In a private conversation with his toe-sucking consultant Dick Morris, you may recall, President Clinton once played an earnest game of “rank the presidents.” The presidency’s historical “first tier” was probably out of reach, Clinton decided. But with a strong showing n his second term, he guessed he could still earn a place high in the “second tier.”
Well, that second term hasn’t even begun yet, and Clinton already seems headed for a different tier entirely. Nixon, Harding, and Grant excepted, no other presidency stinks nearly so bad with scandal.
Consider the latest episode. Clinton appointees have (again) declined to request the appointment of an independent counsel to investigate prima facie evidence of felony campaign fund-raising violations by the Democratic National Committee and former Commerce Department aide and Lippo Group functionary John Huang. Under federal law, such requests are supposed to be triggered by a criminal allegation that would appear to involve the Department of Justice in a conflict of interest. As this one does.
In the absence of an independent counsel, jurisdiction over the Lippo matter falls to Justice’s Public Integrity unit. Public Integrity, for its part, ordinarily reports to the acting head of Justice’s criminal division, one John Keeney. Keeney’s son, John Jr., is John Huang’s defense attorney. So any future Lippo investigation will now be supervised further up the Justice food chain.
Who’s up there? Justice’s number-two official, Jamie Gorelick, wants to replace Janet Reno as attorney general in the second Clinton administration. White House aides don’t like Reno; they think she’s already appointed too many independent counsels.
Can these people be trusted to find the truth and punish the guilty? Two months have now gone by since John Huang first came to public notice. How many FBI agents have been deployed to interview principals and witnesses in the scandal? Not one. How many documents have Justice investigators requested and secured? Not one. It’s amazing what paper-shredding technology can do these days, you know. Don’t look back, Gen. Grant. Clinton’s gaining on you.
