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Federalists Win, America Loses
Cherry-Picked Judge Lets Kenny off the Hook, Makes Terroristic Threats Against Mandanici
by Tamara Baker

Monday, May 22, 2000 -- Saint Paul, MN (AmpolNS) -- Well, the Federalist Society has done it again.

They've protected their most famous member, Kenneth Winston Starr, from receiving the punishment he so richly deserves.

After the entire Little Rock Federal bench recused itself from hearing Connecticut lawyer Frank Mandanici's well-grounded complaints against Ken Starr, and after the judge at the second Federal level, Judge Wollman went and recused himself (NOTE: all of these recusals were based on alleged "conflicts of interest" far, far less egregious than Starr's constant contacts with the Paula Jones legal team, including his offer to write an amicus brief for them, that occurred long before he replaced Robert Fiske as OIC head), the Federalist Society fascists hit paydirt with one Judge John F. Nangle.

Mandanici had sought an investigation of Starr and his deputies for, among other things, eliciting false testimony against President Clinton (i.e., leaning on people like Julie Hiatt Steele and Sarah Hawkins and Jim and Susan McDougal to get them to lie, and punishing them with indictments if they didn't obey) and investigating Clinton despite conflicts of interest.

I'd heard stories about how Nangle was in the pocket of the right wing, being a Republican appointee in one of the more conservative judicial districts of the nation and all, but I'd discounted those stories -- until now.

Not only did Nangle, in a decision rendered on May 18, blow off Mandanici's well-documented instances of Starr's prosecutorial malfeasance (90% of every CoupGate-related article published over the last two years resulted from Starr's illicit leaks to the press, for one thing), he also not-so-subtly, in classic Kenny Starr Thuggery Mode, threatened Mandanici with punishment himself!

It isn't just Mandanici who has been screwed by Mangle (er, I meant "Nangle" -- no, I didn't!). Arkansas man Stephen Smith, one of Ken Starr's first victims, loses too, as does Julie Hiatt Steele, who is now one step away from homelessness, and almost went to prison for forty years -- simply because Kenny Starr wanted revenge on her for casting doubt on Kathleen Willey's credibility.

Meanwhile, the GOP-controlled Senate, which rubber-stamps the appointments of Federalist Society members, is still holding up scores of non-Nazi-like Clinton-selected judges. They're hoping for the Shrub to win in November, and to have a Republican House and Senate funnelling more Federalist Society jack-booted thugs onto the conservative judicial activist conveyor belt.

If there was any doubt for the need to elect Al Gore, AND elect a Democratic Congress that will confirm decent men and women to the Federal bench, it's been erased now.