September-B 1998
THE LONG-AWAITED STARR REPORT TO CONGRESS FAILED TO PRESENT THE ISSUES SURrounding the sex and perjury scandal as part of an overall pattern of corruption in an administration up to its neck in
scandal. Instead, it only briefly mentioned Whitewater, and barely referred to the other scandals that Starr was
authorized to investigate. He laid out a case, in lurid detail, convincingly accusing President Clinton of such impeachable
offenses as perjury, obstruction of justice, witness tampering, and abuse of power. But his report also provided
ammunition to those who say that he has come up empty on other scandals, including the Foster death, Filegate,
Travelgate, Hubbell’s hush money and wrongdoing by the Clintons in Whitewater. They say that after four years and
$44 million dollars, all he could pin on Clinton was lies about sex.
WHY DID STARR’S REPORT FAIL TO ADDRESS POTENTIAL IMPEACHABLE OFFENSES IN THESE
other matters? His answer is, “From the outset, it was our strong desire to complete all phases of the investigation
before deciding whether to submit to Congress information — if any — that may constitute grounds for an
impeachment. But events and the statutory command...have dictated otherwise.” He said that his investigation is still
ongoing and nearing completion and that final decisions will soon be made regarding events related to the Rose Law
Firm’s representation of Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan. Linda Tripp is said to be, “a witness in three ongoing
OIC investigations.” Those are probably Filegate, Travelgate, and the White House handling of documents in Vincent
Foster’s office following his death. Questions have been raised about how much work Starr’s team has done on these.
A WEEK BEFORE THE DELIVERY OF HIS REPORT TO CONGRESS, STARR WENT TO COURT TO
block Judicial Watch from deposing Linda Tripp on Filegate. Larry Klayman, the Chairman of Judicial Watch, had
secured permission to depose Tripp in connection with his class action lawsuit against the administration for having
illegally acquired FBI files on more than 900 Republicans. Klayman, speaking at a recent AIM luncheon, described
this as “the scandal of scandals.” He said Linda Tripp, who was White House Counsel Bernie Nussbaum’s secretary,
has said she saw FBI files on Republicans piled high in the counsel’s office. He said if Starr’s people had contacted
him he would have agreed to some delay in deposing Tripp, but they went to the judge instead and asked for an
indefinite delay. That was unacceptable to him. Starr, he said, has done very little on Filegate. For example, former
White House Chief of Staff Mack McLarty had not been questioned by Starr about the FBI files. Starr subpoenaed
videotapes of depositions that Larry Klayman had taken of two high Pentagon officials, Kenneth Bacon and Clifford
Bernath, concerning their illegal release of information from Linda Tripp’s personnel files. Maybe Starr didn’t want
Larry Klayman to show him up again by getting information from Tripp that he had failed to get.
I WAS STRUCK BY THE CONTRAST BETWEEN STARR’S REPORT ON HIS EIGHT-MONTH INvestigation of the Lewinsky affair and his report on his three-year investigation of Vince Foster’s death. Starr’s report
on Foster’s death is 114 pages compared to 445 pages on the sex scandal. The detail in the sex report is astonishing.
Many have complained that it was excessive. The same attention to detail was found in the times at which various phone
calls were made. For example, when the Lewinsky story broke on the night of Jan. 20, 1998, Clinton made several
phone calls, and the Starr report gives their precise times: “12:08 a.m. to12:39 a.m. he spoke with his personal attorney,
Robert Bennett....President Clinton called Deputy White House Counsel Bruce Lindsey; they spoke for about half
an hour, until 1:10 a.m....At 1:16 a.m., the President called Ms. Currie at home and spoke to her for 20 minutes....After
this call, the President called Mr. Lindsey....A few hours later, at approximately 6:30 a.m., the President called Mr.
Jordan in New York City....From 7:14 a.m. to 7:22 a.m., the President again spoke with Mr. Lindsey.”
CONTRAST THIS WITH STARR’S TREATMENT OF THE PHONE CALLS THAT WERE MADE BY THE
Park Police, the Secret Service and White House personnel immediately after Vince Foster was found dead. There
are enormous discrepancies between the times the Park Police, the Secret Service, White House personnel and the
Governor’s mansion in Little Rock say they notified others or were notified of Foster’s death. The times range from
5:30 p.m. (45 minutes before the police discovered Foster’s body) to after 10 p.m. (the time Clinton claims he was
notified). The Park Police claim Lt. Gavin called the Secret Service at around 7:30, but the Secret Service claims that
call came at 8:30. Trooper Roger Perry said he took a call from the White House to inform Gov. Tucker of the death
sometime between 5:30 and 8 p.m. Helen Dickey, who made the call, claims she called at 10:30.
THERE IS EVIDENCE INDICATING THAT THE WHITE HOUSE IS LYING ABOUT WHEN THE PREsident and his top aides were notified because they are covering up a secret search of Foster’s office and wanted to
give the President plausible deniability. The truth could easily have been found from the phone records, but Starr made
no use of any phone records, including the long distance call to Little Rock. His report simply accepts the Secret Service
memo saying it was notified at 8:30, ignoring the testimony of the Park Police, who say they called the Secret Service
soon after 7:30, and two senior White House officials, David Watkins and William Kennedy, who have said they were
notified before 8:30. It is impossible to believe that the news of Foster’s death was kept from the President until after
10:00 p.m., and there is no innocent explanation for White House officials lying about the time. Starr must have known
this was an important issue, but he made no effort to present the evidence that would expose the lying.
STARR HAS GIVEN THE HOUSE AMPLE EVIDENCE ON WHICH IT CAN BASE AN IMPEACHMENT
investigation. It is unfortunate that it is limited to the Lewinsky case when there are so many more serious impeachable
offenses that Starr could have suggested the House consider. The House should view the Starr report as the beginning,
not as the defining limit of its probe. It should include Filegate, Travelgate and the handling of the papers in Foster’s
office, to be sure. But the House should look at the evidence that proves that the President lied about when he learned
of Foster’s death by as much as three hours. That is a lot more serious than his lies about sex. It should also revive
the probe of the payment of $720,000 in hush money to Webb Hubbell, another case that Starr has neglected.
INFORMATION MAY BE UNCOVERED BEFORE THE HOUSE COMPLETES ITS DELIBERATIONS
that will force the addition of lying to cover up the cause of the crash of TWA Flight 800 to the list. Thanks to the work
of Bill Donaldson and the Associated Retired Aviation Professionals (ARAP), significant progress is being made
toward solidifying the evidence that the plane was downed by missiles. We hope to place a full-page ad for ARAP
in the Sunday New York Times. It will be a message from Adm. Moorer, Adm. Mark Hill, Gen. Ben Partin, Cmdr.
Donaldson, Major Fred Meyer, and retired TWA captains, Howard Mann and Al Mundo. It will strike hard at the
refusal of the FBI and the NTSB to pay any attention to the powerful eyewitness testimony in this case. We hope to
significantly add to the eyewitness testimony already available as a result of this ad. A judge has ordered the government
to release the FBI eyewitness reports to Boeing. We hope that this will result in those reports being made public.
I HAVE OBTAINED A COPY OF A LETTER THAT JAMES KALLSTROM, WHO HEADED THE FBI
investigation of TWA Flight 800, sent to James Hall, the chairman of the NTSB, just before the NTSB public hearing
on the cause of the crash last December. In this letter Kallstrom objects to the release of any of the 244 eyewitness
FBI reports that were examined by the CIA in connection with its preparation of the video animation that tried to show
that those who thought they saw a missile really saw a noseless 747, trailing burning fuel, climb 3000 feet like a rocket.
He didn’t want the NTSB to show the CIA video. He also objected to having any of the eyewitnesses testify, and he
opposed having experts testify on the reliability of eyewitness testimony. He said, “There is a risk that the expert
presentations questioning eyewitness credibility will have the unintentional effect of undermining the CIA’s work” ( in
which he evidently had little confidence). He explained, “I have always stated that the eyewitnesses are good people
who told us what they saw. I believe that the presentation of expert testimony that could cast doubt on the eyewitness’
veracity does not further the accident investigation....” The FBI and NTSB have done nothing but cast doubt on the
credibility of the eyewitnesses by disregarding their evidence and claiming they accept the CIA video as valid.
KALLSTROM ALSO OBJECTED TO ANY DISCUSSION OF THE SUBJECT OF THIS AIM REPORT. HE
said, “We particularly object to discussion of the residue examination and the use of exhibit 201, an FBI Laboratory
report on the chemical analysis of the red residue found on the seats.” He cited the investigation of “a conspiracy to
steal and the actual theft of pieces of the seats that contained this red residue in support of an ‘investigation’ by an author/
journalist.” He said the report on the residue would be involved in the prosecution of the guilty parties. It wouldn’t do
to have the FBI lab report discredited before Jim and Liz Sanders could be indicted. Jim Sanders will be one of the
featured speakers at our Oct. 24 conference. I hope you will come and show your support for him and others who
have been punished by the government for telling the truth. Otto Otepka, who was punished by the Kennedy crowd
for testifying truthfully about lax security procedures in the State Department, is coming from Florida to attend. You
may remember the book, The Ordeal of Otto Otepka. Otto says he was not a whistleblower, but he was a hero.