Mary Mostert, Analyst, Original Sources (www.originalsources.com)
February 8, 1999
Over the week-end, a couple of very significant events occurred after the House Managers presentation. Sen. Robert Byrd, who two weeks ago introduced the motion to dismiss the trial, said that he had concluded that Clinton HAD committed impeachable offenses. He was struggling with how to live with himself and the Constitution which he dearly loves if he votes "not guilty.".
Then, after Sidney Blumenthal denied under oath to the House Impeachment Managers last week that he passed to the news media President Clinton conversation with him in which Clinton said Lewinsky made sexual demands on him, an old friend of him charged him with lying.
Clinton and his propaganda chief, Sidney Blumenthal may have overplayed their hand, based on their past victories. Remember last year when Kenneth Starr was accused by Clinton's tax-payer financed lawyers that Kenneth Starr was leaking grand jury information to the media? It was common knowledge, especially in media circles, that the leaks were coming out of the White House. In fact, last summer, June 4, 1998, at the height of the attacks on Kenneth Starr Anna Robertson of ABC News reported,
"Sidney Blumenthal, a former journalist turned White House insider, resents being a focus of Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr's investigations."But Starr suspects the former New Yorker reporter may be at the heart of a politically motivated smear campaign, spreading unflattering information about the independent counsel to his former colleagues in the media. Though legal observers see his testimony as largely insignificant to Starr's broader investigation, Blumenthal is at the heart of the battle between Starr and Clinton.
"Clinton sees Starr as part of a right-wing conspiracy out to topple a Democratic president. The feeling is mutual, as Starr feels Democrats are trying to undermine his investigation.
As a White House communications strategist, Blumenthal, 49, joined the Clinton staff a year ago. Before signing on as a White House adviser, he worked for 27 years as a journalist for such publications as The New Yorker, The New Republic and The Washington Post."
Initially Blumenthal had refused to answer the grand jury's questions but finally agreed to "cooperate" after the White House lost in court in efforts to evade Starr by claiming first "Executive Privilege" and then "Attorney-Client" privilege. About the same time, Matt Drudge had published a report on the Internet that Blumenthal has a past of "spousal abuse." Blumenthal promptly slapped a $30 million lawsuit against Drudge.
Finally, however, after Blumenthal's denials to Congress last week an old friend and journalistic colleague, Christopher Hitchens, a British liberal reporter, could stand it no longer. He blew the whistle on Blumenthal by filing an affidavit which said, in part:
* I have been a journalist for 26 years.
* I am self employed and contribute articles to Vanity Fair and The Nation.
* Sidney Blumenthal and I are social friends and journalistic acquaintances.
On March 19, 1998, Sidney Blumenthal, Carol Blue, and I met for lunch at the Occidental restaurant in Washington, D.C.
* If called to testify, I would testify on personal knowledge to the following facts.
* During lunch on March 19, 1998, in the presence of myself and Carol Blue, Mr. Blumenthal stated that, Monica Lewinsky had been a "stalker" and that the President was "the victim" of a predatory and unstable sexually demanding young woman. Referring to Ms. Lewinsky, Mr. Blumenthal used the word "stalker" several times. Mr. Blumenthal advised us that this version of the facts was not generally understood.
* Also during that lunch, Mr. Blumenthal stated that Kathleen Willey's poll numbers were high but would fall and would not look so good in a few days.
* I have knowledge that Mr. Blumenthal recounted to other people in the journalistic community the same story about Monica Lewinsky that he told me and Carol Blue.
On Sunday's Meet the Press, Christopher Hitchins said, "...that's what he said to me and to my wife and has said to many other people, that Monica Lewinsky was a stalker. Also Blumenthal said in the same conversation "some ... unpleasant things about poor Kathleen Willey," the former White House volunteer who alleged Clinton made an unwanted sexual advance and that "Willey's poll numbers are high now after the accusations she's made, but they won't be so high later on."
Following Willey's televised accusations, the White House released cordial correspondence between the Richmond, Va., woman and the president from the years after the time she alleged the incident with Clinton happened. The letters they released had not been given to the Office of Independent Counsel, in spite of subpoenas requesting any such material.
By Sunday night, several Senators, both Republicans and Democrats, were demanding that the Justice Department investigate a possible perjury charge against Sidney Blumenthal in denying the story that Monica Lewinsky was a stalker. Democrats Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut and Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, also on "Meet the Press," said there should be a probe.
Democratic Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan predicted a Justice Department inquiry into whether Blumenthal lied, and Democratic Sen. Diane Feinstein of California said, on NBC, that "I would hope that he isn't lying. I think if he is, it's serious.
"I think one of the most difficult parts of this for me has been the concept of Monica Lewinsky" being called "a stalker, because that has a certain diabolical ring to it," Feinstein said. Spreading such derogatory information, she said, "isn't a nice thing to do."
Sen. Phil Gramm, a R-Texas, said, "We will insist that we have an expedited consideration by the Justice Department," and Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, said "certainly the truth should be uncovered with respect to whether or not Sidney Blumenthal told the truth under oath." Both appeared on "Meet the Press."
And what was Blumenthal's response to his friend blowing the whistle on him? His attorney, William McDaniel issued a statement quoting Blumenthal as saying, ""I was never a source for any story about Monica Lewinsky's personal life.
"I did not reveal what the president told me to any reporter. As I testified to the Senate I talked every day about the stories in the news concerning Miss Lewinsky to my friends and family, just as everyone else is doing.
"Though I do not recall the luncheon with my then-friend of 15 years Christopher Hitchens and his wife, the notion that I was trying to plant a story with this rabid anti-Clinton friend is absurd. My wife and I are saddened that Christopher has chosen to end our friendship in this meaningless way."
Interesting. Suddenly his friend of 15 years is a "former" friend and a "rabid anti-Clinton" person who was ending the friendship "in this meaningless way." Blumenthal is using his propaganda skills now to defend himself, it appears. This is a good sign. Blumenthal's attack on Hitchens was weak. He's using his energies to defend himself.
The Senators should know by now that sending things like this to the Janet Reno Justice Department is tantamount to sending them into outer space to the nearest black hole. Remember Clinton firing all assistants to the Attorney General and hiring his own friends - people like Webb Hubbell? We won't hear any more about it.
If they really want something done they need to slow down the rush to judgment in the Clinton impeachment and take a long, hard look at what is really going on in that White House. People who saw it change have tried to tell the American people what was going on, and the Clinton propaganda machine was so effective that the message never got through to the general public. One of those people was Gary Aldrich, who was an FBI agent assigned to the White House when the Clintons arrived. Gary, in his own words, was "basically apolitical. I was an FBI agent, not a campaign worker."
Aldrich was responsible for doing background checks on the new Clinton administration team. After 25 years as a special agent, he was assigned to the White House in the latter part of the Bush Administration and was on the job when the Clinton team arrived. He retired in 1995 because he could no longer stomach what he was seeing every day.
"When Bill Clinton was elected, I WANTED to believe that he'd make a fine president. ...But what I was seeing at the White House each and every day was not evidence of what I had hoped for. There was no evidence of Georgetown, Oxford and Yale-educated brilliance, or even that this would be a folksy, moderate southern Democrat administration.
"I left the Clinton White House thinking that I'd spent more than two years back on the streets, fighting a new Mafia - this one from Arkansas." Aldrich outlined in his book "Unlimited Access" how a comprehensive security system that had been perfected through six presidencies was systematically dismantled by the Clintons so they could bring their friends into the White House - friends that previous administrations would have barred because of serious ethical or legal problems, some prosecutable."
A new Mafia? That's like, we have a criminal in the White House? Does this meant that, perhaps, charact DOES matter? On the Geraldo Rivera show Friday one of his guests, a former congressman, kept saying over and over that "the lies" Clinton told "don't matter." It appears that Blumenthal is of the opinion that lying, if it is his own or Clinton's lying, doesn't matter. They really don't think anyone can touch them. They really think that both the American people and the U.S. Senate is going to sit back and do nothing and let them simply maul the Constitution and the rule of law.
Are they right?
The Senate has the solution to this brazen abuse of power. It's called "conviction on the Articles of Impeachment." With Sen. Byrd reversing himself in a matter of two weeks and long time friends like Hitchins coming forward, now is the time for every American who is tired of the lies to make their views known to their Senators.
To comment: mmostert@originalsources.com
Click here