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Date: Fri, 24 Oct 1997 03:48:00 -0700
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From: Paul Andrew Mitchell [address in tool bar]
Subject: SLS: The Tragedy of Janet Reno (fwd)
copy: Supreme Law School
<snip>
>
>The Tragedy of Janet Reno
>
>http://www.intellectualcapital.com/issues/97/1023/iced.asp
>
>by Pete du Pont
>October 23, 1997
>
>Following this article, we have set up a special moderated discussion
>section for those who wish to comment. After you read the article, be
>sure to add your opinion.
>
>http://www.intellectualcapital.com/issues/97/1023/iced.asp
>
>On autumn afternoons in 1960 I sat around a cafeteria table at the
>Harvard Law School with a few other first year students, trying to make
>sense of that pressure-cooker intellectual exercise known as 1L. Our
>group met several times a week, struggling to understand and to learn.
>
>One of the people in those sessions was Janet Reno. She was intelligent,
>intellectually curious, and resolute; a no-nonsense sort of a person.
>Through three years of law school I liked her, and respected her ability
>as a student and analyst of the law.
>
>A good woman doing a poor job
>
>Turning a blind eye. So what has become of that Janet Reno? She was
>taught far better than she is performing as Attorney General of the
>United States. I know how she was taught, because I was there. And I
>know how she is performing, because I read it every day in the press.
>
>Janet Reno is at best vastly under-performing the job of Attorney
>General. At worst she is intentionally turning a blind eye to what
>appears to be a massive money-laundering scheme carried out by White
>House inmates.
>
>Thanks to the much-delayed release of fundraising videotapes, we now
>know that in the run-up to the 1996 election the White House was raising
>soft money to run television commercials in support of President
>Clinton's re-election campaign.
>
>The evidence is clear
>
>We know his administration was doing it because the president has told
>us so. "I cannot overstate to you the impact that these paid ads have
>had in the areas where they run..." the president said, and, "Then we
>realized we could run these ads through the Democratic Party, which
>meant we could raise money in $20,000 and $50,000 and $100,000 wads. So
>we didn't have to do it all in $1,000 and run down what I can spend
>which is limited by law so that is what we have done." On another
>occasion, the president said "we have been able to finance this
>long-running television campaign...where we have been always framing the
>issues..."
>
>We know that any such scheme would have been illegal, because it was
>against the law for the Clinton campaign to spend more than the $62
>million permitted by the Federal Elections Commission. It is also
>illegal to evade the $1,000 per person/$5,000 per political action
>committee limit set by federal law for the financing of federal election
>campaigns. The president's language confirmed that he understood the
>law, and that he was using the Democratic National Committee to avoid
>the $1,000 limit.
>
>We know as well that some of the soft money raised by the president and
>vice president was reallocated by the DNC to hard money accounts to
>further avoid the inconvenience of the $1,000 campaign contribution
>limit. And a case can also be made that the president's re-election
>campaign, with full knowledge of what it was doing, raised money from
>foreign sources, which is also against the law. Finally (although I
>wonder if there ever will be a finally in these matters) there is the
>money laundering and subsequent document shredding that we know occurred
>regarding the vice president's Buddhist temple fundraiser.
>
>Appoint an independent counsel
>
>All of this cries out for an investigation; for facts, conclusions, and
>the placing of responsibility on someone. The administration is delaying
>and stonewalling. It regularly refuses to respond to subpoenas in a
>timely fashion, discovering boxes of memoranda, billing records, tapes,
>and suicide notes long after the fact and only when against the wall of
>deadlines or disclosure.
>
>It is the duty of the attorney general, the top law-enforcement official
>in the country, to look into all of this, or, if there is a conflict of
>interest due to her appointment by the president, to appoint a special
>prosecutor to do so. It is inescapable that a conflict of interest
>exists in an attorney general investigating her boss. So the appointment
>of a special prosecutor should be a slam-dunk.
>
>So where is Janet Reno? Obfuscating, delaying, avoiding, failing to see
>what any reasonable person can plainly see. Her investigation of these
>matters has been minimal. Obvious questions have not been asked and
>obvious witnesses have not been subpoenaed -- Huang, Trie and the
>Buddhist sisters, for example. The appointment of an independent counsel
>has been avoided. As former Senator and Watergate Committee member
>Howard Baker (R-TN) said on ABC's This Week (10/12/97), if Janet Reno's
>legal standards had been applied in 1974, Archibald Cox would never have
>been appointed to investigate President Nixon.
>
>I am not a prosecutor, and so cannot speak with authority on the finer
>points of the independent counsel law. But I was a Congressman in 1974;
>I was for the impeachment of Richard Nixon; and I have seen this movie
>before. A growing mountain of incriminating evidence, always explained
>away or denied by a White House desperately playing for time, demands
>resolution in the name of justice and public confidence.
>
>Reno's last option
>
>One longs for the Janet Reno of the autumn of 1960 to reappear, for that
>bright, inquiring, no-nonsense lawyer to reassert herself. But it is too
>late; for reasons unknown she has squandered the credibility and the
>dignity she brought to her office.
>
>The best she can do is to resign, before the remains of her integrity
>are sucked down, along with the president's and vice president's, into
>the black hole of a deep violation of the public trust.
>
>Pete du Pont is editor of IntellectualCapital.com. He is also a former
>Republican member of Congress and Governor of Delaware.
>
>Is it time for Attorney General Janet Reno to hand in her resignation,
>as du Pont suggests? Where do you stand on the need for a independent
>counsel? Post your comments below.
>
>10/23/97 O. Neimon neimon@pobox.com
>
>Comparing the breaking and entering of Watergate with intentionally
>bending existing election laws in a desparate attempt to keep up with
>the well-heeled Republican party, who outspent the Democrats handily,
>lest we forget, is pushing the comparison a bit far. Yes, the law was
>probably broken. Yes it should be fixed. Yes, Ms. Reno is not doing a
>very good job, though she's done worse things in her former career as a
>prosecuter - take a look at her record on certain alledged child-abuse
>cases, for instance. Regardless of these issues, I believe she should
>resign to remove the stench of complicity that hangs in her office -
>deserved or not. But I knew Watergate. This is no Watergate. *neimon
>away*
>
>10/23/97 TomC tcamp@phoenix.princeton.edu
>To O. Neiman: "Yes, the law was probably broken. Yes, it should be
>fixed." Let me understand this. The Republicans raised more money, so
>the Democrats were justified in breaking the law. And the solution to
>their breaking the law is not to hold them accountable, but to change
>the law so they won't have to break it. What nonsense! As to Watergate,
>the reason that Watergate brought the President down was the cover-up,
>not the original crime. The actual crime involved in Watergate had
>virtually no electoral impact (it actually benefited the Democrats). The
>current fund-raising crimes, from the President's own lips, had a major
>electoral impact. Tell me again which crime was more significant?
>
>IntellectualCapital.com is a service mark of
>A2S2 Digital Projects, Inc.
> email us at info@intellectualcapital.com
>
<snip>
===========================================================================
Paul Andrew Mitchell, Sui Juris : Counselor at Law, federal witness 01
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