Starr Leaks!!!!!
It's the End of the Beach for "Malibu Ken"!
by Jeff Koopersmith

IT'S YOUR CHOICE TODAY...
THIS...	OR THIS!

ELECTION DAY -- Tuesday, November 3rd, 1998 -- New York (APJP) -- Judge Norma Holloway Johnson, who has not been particularly friendly overall to the Clinton Administration, offered the President a Halloween gift last week by unsealing her ruling regarding leaks to the media by Kenneth Starr and his deputies.

The judge, often pictured on television driving her aged Mercedes Benz from the courthouse, is fuming over the "Independent" Counsel's provision of secret Grand Jury testimony to his favorite irresponsible press contacts and denying them to hostile writers -- real journalists -- who saw Starr for what he was years ago.

Her Honor released her 23 page order and appointed a "Special Master" with FULL SUBPOENA POWER to investigate violations of now-famous Federal Court Rule 6 (e) which forbids prosecutors from leaking grand jury proceedings to anyone -- let alone the Clinton Witch Hunters led by Newsweek's Michael Isikoff, Howard Fineman and Karen Breslau. Isikoff, once a reporter for the Washington Post and somewhat famous for giving up his research on Archer Daniel Midland's huge government affairs program, was responsible for the original Newsweek story on Monica Lewinsky, which was deftly lifted by right wing Internet gossipmonger Matt Drudge after Newsweek decided not to run with the story.

Judge Johnson will determine whether to hold Starr and his deputies in contempt after the Special Master reports back to her.

If you think Judge Johnson isn't angry with Starr, read this line which she emphasized in her ruling:

Those rules (6 (e) et al), she wrote, encompass not only "the direct revelation of grand jury transcripts," but also any disclosure by prosecutors of "the identities of witnesses or jurors, the substance of testimony, [or] the strategy or direction of the investigation."

The Judge also cited an article in Brill's Content and Starr's admission to publisher Steven Brill that he and "Jumpin' Jackie Bennett" spoke to reporters after making them promise not to reveal their sources. Starr also told Brill that Rule 6 (e) does not apply to what grand jury witnesses tell the Federal Bureau of Investigation or Starr BEFORE they testify.

Judge Johnson went to the trouble of citing two dozen examples of Starr's alleged leaks -- and that the first may have occurred on January 21st, 1998, the very same day the Lewinsky story broke. Could Ken Starr or his people have telephoned Matt Drudge in a desperate effort to get the story out in a "timely" manner after Newsweek put the kibosh on Mike Isikoff's story, we wonder? Well, don't worry, because Judge Johnson's Master will be able to subpoena the telephone records of Starr, his deputies and any telephone they may have used. We assume the Master will also subpoena Matt Drudge and henchwoman Lucianne Goldberg's records as well.

Johnson specifically mentioned NBC's David Bloom as her first example of potential Starr leaks. Bloom said on January 21st that "Federal law enforcement sources" told him that Monica Lewinsky would get "a choice between immunity and prosecution." Starr won't be able to claim that Bloom or his NBC aides talked to FBI or other police sources here: those sources wouldn't know what Starr had decided to offer Lewinsky. Bloom's revelations prove to this publication that Starr had to be the source cited. In one fell swoop, Starr was able to terrorize both the White House and Miss Lewinsky by revealing that he was considering an indictment, naming Lewinsky as his target, and outlining his game plan -- ALL violations prima facie of the court's secrecy rules as they pertain to grand juries!

Judge Johnson listed the following as, to our minds, wanton participants in Starr's shenanigans:

• Michael Isikoff, Howard Fineman and Karen Breslau of Newsweek.
• Jeff Gerth, Francis X. Clines, Don van Natta Jr. and James Bennet of The New York Times.
• Susan Schmidt and Peter Baker of The Washington Post.
• ABC News' Jackie Judd, Lisa Myers and Claire Shipman.
• Scott Pelley, of CBS News.

We would recommend to the Special Master that he also investigate the sources utilized by:

	1. Tim Russert, of NBC's Meet the Press
	2. Sam Donaldson, of ABC's This Week
	3. Wolf Blitzer, CNN's senior White House correspondant
	4. And last but by no means least (except as a journalist), Brit Hume of FOX News.

Happily, Starr and his people were stupid enough to underscore their treachery by putting in writing that other reporters -- the ones not burning Clinton on a cross -- were "persona non grata" among the "Independent" counsel's coven.

Charles Bakaly lookalike-actalike Moe Howard!

The totally inept Charles G. Bakaly III ("The Third" -- oh, brother!), who is Ken Starr's Public Relations Incompetent, was actually dumb enough to write to Salon magazine and tell them that Murray Waas -- a respected journalist who maintained his fairness and wrote negatively about Starr -- should stop calling members of Starr's office for information! One can only laugh out loud at Bakaly's adolescent attempt to try and "prove" Starr's adherence to the law and Rule 6 (e) by telling Salon that Waas was tying to get members of Starr's office to "disclose grand jury and non-public information" and that this was "inappropriate and unfairly exposing" Starr and his henchmen to charges they have "inappropriately provided information." Bakaly, graduate of a reportedly fly-by-night L.A. law school, is so unprepared and ill-suitedfor his job that we suspect Judge Johnson must have fallen off the bench reading this pap.

Of course, reporters will plead a "Constitutional privlege" not to respond to subpoenas issued from Judge Johnson's Master, citing the First Amendment. How convenient. But this ruse won't help them, because Starr's telephone bills and those of his aides will definitely reveal who they talked to and when.

Remember, this order has been around for well over a month -- and only just now unsealed. Now stop and think -- is it not amazing that Starr didn't leak it?

We rest our case.

What are the long term ramifications of Johnson's revelations?

First, Starr can forget about his yearning for a Supreme Court appointment. He can also forget about the Republican-controlled Congress coming to his aid.

Senator Orrin Hatch

You will no longer hear Senator Orrin Hatch laud his "respectability." Even better, you may see the Sunday Pundits change their tune and begin to explore the undeniable truth of Hillary Clinton's statement that a right-wing conspiracy is at work here. The "conspiracy" is among people who love money more than truth. GOP zeal is fueled by television and radio personalities that have seen large increases in their audiences and large dollar signs on the paychecks since the scandalmongering began. This includes newspaper owners, tabloid publishers and thugs like Rush Limbaugh, Oliver North and ex-Gingrich strategist radio newbie Sean Hannity, who make a huge living off the misery of people they have never met.

Entire networks -- led by MSNBC (which stands for Monica Sex News Broadcast Continually) -- are dedicated to lynching the President. Microsoft-co-owned MSNBC and its anchor, John "The Ghoul" Gibson, have participated in a nearly-24-hour-a-day diatribe against the Clinton's. Gibson is egged on by other NBC mainstream anchors like Tim Russert, a huckster who poses as a choirboy "family man" while engaging in the most egregious, trumped-up criticism of Clinton. Watch for his star -- and others -- to fall rapidly once the Special Master reports back to Jodge Johnson.

Of course, pundits and publishers will be on the defensive -- and it is not beyond them to attempt a media coup aimed at ousting the President to protect their hefty paychecks and Nielsen numbers.

Time will tell.