Posted on 04/21/2005 11:14:33 AM PDT by Republican Red
WASHINGTON - Senate Democrats are quietly trying to kill a 10-year legal probe that implicates several senior Clinton administration appointees for obstruction of justice, the Daily News has learned.
The Democrats, saying that the $21 million investigation by Independent Counsel David Barrett should have ended long ago, succeeded in attaching an amendment to a spending bill Tuesday to cut off his funding by June 1.
But two sources close to the investigation said that if the legislation becomes law, it will thwart Barrett from making public a final report that names senior officials in the Clinton Justice Department and Internal Revenue Service who allegedly buried a tax fraud case involving former cabinet member Henry Cisneros.
"It's about obstruction of justice," said one of the sources. "People are willing to take drastic actions to kill this report."
Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), who introduced the amendment with Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), said last week that the disgraced HUD secretary paid a $10,000 fine in 1999 for lying to the FBI and that then-President Bill Clinton pardoned Cisneros, so the probe "should have ended years ago."
Barrett's probe began in 1995 by looking into allegations that Cisneros, who was Clinton's secretary of Housing and Urban Development, lied to the FBI about payments to his mistress. It expanded years ago into a broader obstruction case involving alleged tax fraud, according to the sources.
The report will allege that Justice Department officials snuffed out a tax case against Cisneros and that the IRS sometimes audited Clinton critics without good cause.
Barrett's investigation was wrapped up two years ago, and his 400-page final report was submitted to a three-judge panel last August, said two sources.
Because those named in the report have until the end of June to refute Barrett's findings, Kerry and Dorgan's amendment would prevent its release.
I only caught part of Rush's report to day and this article raised a few questions so I'm unable to help explain how a cut off in funding buries the report, cyn.
I believe so - it's the latest appropriation bill for our military and other stuff. It's the only "spending" bill that I know of - so I'm figuring it's the one they're using as a way to hide what they're really up to - still protecting the Clintons.
The dems had to have a bill they were positive Bush would not veto.
Take your pick. They're all guilty as sin.
We look with amazement at all the corruption in the UN, third world countries and the former Soviet Union but are naively overlooking the same in our own government.
What gripes me to no end is the implied reason for not prosecuting or making such goings on public is that it wouldn't look good in the eyes of the rest of the world, as if we would be giving up our moral high ground.
pinging for posterity
I know that 2005 spending bill is in the works, but I'm not sure if that's the one their using. If it's close to being voted on - then perhaps it is - because they're probably hoping they can attach it somewhere that nobody will have the opportunity to check it out.
However .. after Rush brought it up today - you can be sure a lot of repubs are rushing around trying to get the facts/truth about it - and hopefully - because we're in the majority, they can get the amendment removed.
Thank you CyberAnt
snip
"They're, quote-unquote, writing the final report," Herry said. "That's what we were told."
Last year, Waxman asked the GAO for a month-by-month breakdown of Barrett's $1.77 million of expenditures for fiscal 2003, and demanded that the Justice Department shut down the investigation.
snip
"If this doesn't prove [the independent counsel's] worthlessness as a governmental entity, I don't know what does," said Joseph DiGenova,(lawyer for one of the Clinton criminals) a Republican lawyer and former independent counsel, who noted that Cisneros has recently taken small steps back into politics.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17129-2005Mar31.html
Well, Bill O'Reilly has told that he was audited repeatedly by the IRS, for no reason at all. He should be interested in this article.
From the Sun article I linked to up at Post #19:
A source familiar with the case said the reference to the informant being "related to" a famous politico means there is a familial tie. The source, who asked not to be identified, said the informant is not related to President or Mrs. Clinton.
We could deal with them here....Delay for Clinton...drop both and move on.
The Clintons and their cronies standard operating procedure: deny, deny, deny, delay, delay, delay the judicial process.
Gee, I wonder who's responses they are waiting for?
The charges stemmed from Cisneros' statements regarding financial arrangements with his former mistress, Linda Medlar. Cisneros, the charismatic former mayor of San Antonio, had admitted to the affair publicly in 1988. On September 12, 1994, the television show "Inside Edition" broadcasted excerpts of tapes Medlar had made of her telephone conversations with Cisneros. In the tapes, Cisneros seemed to suggest that he had deliberately misled investigators about payments he had made to Medlar. The tapes also included Medlar's warnings, and Cisneros' denials, regarding possible illegalities in his relationship with flamboyant businessman and longtime Democratic supporter Morris Jaffe.
On March 13, 1995, Attorney General Janet Reno requested an independent counsel look into the case. In her application to the Special Division, Reno noted that while there was not enough evidence to merit further investigation of Cisneros' relationship with Jaffe, an independent counsel should examine the false statements aspects of the case.
Initially, Medlar agreed to cooperate with the investigation. However, after investigators began to question some of the information Medlar provided, they turned on and eventually indicted her. In January, 1998, Medlar pled quilty to several counts of bank fraud, money laundering and false statements. She received a 42 month prison sentence.
Cisneros was indicted on 18 felony counts of false statements, conspiracy to defraud and obstruction of justice. In September 7, 1999, he pled guilty to a single misdemeanor count of making false statements to the FBI about the amount of money he paid Medlar. Cisneros will pay a $10,000 fine, with no jail time or probation. As of September 1999, Medlar (now known as Linda Jones, after her divorce) is still in prison in Fort Worth, Texas. The four year investigation is estimated to have cost $9 million.
See my link at Post 19 on this thread.
DAVID S. CLOUD, WALL STREET JOURNAL: An independent counsel is investigating whether the Internal Revenue Service and Justice Department obstructed his probe of former Housing Secretary Henry Cisneros, lawyers familiar with the matter said. Independent Counsel David Barrett is questioning IRS officials who were involved in the Cisneros case and has indicated he will look at the Justice Department's role as well. And he has widened his focus to look at whether the Clinton administration allowed politics to influence its handling of other tax cases involving Democrats, one of the lawyers said. It is unclear whether Mr. Barrett has authority to investigate the IRS and Justice Department treatment of tax cases beyond that of Mr. Cisneros, but the probe has become more serious in recent weeks. Mr. Barrett convened a grand jury two months ago and pressured a career IRS lawyer in the chief counsel's office into testifying by telling him that he was a subject of the probe, people involved said. The IRS employee, whose name couldn't be determined, invoked the Fifth Amendment in order to secure an immunity deal and is now cooperating, two lawyers said. He has testified several times and was asked about his work on the Cisneros case. Other IRS officials have testified as well.
I hope like heck that the 'boys' at Power Line blog have time to start looking into this!
translation: Gentlemen, start your
Just another day in the vast criminal organization known as the Democrat Party.
The 1997 indictment said Mr. Cisneros actually paid Mrs. Jones $264,500 from 1990 to 1993, including $75,500 as apparent additional hush money after he became HUD secretary in January 1993.
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