Posted on 01/22/2002 3:53:43 AM PST by RJCogburn
Bush, Ashcroft imitate Clinton, Reno in blocking probe of Boston FBI
REP. DAN BURTON’S House Government Reform Committee hearing, scheduled for Wednesday but postponed until early February, will continue months of rancor between old Republican comrades. George W. Bush and John Ashcroft have given an excellent imitation of Bill Clinton and Janet Reno by withholding information from Congress. Indeed, they have surpassed their Democratic predecessors in defying the legislative branch.
While President Clinton was trying to undermine investigations of his own campaign finance abuses, President Bush has ruled against the Burton committee’s access to old scandals unconnected to him. The Bush team has seemed to back away from an earlier blanket rejection of all congressional subpoenas, but its claim to invoke executive privilege on a case-by-case basis is suspect. Incredibly, it refuses to give up documents about the FBI’s Boston office condoning law-breaking.
More than FBI abuse or executive privilege is at stake. The Bush White House’s cavalier attitude toward Burton’s subpoenas presaged inept handling of the Enron scandal. Its insistence on secrecy about Vice President Dick Cheney’s energy task force stems from the same root as its attempt to permit a Republican national chairman to double as a registered federal lobbyist. That root is arrogance of power, which infects administrations without regard to party or ideology.
Nobody is more distressed by this arrogance than Dan Burton, a true-blue conservative Republican from Indiana who wanted no fight with his administration. “It just devastates me,” Burton told me. “There is nobody who supports George W. Bush more than I do.” Nevertheless, he insists his investigation “really needs to be done” and cannot be blocked by government lawyers.
The blockage stunned Burton and his staff last summer when they sought government documents in two areas: first, then Attorney General Reno’s rejection of Justice Department recommendations to investigate Clinton campaign scandals; second, FBI misuse of mob informants in Boston decades ago. The message from Attorney General Ashcroft and White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales was blunt: Congress never again will have access to any documents reflecting deliberations inside the executive branch.
During a heated Burton Committee hearing Dec. 13, Justice Department Criminal Division Chief of Staff Michael Horowitz modified this hard line by promising a case-by-case analysis. But it soon became clear that no case ever could meet the test. If FBI abuses in Boston failed, what case could succeed?
In Boston, Joe Salvati went to prison for 30 years on murder charges because of lies under oath by star FBI informant Joe Barboza; the FBI knew Salvati was innocent but wanted to protect Barboza. Stephen Flemmi allegedly committed murders over two decades while informing for the FBI and was not prosecuted. The same is true of another FBI informant and alleged killer, Whitey Bulger, who remains at large. Burton wants to know why killers were protected.
“I believe that congressional access to these documents would be contrary to the national interest,” Bush said Dec. 12 while invoking executive privilege. Burton’s response in a Jan. 3 letter to Ashcroft: “It eludes me how it is in the national interest to cloak this dark chapter of the Justice Department’s history in secrecy.”
Reading ample correspondence between Burton and government lawyers makes the Bush team’s intransigence look identical to Clinton’s. Indeed, a Dec. 19 letter from Assistant Attorney General Daniel J. Bryant (a former Republican congressional staffer) appeared to defend Attorney General Reno’s refusal to cooperate with Burton. Bryant suggested that Reno had satisfied the committee with an oral interview, which in fact was wholly unsatisfactory.
For Bush’s Justice Department to align itself with Janet Reno is drenched in irony. James Wilson, the Burton committee’s chief of staff, worked for Michael Chertoff in the 1995 Senate investigation of Whitewater. Chertoff, assistant attorney general running the criminal division, today clashes head-on with Wilson. As a tough prosecutor, Chertoff is regarded by former Capitol Hill colleagues as the real source of this intractable policy.
Burton has come under attack from some conservatives because of praise from Democratic Reps. Henry Waxman and Barney Frank for opposing the pretensions of executive privilege even when a Republican President is responsible. Those critics want Republicans in Congress to accept and actually imitate the arrogance that habitually comes with executive power.
Proof that Burton has become a fool. He couldn't, or wouldn't, nail Clinton in 8 years, but now he's investigating even older scandals?
And what about clymers like Waxman Barney Frank suddenly being concerned about "pretensions of executive privilege"? That didn't bother these boobs for 8 years.
FReepers please read, Jim Robinson home page Twice!
I did a search before posting....under a different title, perhaps?
Your criticism of the person, Novak, does not, of course, deal with the facts.
With all due respect, it is reminiscent of the approach of Clinton's defenders attacking the messenger (Starr, for example) rather than dealing with the facts.
As to Burton being disappointed because the Bush administration isn't interested in his committee investigating past sins of the FBI, he shouldn't be. We are at war, the FBI is crucial to the effort. Somebody tell Dan we have more important irons in the fire right now...and so does the FBI. We can expose past FBI rogue agents, and the inept, corrupt Reno Justice Dept when this crisis is over.
Burton's media image is buffoonish. Regretfully, for all his passion and good intentions, Burton simply wasn't (isn't) up to the task of committee chairman. He's weak, and no match for the likes of Henry Waxman who would use this as a platform for election year mischief. Burton should be grateful the Bush administration is sparing him more public humiliation.
The 'later, rather than sooner, less, rather than more' approach I guess.
Bad idea, IMHO. When corruption at the hightest levels of government goes unchallenged because we're facing some sort of "crisis", we will be virtually guaranteed a never ending stream of "crises" to be dealt with.
Yes, they have. I am confident that FReepers would have justifiably been outraged if the names Clinton/Reno were substituted for Bush/Ashcroft.
I find this whole issue gives me a bit better insight into the thinking of some of the Clinton defenders who were willing to ignore the obvious to defend their boy. I must say that there are a lot of people here who are supportive of Bush/Ashcroft in this matter just because of who they are.
To be sure, Clinton was/is an evil man while Bush is, I think, basically decent. Nevertheless, if we just kinda hunker down and support our guy just because he is our guy, we invite and allow government corruption and abuse to continue and if it doesn't quite put us in the Begala, Davis, Carville category, it is still a category I do not wish to inhabit.
Sure, it is. Still, that is hardly a reason to support what looks like, walks like, and quacks like a cover-up.
But if this wrongdoing had occured in this administration, under this Attorney General, I wouldn't hesitate for a second to bulldoze heaven and earth to expose it immediately.
You don't need to respect them. They're no different than Clinton Apologists.
Well, I did say with all due respect. :<)
Exactly. At least until the media forgets about this and moves onto something new.
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