The Independent Counsel Statute was allowed to expire in 1999, primarily because Independent Counsel, Ken Starr had made a mockery of the entire process.
In particular, Ken Starr forced a dramatic, conclusion to his three-year, $30 million investigation. Having failed to bring a charge against the Clintons for Whitewater, he joining forces with political dirty tricksters like Lucianne Goldberg, whose only motivation was payback for the fact that their idol, Richard Nixon, had been forced to resign.
Goldberg worked with Linda Tripp, who decided that President Clinton should be impeached because Monica Lewinsky had sex with President Clinton, even though Monica herself disputed the allegation.
The following conversation that Linda Tripp surreptitiously recorded speaks for itself:
Monica Lewinsky: We didn't have sex Linda. We didn't have sex.
Linda Tripp: Well, what would you call it?
Monica Lewinsky: We fooled around.
Ms. Tripp: Oh.
Ms. Lewinsky: Not sex.
Ms. Tripp: Oh, I don't know. If you get to orgasm, that's having sex.
Ms. Lewinsky: No it's not.
Ms. Tripp: Yes it is.
Ms. Lewinsky: No it's not.
Ms Tripp: It's not having...
Ms. Lewinsky: Having sex is having intercourse.
The definition of what sex is or is not sunk the US into a Constitutional quagmire, not because it should have, but because Ken Starr used politically motivated, dirty tricks operatives in effort to manufacture a reason to impeach Clinton.
Despite the fact that Clinton and Lewinsky had merely "fooled around" as far as they were both concerned, other people claimed the right to speak for both of them, and that is not truth. It is carefully orchestrated bullshit.
For example, like the Lewinsky sexual affair that was blown out of proportion, the consistent element of the claim that President Clinton had groped Kathleen Willey was, and I hate to be redundant, orchestrated bullshit.
One can rest assured that if the Willey incident was at all credible, Starr would have indicted Julie Hiatt Steel for perjury for refusing to lie about it, and then, Ken Starr would have an unadulterated case of perjury against the President of the United States, who always denied Willey's allegations under oath, without qualification.
Ken Starr, as we now know, is a politically motivated hypocrite who misrepresents and over-reaches. He cultivated witnesses, not for their reliability, but for their capacity to satisfy his agenda. Those who refused to lie about Clinton were threatened in one form or another. In the case of Julie Hiatt Steeles, the authorities even had the audacity to threaten her family if she did not give them what they wanted. According to Julie Hiatt Steele; "My family and I have learned that this is not the country we thought we lived in. I have been humiliated and bullied; I have been persecuted and ultimately prosecuted, by Kenneth Starr and the OIC for refusing to corroborate Kathleen Willey's claim that President Clinton groped her."
As Hiatt revealed, the pressure to give Starr what he wanted was relentless; "The OIC examined every check I have ever written. They obtained copies of every possible financial transaction from original application to actual credit card account, they combed through all of my records...They took possession of my original tax records dating back to 1991. My CPA was called before the Grand Jury on two occasions and was even questioned about our medical expenses."
It is difficult to imagine how Julie Hiatt Steele coped with the following:
My family members were also called to the grand jury. My brother testified, as did one of my daughters. He was asked about Adam's adoption in the grand jury. My attorney told me that she has never in all of her years, as both a federal prosecutor and as a criminal defense attorney, witnessed these kind of abuses. For example, a neighbor, also called to testify because he had once dated my daughter, was asked if he had sex with me.
And always, always, sprinkled throughout their questioning in testimony and in their "home visits," the suggestion was made by the OIC that Adam's adoption might not be legal. Not surprisingly, friends who traditionally joined our family for Christmas dinner canceled for 1998. They feared Ken Starr and were afraid to be seen at my house. Other friends stopped me in crowded public places to express concern, to whisper their fears of Ken Starr, and to explain and to apologize for their lack of communication. Richmonders were afraid to call the house, afraid to invite us to their homes, afraid to even send a note through the mail.
Adam, who lived through this nightmare with me, has endured assaults and despicable allegations about his adoption that no child should ever be called upon to tolerate. Nightmares became his norm and my own. Adam has not been invited to a birthday party since my indictment. At age eight, he has spent more than twenty-five percent of his life caught in a national drama that continues to be painful and to defy logic.
When Clinton was impeached, the public was not widely aware of what Ken Starr and Republicans are all about. Today, we should all get it.
The level of scrutiny that was deployed in effort to manipulate witnesses worked like a charm against Juanita Broaddrick because she was a "businesswoman" who was very easy to manipulate. In particular, she was accused of tax evasion and desperately needed a "get out of jail-free card" to evade the fate of uncooperative witnesses like Jim McDougal, who died in prison.
It is time to acknowledge that if it was not for truthtellers like Linda Tripp, the Senate would have probably voted Bill Clinton out of office but the forces of good ultimately prevailed. Indeed that is rather obvious because, as Linda Tripp appropriately reveals;
My crime was standing up to Ken Starr. My crime was speaking out against him and his Gestapo tactics. My crime was telling the truth, the real truth, and not the "Ken Starr amended and revised" version of truth provided to me during the last-chance "secret" meeting I had with him on November 9, 1998. I left that meeting in tears because we learned that my failure to endorse their version of truth would result in my indictment.
I was given several choices that day. I could say that the grope was consensual or that it was nonconsensual; or I could choose my own day, week, month, and year to claim that I had been told about the grope. I could confirm the grope or be indicted. I could not confirm the grope. I had no such information, I only had the truth. I went home and waited to be indicted.
You have now heard at least part of what my defense would have been had we presented one. I trusted my lawyer when she said Starr had not proven his case. I also realized that there were witnesses who feared Willey. Other witnesses had families who would clearly be hurt by testimony. Absent the need to do otherwise, the right answer for me was to stop. It was time to draw the line.
The fact remains that a 53-year- old single parent and grandmother from Virginia should not have had to face this kind of horror, not in this country. Not in America.
Ever wonder why people like Ken Starr are free men?
Anti-Clinton witnesses like Kathleen Willey and Juanita Broadrick did whatever they had to do to protect themselves from the scorn of corrupt authorities who exploit vulnerable people, and given the scrutiny Steele was forced to endure it is very easy to understand the lies of tortured souls. Those who manifested the stamina and the courage to be sincere and credible proved to be few and far between -those who make a mockery out of justice are still holding the cards and it is time to change that.
One final note, Broaddrick was under oath when she denied that Clinton had raped her, and it is therefore time for her to shut up, once and for all.
The video below places everything in perspective, especially the fact that we lost more than we will ever know, when JFK JR. died.
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