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"Malibu Ken" Starr
Wednesday, August 20th 1997: You may have thought it would never happen, but "Malibu Ken" Starr is now under fire from the federal bench and from a Republican judge appointed by none other than Richard Nixon in 1970.

Judge G. Thomas Eisele, in an originally confidential opinion writes that he believes Kenneth Starr, the lackluster Whitewater prosecutor, may have a conflict of interest in his investigation of Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Judge Eisele's opinion, written in response to an ethics complaint filed against Starr, suggests that the United States District Court appoint a lawyer to investigate Starr's plans to become the Dean of the School of Public Policy at Pepperdine University - a not so serious college only yards from the Malibu shore.

"Although the court would need more factual information to conclude that an actual conflict of interest exists, it is difficult to argue that Mr. Starr is not laboring under at least an appearance of conflict," Eisele wrote.

Why?

Well, it turns out that Pepperdine exists largely because of one Richard Mellon Scaife, a right wing philanthropist and bitter enemy of the Clintons. A foundation administered and funded by the conservative newspaper publisher gave Pepperdine $1.1 million toward the $2.75 million it used to develop the school of public policy. Eisele, citing media accounts, said Scaife has funded a campaign to smear Clinton and suggest that the 1993 death of Clinton aide Vincent Foster Jr. may have been murder rather than suicide.

"It seems to me that this is case of one nut funding another," said one Washington insider, "Scaife made Starr comfortable -- at any cause -- while he carries out his vendetta against the White House."

Scaife's foundation partially funds the position that Starr would take at Pepperdine.

Judge Eisele's opinion was originally sealed, but was made public in a separate opinion by District Judge William Wilson when he wrote that the Starr investigation might not be pursued because a majority of the seven other federal judges in the Eight Circuit would have to agree with Eisele. Judge Wilson made the candid observation that such agreement is impossible because several of the judges were friends of the Clintons, including himself. As such, they had recused themselves from considering the ethics complaint.

If the four judges had not recused themselves, the vote might have been 4-3 against Starr.

Another Eighth Circuit judge recused himself because he is married to Vincent Foster's widow.

The man responsible for the ethic complaint filed against Starr is attorney Francis Mandanici of Bridgeport, Connecticut who has gone to considerable effort to show that Starr was anything but an "independent" counsel - but rather someone with a personal political agenda to destroy the Clintons.

Of course, Starr's office declined to comment on Judge Eisele's opinion and the fact that Judge Wilson, although admitting Mandanici's complaint might go nowhere in Arkansas, deserved to he heard by the public.

One key reason the majority of judges in the Eastern District of Arkansas may think Starr is unethical is the fact Pepperdine President David Davenport said he would give Starr "an open-ended time frame" to take the job and also become dean of Pepperdine's law school.

Anyone familiar with academia knows that the position of Dean is not often offered to non-academics like Starr, particularly when the candidate is politically tainted. Not only is Starr perceived as a right-wing fanatic and a political operative posing as a non-aligned investigator, but he has also been under constant fire from national figures defending the President and First Lady. It would be hard to think of a more controversial or feeble candidate for Dean of a private well-funded university. Starr must attract new applicants while simultaneously pleasing alumni. If voter preferences were an indication of support for Pepperdine, Starr's appointment as Dean would alienate more than 50% of the nation.

To offer a dean an open-ended start date is virtually unheard of and smacks of insider favoritism strong enough to overturn academic tradition.

Mr. Scaife, an heir to the Mellon fortune, has an estimated net worth of nearly $1 billion, and is a Newt Gingrich booster who has taken an active role in mongering conspiracy theories about White House deputy council Vincent Foster's suicide. His newspaper and his three private foundations--the Carthage, Sarah Mellon Scaife and Allegheny Foundations--seem to be engaged in pushing what some might think are fraudulent stories about the Clintons.

Scaife is the publisher of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review which is famous for publishing stories about the Foster suicide are not fact-checked or scrutinized.

Through the Carthage and Sarah Mellon Scaife Foundations, Scaife makes large donations to the Western Journalism Center (WJC), a non-profit organization founded by the once editor of Scaife's defunct newspaper The Sacramento Union. The WJC sponsored full-page ads that contained reprints of articles headlined, "Vince Foster's Death: Was It a Suicide?" The ads were run in the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Washington Times.

The WJC also pushed the Foster conspiracy into the mainstream media by distributing "Unanswered: The Death of Vincent Foster" -- a video tape and the release of a "study" on the Foster suicide at a 1995 Washington D.C. press conference.

At the press conference was Reed Irvine, chairman of Accuracy in Media (AIM) which seems to stand for just the opposite. AIM is alleged to have received $570,000 in contributions from Scaife's foundations between 1988 and 1993. Irvine continued to write numerous op-eds, some of which appeared in the Washington Times, suggesting that Foster's death was not a suicide and that the White House did not want a thorough investigation into the death. AIM also produced a television show, "The Other Side of the Story", that was hosted by Irvine and appeared on National Empowerment Television--the same station that airs Gingrich's ridiculous history course, "Renewing American Civilization". National Empowerment Television say they received $5,326,000 from Scaife's foundations between 1988 and 1993.

Need I write more?

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