Will Janet Reno Indict Barbour and Gingrich?

Republicans are commanding the Attorney General to appoint a special prosecutor for Al Gore, but:

Will Janet Reno Indict Barbour and Gingrich Instead?

Al Gore, beset by GOP poseurs
Monday, September 8th 1997: David Strauss, Al Gore's former deputy chief of staff, stammered a little, sweat a lot, but made his points fairly well under tough questioning from Republicans Senator Arlen Specter and snakishly sweet Susan Collins, Friday, as the Thompson Committee continued its much-too-obvious crucifixion of the Vice President which promises to last for the next couple of years.

Thompson, who has his own designs on the Oval Office doesn't want to face Gore in 2000. But his hypocritical pursuit of the Veep serves only to underscore his own slimy agenda; his unabashed and perhaps illegal interference with the Department of Justice toward selfish ends, and; his own fundraising "problems" which are sure to surface this year. A glance at Thompson's own Federal Election Reports is testament enough to his own acceptance of questionable money -- particularly tobacco money, big business dollars and Kiddy Kash -- laundered money passed to children by their parents to fund Thompson's senate campaigns in Tennessee.

The media, including the supposedly super-sophisticated News Hour pundit Paul Gigot - open whore to Wall Street -- made much of Strauss's reference to "donor maintenance" [DM] events which the Hsi Lai Temple event most assuredly was.

Gigot and his sidekick had a few laughs over the DM characterization, but for most people in Washington, donor maintenance is a key strategy to campaign health.

Haley Barbour--making millions teaching his "craft."

Typically a DM event is one that in non-ticketed and open to a group or general audience. A DM event can include a private speech to an unpaid-for luncheon or dinner; a hosted talk, an informal coffee, or a post fundraising event offered to supporters as a "thank you" for past contributions.

Another type of DM event is a "mining" event. Here, the campaign is looking to please potential future donors, community activists, and other opinion leaders. These are the most common DM events and every Senator on the Thompson Committee has participated in them in the extreme -- They have little choice.

Despite Gigot's tittering, a great deal of candidate and incumbent time is spent on donor maintenance events -- events that have no fee attached.

The His Lai event was a hybrid of these. No tickets, no money collection, no thank yours from the Vice President for monetary support. Just a canned speech had made only weeks before.

Of course the line of demarcation between a fundraiser and a DM event can be thin, especially in the highly-charged atmosphere orchestrated by Thompson to discredit Democrats.

Susan Collins - Is she a syrupy snake?
It's difficult not to laugh at Republican members of this Senate Committee as they follow their carefully scripted messages while pretending to question witnesses in depth. Keep in mind, every one of them has engaged in similar activities to those which they now attack -- and will continue to zealously pursue them in the future. One Senate aide told me that several Thompson Committee members are "learning" new fundraising tactics during their "investigation" and plan to implement them for their own campaigns in the future.

The shameless goal of Thompson and his pals -- To call Gore a liar -- was embarrassingly clear as they, time and again, choose to ignore political realities and pretend that they were "shocked" that Gore might go to a public event that was indirectly tied, before and after the fact, to fund-raising. But the key issue -- what happened DURING the event, was ignored by Republicans because it didn't fit into their scheme.

David Strauss -- The right stuff

"Do you dispute that the event on April 29th at the Buddhist temple was a fund-raiser?" carped Sen. Arlen Specter.

"I do," David Strauss replied.

"I believe I know what a fund-raiser is," Strauss said. "This was not a fund-raiser."

"We'll let others draw the inference into whether all those $5,000 checks made it a fund-raiser or not," Specter sniped -- like a disinterested woman in a pick-up bar.

About $100,000 was collected in connection with the now-notorious April 29, 1996, event at the Hsi Lai temple in suburban Los Angeles. What that "connection" was is the key to this issue. There is nothing illegal about donations being made the day before, or the day after a noted politician appears at a function.

Donors, moved by personal avarice, the candidates message, or for any reason, are not participating in anything unlawful just because they're propelled to support a candidate financially or otherwise. Sure, John Huang and members of the Hsi Lai temple perverted the process by laundering money -- and even Thompson, Specter and Collins don't charge that the Vice President stayed up all night with the venerable Man Ho plotting those moves.

Would Arlen Specter indict the Vice President if 10 of the people attending the luncheon had signed up as volunteers to the Clinton-Gore campaign? No. Volunteer time is just as valuable -- if not more valuable than money.

Newt Gingrich - the "professor" -- laundering
money through tax-exempts?
The media, picking up on Republican gobbledygook, reports widely that fund-raising at religious sites is illegal. But none of them seems to have examined the law, and its historical basis. It is not illegal to raise funds at churches and synagogues -- especially indirectly. It IS illegal for religious orders enjoying tax-exempt status to contribute themselves to political candidates. That's a big and easily understood difference.

Officials at Hsi Lai Temple appear to have laundered funds. They reimbursed members personal checking accounts with Temple general funds says Man Ho and fellow monastics. But to temple devotees this was not laundering, only a part of traditional support offered Buddhist clerics by the Temple and its members. Whether the reimbursement was illegal would be a matter for a trial court, but here the nuns have been granted immunity from prosecution. Thus, the Republican members of the Senate can stage a mock trial, without the benefit of a jury and more-important --cross-examination targeted at the motive for these Senator's vitriol. Convicting the nuns and the Temple in a Republican Senate sponsored kangaroo court is a slick move, and part of a streamlined effort to force the Attorney General to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Mr. Gore.

Janet Reno, will she keep her courage?

Janet Reno had better gird her loins and deny Republicans their special prosecutor no matter what the personal or political cost to her. Unless she has unimpeachable proof that Al Gore engaged in a conspiracy to violate the law, she ought to stand firm and deny the GOP the sideshow they're looking for.

Reno is savvy enough to realize that the intent of these hearings is to batter Gore and deny him the presidency in 2000. Republicans seem to think they can "order" the Attorney General of the United States to investigate and prosecute whomever they please. Now they threaten General Reno with "impeachment" if she opts not to obey their commands.

It will be tough going for Reno if she sticks by her guns. The pressure on her is enormous, both from Republican leaders and GOP factions within the Justice Department itself.

If I were Reno, I'd be in front of a federal grand jury urging the indictment of Haley Barbour and Newt Gingrich for using tax exempt charities and educational corporations to launder political money.

Now, wouldn't that be something?