🚀 go-pugleaf

Um. Duh
"Vendicar Decarian" <VD@Pyro.net> wrote in message
news:IwKFc.33542$XY6.2505006@read2.cgocable.net...
> Profile of a right-wing conspirator: the case of Theodore Olson
> 15 November 2000
>
>
> Last November, at a conference of the Federalist Society at Washington's
> Mayflower Hotel, attorney Theodore Olson welcomed his audience to "the
vast
> right-wing conspiracy. In fact, you're at the heart of it."
>
> This was not merely a cynical jest. There is a network of right-wing
> political operatives, lawyers and judges which conspired to bring down the
> Clinton administration and nearly succeeded. Their goal is not simply to
> remove Clinton, but to impose a reactionary agenda which is opposed by the
> vast majority of the American people, an agenda which can only be advanced
> through anti-democratic methods: dirty tricks, political provocations,
> back-room legal and judicial maneuvers.
>
> The career of Theodore Olson provides an instructive example of the
origins,
> political motivations and methods of those who comprise the right-wing
> conspiracy. While Olson is only one of several dozen key political actors
> behind the scenes, his name pops up over and over again at various stages
of
> the campaign to destabilize the Clinton administration.
>
> The 59-year-old Chicago-born lawyer took his law degree from the
University
> of California at Berkeley in 1965, the year of the Free Speech Movement
> which marked the onset of a decade of radical student protest on American
> college campuses. Olson was part of the right-wing reaction against the
> protest movement. He joined the prestigious Los Angeles law firm of Gibson
> Dunn & Crutcher in 1965, as soon as he had passed the bar. A senior
partner
> in the firm, William French Smith, was the personal attorney for Ronald
> Reagan, who was elected governor of California a year later.
>
> After Reagan's victory in the 1980 presidential election, William French
> Smith was chosen as attorney general in the new Republican administration.
> Following Smith to Washington were two up-and-coming right-wing lawyers
from
> his law firm. Kenneth Starr became Smith's chief of staff. Theodore Olson
> signed on as assistant attorney general and head of the Office of Legal
> Counsel, essentially the attorney general's attorney.
>
>
> Scandal at the Environmental Protection Agency
>
> In 1982 Olson was drawn into the political controversy over the Reagan
> administration's sabotage of the enforcement of anti-pollution laws by the
> Environmental Protection Administration (EPA). An investigation into the
> activities of the EPA led to the forced resignation of EPA Administrator
Ann
> Gorsuch and of Rita Lavelle, who was in charge of toxic waste cleanup for
> the agency. As the scandal unfolded, the Reagan administration claimed
> executive privilege to withhold agency documents from congressional
> committees investigating the EPA.
>
> Olson was summoned to testify under oath before a congressional committee
in
> March 1983 about advice which the Justice Department had given the EPA on
> the withholding of documents. He subsequently left the Department of
Justice
> and returned to Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, working out of the firm's
Washington
> office. In 1986 the Reagan administration was compelled to appoint an
> independent counsel, Alexia Morrison, to determine whether charges should
be
> brought against Olson for his role in covering up the EPA scandal.
>
> A protracted legal battle followed. Olson filed a legal challenge to the
> Independent Counsel Act. He won a decision from the US Court of Appeals
for
> the District of Columbia that the law was unconstitutional, a decision
> written by Laurence Silberman, who served in the Nixon Justice Department
> and is another prominent member of the right-wing legal fraternity in
> Washington.
>
> This decision was appealed to the US Supreme Court, which handed down an
8-1
> decision in 1987 upholding the constitutionality of the independent
counsel
> law. The sole dissenting vote came from the most conservative justice,
> Antonin Scalia.
>
> Morrison then proceeded to complete her investigation of Olson, concluding
> in August 1988 that no charges should be brought. Her 225-page report
makes
> ironic reading in light of the Clinton impeachment trial, since she
> concluded that Olson's testimony about the legal advice he gave the EPA,
> while "disingenuous and misleading," was not perjurious. In language later
> echoed by Clinton himself in his 1998 grand jury testimony, Morrison wrote
> that Olson's testimony "while not overly helpful," consisted of statements
> which were "literally true" and therefore within the law.
>
> The perjury investigation did not harm Olson's subsequent legal career. He
> went on to handle some of the most politically sensitive cases for the
> Republican Party. After Reagan left office in 1988 Olson became his lawyer
> in the Iran-Contra affair, dealing with the office of Independent Counsel
> Lawrence Walsh and monitoring Reagan's testimony in a series of trials of
> White House aides and other administration officials.
>
> Olson became part of a tightly knit network of right-wing political
> operatives in the nation's capital. He was on the board of directors, and
at
> one point secretary-treasurer, of the right-wing magazine American
> Spectator.
>
> He also belonged the Federalist Society, an association of several hundred
> ultraconservative lawyers co-chaired by Robert Bork, whom Reagan
> unsuccessfully attempted to place on the Supreme Court in 1987. Olson
heads
> the Washington branch of the Federalist Society and also chairs the
> executive committee of its Practice Group. The Federalist Society supplied
> the bulk of the lawyers who worked on the Paula Jones suit and the Starr
> investigation.
>
>
> Legal-political warfare
>
> After the election of Clinton in 1992 stripped the Republican Party of its
> control of the executive branch, the focus of the right-wing attacks
against
> civil rights laws, environmental protection and other regulations on
> business shifted to the court system, where hundreds of ultra-right-wing
> lawyers had been appointed to federal judgeships during the 12 years of
> Reagan and Bush.
>
> Olson played a prominent role in the ongoing legal-political warfare. He
> argued the successful lawsuit that resulted in the 1995 Hopwood decision
in
> Texas, overturning affirmative action rules at the University of Texas Law
> School. This case was brought with the backing of the Center for
Individual
> Rights, a right-wing legal aid center financed by Richard Mellon Scaife,
the
> multimillionaire whose name has surfaced repeatedly in connection with the
> campaign to drive Clinton from the White House.
>
> The court system was not only an avenue for pursuing politically motivated
> litigation, but a base for launching direct attacks on the Clinton White
> House. But first it was necessary to manufacture the pretexts. Two of them
> were presented: the Clintons' real estate dealings in the late 1970s
> (Whitewater) and the Paula Jones case.
>
> The Whitewater realty deal was first reported (or misreported) by the New
> York Times in March 1992. It was revived as an issue in the fall of 1993
> when a former Little Rock judge, David Hale, facing prosecution for fraud,
> began to allege that he had awarded a $300,000 loan to Susan McDougal, one
> of the Clintons' partners in Whitewater, at the urging of the
then-Arkansas
> governor. A media firestorm followed, and Clinton was compelled to
authorize
> the appointment of a special prosecutor in January 1994.
>
> At about the same time, in December 1993, the American Spectator magazine
> published its notorious "Troopergate" article alleging that Arkansas state
> troopers had procured women for Clinton during his years in Little Rock,
and
> giving the first name of one woman, "Paula," who had allegedly been
willing
> to be Clinton's girlfriend.
>
> Three months later, at the Conservative Political Action Conference in
> Washington, Paula Jones, whose last name was never mentioned in the
American
> Spectator article, held a press conference denouncing Clinton and
declaring
> she would file a sexual harassment lawsuit against him. This suit
> immediately became the rallying point for all the Clinton haters on the
> extreme right.
>
>
> The Arkansas Project
>
> There is considerable evidence to suggest that Olson was involved in the
> launching of the Jones suit. According to press accounts, Richard Mellon
> Scaife approached the American Spectator in 1993, within months of
Clinton's
> inauguration, and agreed to give $2.4 million to finance an investigation
to
> dig up dirt about Clinton's past.
>
> Three lawyers, two of them linked to the magazine-Theodore Olson and David
> Henderson-and the third, a right-wing activist in Virginia, Stephen
Boynton,
> met at the American Spectator's offices in November 1993 to work out the
> plans for what became known as the "Arkansas Project."
>
> Boynton and Henderson were to head up the effort, which expended the huge
> sums supplied by Mellon Scaife to hire investigators and operatives in
> Arkansas, and to pay fees to those who were willing to provide derogatory
> information about Clinton, regardless of its veracity or reliability. A
> pipeline was opened up from extreme-right and racist elements in Arkansas,
> including segregationists and ex-Klansmen, leading directly to the
American
> Spectator, the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal and the news
pages
> of supposedly more objective publications, including the New York Times
and
> Washington Post.
>
> David Hale, the principal "cooperating witness" in the Whitewater
> investigation, was one of those who received cash payments from the
Arkansas
> Project. In the spring of 1986 the Senate committee investigating
Whitewater
> subpoenaed Hale to testify. Hale declined to appear without a grant of
> immunity, which committee investigators and Chairman Alfonse D'Amato were
> reluctant to offer, since it would detract from the credibility of his
> testimony. Hale needed a Washington attorney to handle the negotiations
with
> the committee, and, through his Arkansas Project handlers, he obtained one
> of the very best-Theodore Olson.
>
> Joining Olson in the talks with the Senate committee was another Gibson
Dunn
> & Crutcher attorney, John Mintz, who was recently retired as the assistant
> director of the FBI. How Hale, a bankrupt Little Rock ex-judge and
convicted
> con man, was able to afford the services of a former assistant attorney
> general and a former assistant FBI director has never been explained.
>
>
> Olson and Kenneth Starr
>
> Throughout this entire period Olson remained on close personal terms with
> his former law partner Kenneth Starr, who had served on the US Circuit
Court
> of Appeals and then as Solicitor General under the Bush administration. In
> August 1994 Starr was appointed Independent Counsel in the Whitewater
case,
> after a three-judge panel, headed by right-wing Republican David Sentelle,
a
> former aide to Republican Senator Jesse Helms, fired his predecessor,
Robert
> Fiske.
>
> Starr was himself a member of the Federalist Society, and a far more
> conservative and politically active Republican than Fiske. Nonetheless,
the
> media downplayed the extraordinary intervention of the three-judge
> panel-whose chairman, Sentelle, was seen lunching with ultra-right-wing
> North Carolina Senator Lauch Faircloth shortly before he fired Fiske.
>
> One of those frequently quoted by the media in its efforts to portray
Starr
> as a respected moderate who would conduct the investigation fairly was his
> longtime associate and former law partner. Typical was an exchange with a
> critic of Starr published in the online magazine Slate in January 1997.
> Olson wrote, "I have known Starr since he joined my law firm as a young
> associate in the early '70s," and concluded, "I believe if Clinton had to
be
> investigated, he should be grateful that his investigator is Kenneth
Starr."
>
> At the same time, Olson was working closely with the Paula Jones lawyers.
In
> early 1997 he and Robert Bork held a moot court-a mock trial proceeding-to
> help prepare the Jones lawyers for their arguments before the Supreme
Court,
> which culminated in the ruling which cleared the way to compelling Clinton
> to give deposition testimony about his sex life.
>
> In the two years since then, Olson has remained in contact with both the
> Paula Jones lawsuit and the Starr investigation. During this time another
> Olson, his wife Barbara, has become one of the most prominent media
> defenders of Starr. A regular on the talk show circuit, she is invariably
> described as a "former federal prosecutor," rather than as a rabid
> Republican partisan married to one of Starr's closest friends.
>
> Barbara Olson was the lead counsel to the Government Oversight committee
> which investigated the "Filegate" and "Travelgate" affairs-both matters
> referred to Starr's office. Mrs. Olson recently discussed her relations
with
> the Independent Counsel, revealing that the Olsons still socialize
regularly
> with the Starrs, although they-of course-never discuss the Clinton
> investigations.
>
> Barbara Olson now works for the Independent Women's Forum (IWF), a
> right-wing group funded by Richard Mellon Scaife. To complete the circle,
> the Independent Women's Forum in 1994 discussed filing a friend of the
court
> brief in support of Paula Jones's lawsuit. The attorney with whom the IWF
> discussed the brief was-Kenneth Starr, then a million-a-year partner at
the
> Chicago-based law firm of Kirkland & Ellis. Starr did not divulge this
> contact a few months later, when he was selected as Independent Counsel,
> just as he did not reveal his contacts with the Paula Jones lawyers when
he
> approached the Justice Department in January 1998, seeking jurisdiction
over
> the Monica Lewinsky affair.
>
> --
> "We must create a <economic> crisis in order to ensure that there is no
> alternative to a smaller government." - Bush - Imprimus Magazine 1995.
>
> "We seek to remove resources from the control of the state, thereby
starving
> it." - International Society for Individual Liberty - NeoCon Libertarian.
>
> "Throughout his term, Bush has implied tax cuts would starve the
government,
> paying for themselves by causing budget deficits that, in turn, would
place
> heavy pressure on Congress to lower spending." - Jeff Lemieux - Senior
> Economist - Progressive Policy Institute.
>
> "They have an agenda which is to starve the government of revenue. But in
> order to get it through, they keep on having to pretend that the tax cuts
> are affordable, and so they've been suppressing the likely cost of
> everything, including the war on terror." - Paul Krugman - Economist.
>