Prince Albert: Prophet of Utopia

Excerpt from Chapter 8: "Dialing for Dollars"

After successfully stonewalling grand juries or federal investigators from the Justice Department, the FBI, special prosecutors, or independent counsels, by refusing to cooperate with those constitutionally impaneled to investigate the wrongdoings which have shrouded the Clinton-Gore Administration as well as blocking all efforts to get at the truth behind the Clinton-Gore related scandals, the Clintons and Al Gore invariably claimed to have been vindicated "by the evidence," when in fact, they are "exonerated" only by a lack of willing witnesses to testify against them--and a Justice Department in the their hip pockets that has stonewalled every Congressional or FBI investigation, special prosecutor or inspector general.

That was, in essence, what Charles G. LaBella, the former chief of the Justice Department's campaign finance task force said in his 94-page report when, in July, 1998, he recommended that Janet Reno appoint an independent counsel to probe fund-raising abuses by Al Gore and Bill Clinton. "President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore," LaBella said in his report to the Attorney General, "were the key players in a 1996 fundraising scheme designed to 'raise money by whatever means and from whomever would give it, without meaningful attention to the lawfulness of the contributions...The intentional conduct and willful ignorance uncovered by our investigations...resulted in a situation where abuse was rampant, and indeed the norm. At some point, the campaign was so corrupted by bloated fundraising and questionable contributions that the system became a caricature of itself."

When Louis Freeh saw LaBella's report on December 3, 1998, it started a war between the FBI Director and his boss, the Attorney General. Meeting with Reno for a half hour on that day, Freeh bluntly warned her that she faced an "...irrevocable political conflict of interest" by investigating 1996 fundraising abuses of the President and Vice President and added that there was "...compelling evidence" to justify an independent counsel...Two FBI agents, Assistant Director Neil J. Gallagher and former Deputy Director William Esposito both testified under oath that Lee Radek, the chief of the Justice Department's public integrity section told them in a meeting in 1996 that he was under "a lot of pressure" to make the scandal go quietly into the night because Reno might well lose her job if it could not be contained...

Freeh's comments, and LaBella's report, were contained in documents released on June 6, 2000 by the same committee..."The contortions that the [Justice Department] has gone through to avoid investigating these allegations are apparent," LaBella said, adding that the Justice Department conducted what he called a "result-oriented" investigation. The desired result, he continued, was to keep the investigation out of the reach of the Independent Counsel Act. "If these allegations," he said, "involved anyone other than the president, vice president, senior White House or DNC officials, an appropriate investigation would have commenced months ago without hesitation. However, simply because the subjects of the investigation are covered persons [subject to the Independent Statute Law], a heated debate has raged within the department as to whether to investigate at all. The allegations remain unaddressed." LaBella added that Reno avoided the appointment of an independent counsel "...by constructing an investigation which ignored the president of the United States--the only real target of those allegations."

In a January 39, 1998 12-page memo from FBI General Counsel Larry R. Parkinson to Deputy Attorney General Eric H. Holder, Jr. (that the House Government Reform Committee had subpoenaed from the Justice Department in 1996--and received in April, 2000), Parkinson asked Holder why absolutely no investigation whatsoever had been ordered by the Justice Department on the illegal campaign contribution scheme concocted by the Clinton-Gore White House.

The Reno Justice Department claimed, in several press releases to the media, that they had thoroughly investigated the allegations of campaign finance law violations on Al Gore with respect to his using his White House telephone to "dial for dollars," and they claimed to have thoroughly investigated allegations that Clinton and Gore had actively solicited campaign contributions from foreign nationals who could legally contribute money in the American political process. It was because of the "thoroughness" of these investigations, not once but twice, that Reno claims she decided not to appoint an independent counsel--when in fact, according tot he FBI's general counsel, no actual investigations on anything were ever conducted.

Jon Christian Ryter