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Clinton Ends His Presidency as He Began It

Christopher Ruddy
Friday, Jan. 19, 2001

Bill Clinton’s last full day of his presidency ended as he began his first full day, with a subversion of justice.

Today Bill Clinton cut a deal with independent counsel Robert Ray that lets him off the hook for criminal prosecution.

We should not forget that Bill Clinton’s first act as president was to fire all the U.S attorneys across the U.S. – an unprecedented act by an American president.

At the time, critics of the president linked the firing to an effort to stave off the prosecution of House Ways and Means Committee chairman Dan Rostenkowski.

But the real truth became clearer as the scandal known as Whitewater unfolded.

The real reason Clinton fired every U.S. attorney was to save himself, not Rostenkowski.

As we now know, the U.S. attorney in Little Rock was closing in on Clinton for Whitewater-related matters and his and Hillary’s involvement in the defrauding of the Small Business Administration.

Clinton’s replacement for U.S. attorney in Little Rock was Paula Casey, a former law school student of his. She did much to protect her patron.

Clinton carried much criminal baggage before he arrived at the White House, and his administration soon opened his luggage to create an administration in his image: the most corrupt in American history.

Clinton is no dummy; he knew the Justice Department would be his Achilles’ heel.

This is precisely why he sacked all the U.S. attorneys.

This is why he put his "best" friend, convicted felon Webster Hubbell, over at Justice as associate attorney general.

This is why his administration secretly sabotaged the nominations of Zoe Baird and Kimba Wood to make way for Janet Reno, the prosecutor from Miami Vice who had almost a perfect record of never prosecuting white-collar criminals or politicians.

This is why he fired FBI Director William Sessions in an unprecedented and sudden act the day before Vince Foster was found with a bullet hole in his head in Fort Marcy Park.

This is why he had Janet Reno hand-pick Robert Fiske as Whitewater special counsel – a man who as U.S. attorney in New York never found one politician who had committed a crime.

This is why he accepted Robert Fiske’s recommendation of Louis Freeh as the FBI director.

This is why he consented as Freeh quickly removed, retired or transferred out the entire executive committee of assistant FBI directors in a most effective coup d’etat that got no press ink.

No doubt Clinton knew that by controlling the Justice Department and the FBI, he and his administration would have a free hand.

His minions could blackmail U.S. congressmen, the IRS could engage in witch-hunt audits, his head of White House security could gain custody of 1,000 confidential FBI files of Republicans, his Pentagon appointees could illegally release the personnel files of Linda Tripp, and so on.

So powerful was Clinton’s control over the judicial and law enforcement apparatus of the country, the communist Chinese could illegally funnel more than $10 million to help his 1996 re-election campaign.

At the same time, the president could give away the most guarded secrets of our nation to China, an avowed enemy, including supercomputer technology to build nuclear weapons and ballistic missile technology – technology that now allows China’s missiles to hit our cities with pinpoint accuracy.

And all of this could be done in silence and with the complicity of the highest officials in the land.

It comes as no surprise that on Clinton’s last day in office he has again cut a "deal" that lets him off the hook.

"I tried to walk a fine line between acting lawfully and testifying falsely, but I now recognize that I did not fully accomplish that goal and that certain of my responses to questions about Ms. Lewinsky were false,'' the president said in a statement issued today.

Basically Clinton admits he committed perjury, got caught at it, but feels he’s been punished enough. He has decided his punishment, not an independent legal authority such as a jury or court.

Robert Ray, like his predecessor Starr, has taken the low road. Perhaps he believes it is in "the best interests of the country," a phrase often used by cowardly men.

I disagree strongly that Clinton should walk and that somehow this is in the interests of the country.

The country may well see the fruits of the Clinton corruption and acquiescence of people like Starr and Ray to Clinton’s corruption, as domestic problems and foreign crises emerge in the months and years ahead.