptop computer that once belonged to Hunter Biden and the already debunked claims by a highly dubious former business partner.

This is a revival of the smears mounted by the Trump campaign and its allies years ago, back when Donald Trump tried to coerce the government of Ukraine into framing Biden with a faked “investigation” in exchange for defensive missiles, which led to his first impeachment.

But back to our upcoming rerun: Remember how disgraced attorney Rudy Giuliani first showed up with that Hunter Biden laptop? And how he refused to let anyone conduct a forensic examination of its hard drive? Giuliani couldn’t account for its chain of custody, but we now know that persons other than Hunter Biden have tampered with its contents. As a source of reliable information, the mystery laptop still remains highly suspect.

Not much better can be said for Tony Bobulinski, the ex-partner of the younger Biden who went over to the Trump camp two years ago. Before the 2020 election, he told the Wall Street Journal that Joe Biden had participated in his son’s overseas business affairs and lied about it. But after extensive reporting, the conservative Journal found that the available evidence contradicted Bobulinski’s sensational claims.

By his own account, Hunter Biden is a man whose personal tragedies, self-destructive addictions, and financial pressures left him deeply troubled. Cynical Republicans have long targeted him for mockery and abuse. What we have learned so far about him and his father is not a story of the father’s financial chicanery, however, but of a bereaved and tormented dad trying to save his surviving son.

What will unfold on Capitol Hill in the months ahead will closely resemble past episodes of right-wing snipe-hunting. After the tenure of the strongest Speaker in memory, Nancy Pelosi, we will see the weakest in Kevin McCarthy. The Republican Party is now in the hands of Trump’s stooge "Gym" Jordan and kooks like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, mesmerized by Jewish space lasers, pizza-parlor pedophiles, and the injustice of prosecuting the January 6 insurrectionists. Prepare for fabrications, fantasies, and the lowest form of political comedy.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh

We Still Don't Know The Truth About Kavanaugh’s Shady Finances

Reprinted with permission from Press Run

By joining his fellow conservatives on the Supreme Court in declining to block one of the country's most restrictive abortion laws, a Texas statute that bans the procedure as early as six weeks into pregnancy, Justice Brett Kavanaugh made good on his unspoken pledge to demolish Roe v. Wade. Kavanaugh's actions could change the fabric of this country for decades, and empower radicals within the Republican Party to strip away more rights of Americans.

Against that dystopian backdrop let's not forget two crucial historic facts. Kavanaugh lied his way through his confirmation hearings. Facing multiple and credible allegations of sexual assault, Kavanaugh lied about witnesses; he lied about corroboration; he lied about friendships; he lied about parties. He also lied about an array of other topics, including state drinking ages, vomiting, his yearbook, and his accusers. Kavanaugh lied about his grandfather, federal judges, warrantless wiretaps, and stolen emails.

Second, some deep-pocketed patron, or patrons, over the years have clearly covered Kavanaugh's personal finances. Someone erased all of the many financial pitfalls he faced, including tens of thousands of dollars in credit card debt, while setting up him for a luxurious lifestyle well beyond what he could afford on the salary of a federal judge. We still don't know which benefactors paid for Kavanaugh's $92,000 country club initiation fee in 2016 for the Chevy Chase Club while he was making $225,000 a year, had two children in private school, and was saddled with the most debt of his life, approximately $100,000.

The staggering country club fee, which Kavanaugh plainly could not cover himself, represented the most egregious hole in Kavanaugh's make-no-sense financial disclosure made during his nomination. For instance, in 2006, he bought a $1.2 million home in a tony suburb of Washington, D.C. and made tens of thousands of dollars of upgrades while earning $175,000 and sitting on a modest savings account.

The disclosures should have been a huge red flag for the press. "The personal finances of Supreme Court nominees regularly come under scrutiny during the congressional vetting process," the Washington Postreported in 2018. And Kavanaugh's finances were by far the most befuddling of any Supreme Court nominee in modern history. But the press mostly yawned through the story.

The Post actually published one of the most detailed examinations of his finances during the time of Kavanaugh's nomination. The report though, raised no serious questions of wrongdoing, and was at times openly sympathetic towards Kavanaugh: "He has in many ways stayed true to his intent, following the Jesuit mantra of service above self instilled in him by the elite Catholic high school he attended in suburban Washington."

The Post piece also made sure only to quote friends of Kavanaugh, as they ran interference for the nominee. ("He's not the type of guy who does things to keep up with the Joneses.") One buddy told the Post that Kavanaugh joined the extravagantly expensive Chevy Chase Club because it was conveniently located near his home. Not a single Democrat or independent financial analyst was quoted questioning the obvious inconsistencies in Kavanaugh's filings.

Why didn't the Beltway press go all Whitewater on Kavanaugh? For years the D.C. media, amplifying GOP attacks, couldn't sleep at night knowing Bill and Hillary Clinton might have made money on a land deal that had crooked local ties. (Fact: They lost money on Whitewater.) Breathlessly covering every hearing, every allegation, every Republican leak, the hyperactive Beltway media treated the story as Watergate-meets-Iran Contra; the very idea that a Democratic politician may have benefited financially from some inside chicanery was presented as one of the most important and compelling news stories of the decade.

Suffice to say that if Bill Clinton had joined an exclusive country club while governor of Arkansas, which he clearly did not pay for, journalists would have camped out on the story for months and excavated it without pause.

A middling jurist who immediately embarrassed himself when nominated by Trump by claiming no president had ever "consulted more widely or talked with more people from more backgrounds to seek input about a Supreme Court nomination," Kavanaugh has always had the earmarks of a willing suck-up; someone who was cultivated and advanced by right-wing forces not for his judicial intellect, but because he's willing to do what he's told. Like help overturn Roe v. Wade.

With so little media attention paid to Kavanaugh's massive expenditures over the years, we still don't have any answers. We don't know if he's operating on the Supreme Court under a constant conflict-of-interest cloud, because we don't know which wealthy forces have aided and abetted his rise.

One possible, unconfirmed explanation for how Kavanaugh's debt magically evaporated, how he bought a house he could not afford, and joined one of the most exclusive and expensive country clubs on the East Coast while living on the salary of a federal employee? Kavanaugh's rich father secretly gifted him lots of money over the years. (Kavanaugh's father drew a large salary working for a cosmetics trade group and walked away with a $13 million payout in 2005.)

Kavanaugh and the White House likely wanted to avoid that Daddy Warbucks storyline during the confirmation hearing though, since the jurist was presented as a hard-working, aw-shucks Everyman who worked his way up to the highest echelons of the American judiciary.

And guess what? As Kavanaugh does his best to outlaw choice, the press has never tried to confirm any key facts surrounding the endless unanswered questions of Kavanaugh's finances and his miracle $92,000 country club fee.

Mueller Report: What Was Good For Clinton Is Good For Trump

Mueller Report: What Was Good For Clinton Is Good For Trump

This column first appeared on Creators.com.

When the Office of Special Counsel completes its assigned tasks and sends its findings to Attorney General William Barr, Americans will expect to learn what is in that document. Despite recurrent warnings that Barr can legally withhold some or even all of the “Mueller Report,” those expectations of transparency must be fulfilled.

The matters investigated by former FBI director Robert Mueller are so fundamental to the national interest that there is no alternative to full disclosure. It is a need that outweighs Justice Department policy designed to safeguard the reputation of individuals who are investigated but not charged with any crime.

Republicans seeking to protect Donald Trump from Mueller’s most damaging findings may cite that traditional policy to argue that Barr should refuse to release the final report that the Office of Special Counsel must send to him. But it is worth remembering how little attention was paid to such concerns when the partisan roles were reversed.

Almost exactly 17 years ago, on March 21, 2002, the Office of Independent Counsel released a five-volume, two-thousand-page-plus report under the anodyne title In re: Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan Association, the name of the tiny thrift institution that had financed Bill and Hillary Clinton’s ill-fated rural real estate investment — more popularly known as “Whitewater.” Given the failure to find any actual evidence that the Clintons had done anything wrong in that financial fiasco — except to trust their deranged partner Jim McDougal and lose about $40,000 — the final Whitewater report had to acknowledge their legal innocence.

But Robert Ray, the Republican prosecutor who had taken over preparation of the report from Kenneth W. Starr, deliberately sought to cast suspicion on the Clintons despite the fact that neither of them was ever charged in that investigation. (Ray may have believed that denigrating then-Senator Clinton would enhance his popularity among his fellow Republicans in New Jersey, where he was simultaneously seeking a U.S. Senate nomination, an ambition he abandoned within a few weeks.)

Throughout the final report’s tidal wave of turgid prose — at $73 million, or more than $33,000 per page, certainly among the costliest publications in human history — Ray tried to concede failure without exonerating the investigation’s main targets. To read the report was to see how stubbornly he and his fellow OIC prosecutors had evaded any obligation to simply admit that those targets were in fact innocent. Instead, the report repeatedly complained of “insufficient available evidence to establish [guilt] beyond a reasonable doubt” — and reviewed at great length all the evidence that supposedly indicated wrongdoing.

By March 2002, most Americans had long since forgotten what exactly Kenneth Starr, his persistent associates, and the Republicans who sponsored his inquest had ever hoped to prove. The Whitewater allegations were always vague and constantly shifting, as every headlined accusation quietly evaporated. The few clear and pertinent questions about the development deal and its financing were answered with finality by December 1995, a little more than a year after Starr took over the probe.

As the Whitewater final report showed, Starr’s prosecutors had spent years trying to prove that Hillary had once lied or concealed something — and to them the actual substance of the supposed lie didn’t really matter. They tried to prove that she had testified falsely about minor matters at her law firm, or whether McDougal had paid his legal bills on time. Taking up hundreds of pages of small print, Ray’s account of that phase of the investigation seemed numbingly pointless.

The notion that anyone might face criminal charges over such minutiae would have been hilarious, if it weren’t so sinister. Somehow the authoritarian style of prosecution didn’t seem to bother official Washington or the national press corps, which had swooned over every leak from Starr’s office.

In every respect, the matters currently under investigation by the Office of Special Counsel differ from the Whitewater fantasy. That “scandal” was inconsequential and essentially non-existent — while this scandal could hardly be more serious and pressing. The law is different now too, because the Independent Counsel Act was allowed to expire in 1999 after Starr’s embarrassing performance. Unlike the independent counsels of yore, mostly Republicans who ran rampant during Clinton’s administration, the special counsel is under direct Justice Department supervision and is expected to observe the department’s rules.

But if Attorney General Barr — or any other Republican official — argues that the president’s privacy must prevail over public interest in the Mueller final report, remember this. Their zealous prosecutors seized that last opportunity to tarnish Hillary Clinton in the Whitewater final report, although no charge could be sustained against her. And nobody in official Washington spoke a word of protest.

Yes, The President Must Testify — Just Like Bill Clinton Did

Yes, The President Must Testify — Just Like Bill Clinton Did

Donald Trump tells reporters that he is eager to chat with Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating his campaign’s suspected collusion with the Kremlin and his attempts to obstruct that investigation, but his sincerity is in doubt. When he proclaims his willingness to let Mueller question him, “under oath,” it sounds like typical Trump bluster.

Still, as one of the most successful liars in modern history — with a talent for prevarication that has seen him through many civil lawsuits and a presidential campaign — the former casino mogul may believe he can slither past Mueller verbally. His lawyers feel no such confidence, however; they reliably show up to cancel his reckless offers to testify, as they did recently under some feeble pretext.

Should Mueller insist that Trump must testify, he is certain to complain that the special counsel is treating him unfairly. He will cry “witch-hunt.” He will whine that no president has ever been subjected to such diabolical persecution. He will claim again that Hillary Clinton escaped from the FBI investigation of her emails without giving testimony under oath. None of which is true.

While there is no way to avoid a barrage of self-serving jive from Trump, let’s be clear about certain basic facts: Not only did the FBI interrogate Hillary Clinton about her damned emails, but she and her husband testified before investigative authorities on several occasions during Bill Clinton’s presidency.

On July 2, 2016, Hillary Clinton appeared at FBI headquarters in Washington, where she answered questions for well over three hours from the agents investigating her email practices. Although she would have been vulnerable to a subpoena, that wasn’t necessary because she came in voluntarily. More important, every word of that lengthy interview was subject to 18 U.S. Code 1001, the statute that criminalizes false statements to federal agents. Had Hillary lied, she could have been indicted for any material falsehood.

That was nothing new for her, having testified on at least eight other occasions during her husband’s presidency. Prosecutors with the Office of Independent Counsel interviewed her five times for the Whitewater investigation – first in 1994, then twice in 1995 and twice in 1998. She also testified before the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Resolution Trust Corporation, always under the same punitive federal law. And eager as Kenneth Starr’s minions were to indict her, there was never “sufficient evidence…beyond a reasonable doubt.” They had no case.

As for President Clinton, it’s true that he resisted the lawsuit brought against him by Paula Jones, who claimed that he had sexually harassed her in a Little Rock hotel room, all the way to the United States Supreme Court. His lawyers argued, with ample justification in hindsight, that a civil lawsuit would become a severe distraction for a sitting president. The high court overruled the president, nine to zero.

So Clinton famously testified in the Jones case, which led to his impeachment for lying about Monica Lewinsky. He had given a deposition under oath, and later testified on videotape for Starr’s grand jury.

 Years before those sorry events, Clinton also responded to the independent counsel’s questions about Whitewater, giving three interviews to OIC prosecutors at the White House between 1994 and 1995. He also submitted to three additional interviews by federal agents during the Justice Department’s investigation of illicit fundraising in the 1996 presidential campaign. And he appeared by videotape at the Whitewater trial of James McDougal, the banker who swindled him and Hillary in that ill-fated land deal.

 Such facts don’t matter to Trump, who will snivel and slander and invent alternative facts to portray himself as a victim. Yet no matter how much noise he makes, he will soon confront a fateful choice. If he testifies, his legal risk will be extremely serious. If he refuses — or tries to escape by firing Mueller — his political risk will be equally grave.

 Either way, as one of his confederates might say, Trump’s time in the barrel is coming.