MediaWatch: April 1998
Table of Contents:
- MediaWatch: April 1998
- Five Clinton Practices Ignored by TV News
- NewsBites: Belated Flowers
- Jonesboro Ambush: Who's to Blame?
- The Ron and Nolanda Story Continues...
- ABC on the Budget-Busting Transportation Bill
Five Clinton Practices Ignored by TV News
Polls suggest the public believes that the Monicagate story is simply a sordid tale of office hanky-panky that a sex-starved media could not resist. The most serious aspects of the story — coverups, perjury, subornation of perjury, and obstruction of justice — have antecedents in previous White House attempts to stonewall damaging Clinton scandals. A MediaWatch analysis of past TV coverage suggests there are five regular Clinton administration practices that deserve investigation that the network evening news shows on ABC, CBS, CNN, and NBC have downplayed or ignored in non-sexual scandals:
1. Hush Money for Friendly Witnesses.
Hillary’s former law partner and friend Webster Hubbell was forced to resign in early 1994 as Associate Attorney General, the Justice Department’s number-three position, for embezzling nearly a half-million dollars from the Rose Law Firm, with some of his false expense accounts signed by his Rose Law partner Hillary Clinton. Last year, print reporters discovered Hubbell had been paid more than $500,000 from dozens of Clinton-affiliated people for "jobs" (on which little or no work was performed), more than he’d ever made in a year in his whole life. With the bonanza arriving as he was allegedly cooperating with Whitewater counsel Ken Starr, investigators suspect Hubbell was paid to keep quiet.
In May 1997, USA Today revealed Clinton pal Vernon Jordan got Hubbell a job with Revlon, the same company he later approached to get a job for Monica Lewinsky. In December, the Los Angeles Times reported Mickey Kantor, the President’s 1992 campaign manager later named Commerce Secretary, admitted he lied when he said he didn’t attempt to get Hubbell jobs. Neither of these stories was reported by any network evening news show — until NBC’s Lisa Myers explored Jordan’s role in a March 3, 1998 Nightly News story.
2. Destruction or Hiding of Documents.
Obstruction of justice occurred in the destruction of or hiding of relevant documents in the Whitewater investigation. Rose Law Firm shreddings, late-appearing billing records in the White House residence, and White House lawyers’ meeting notes like "Vacuum Rose Law files" underline that important evidence in the Whitewater story may never be recovered.
Last November, Associated Press reported that a mechanic discovered a stash of Whitewater documents, including a check made out to Bill Clinton from Whitewater partner Jim McDougal, in the trunk of a tornado-damaged Mercury Marquis once owned by McDougal courier Henry Floyd. Clinton claimed he never borrowed money from his felonious business partner, but the check matched the amount of a Whitewater loan repayment. The bank documents included information on the fraudulent Castle Grande transaction Mrs. Clinton worked on for McDougal. Only NBC Nightly News broadcast a full story.
3. Violating the Privacy Rights of Adversaries.
In June 1996, the White House admitted aide Craig Livingstone and others had collected FBI files on 338 Republican officials from past administrations. Later, the real number of files surpassed 900. After a brief burst of coverage, the networks dropped the story.
On September 25, 1996, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) revealed a six-month gap in the log which listed who at the White House was accessing FBI background files on Republicans. On October 4, Sen. Hatch released the deposition of White House aide Mari Anderson. She verified that pages of the log used to record the taking of FBI files were missing. Anderson also asserted, contradicting White House aide Craig Livingstone’s assurances, that Livingstone knew the Clinton White House was procuring the FBI files of Republicans. Only CNN reported these developments briefly.
4. Failing to Comply with Subpoenas.
Well after DNC Finance Director Richard Sullivan testified in July 1997 before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, the DNC belatedly released 4,000 pages of subpoenaed documents from Sullivan’s office. Months after the subpoenas arrived, the files supposedly were finally found by Sullivan’s successor in the only filing cabinet in his office.
A similar example emerged on November 6, 1997, when Deputy White House Counsel Cheryl Mills admitted in testimony before the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee that she and former Counsel Jack Quinn decided to withhold (for a total of 15 months) a White House staffer’s memo suggesting President Clinton wanted the newly created White House Office Data Base (WHODB) shared with the DNC. Neither of these stories got any TV news coverage.
5. Keeping Meetings Secret by Filing False Statements.
Last December, Judge Royce Lamberth fined the White House $286,000 for health czar Ira Magaziner’s lying (at White House lawyers’ direction) about the composition of Hillary’s health care task force in order to keep meetings closed to the public. Lamberth issued the fine to reimburse the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons for costs in their lawsuit against the Clinton health planners.
The White House claimed throughout the litigation the task force had no non-governmental employees on it. After Lamberth’s fine, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Archer called on Magaziner to resign. Just as they’d ignored the AAPS suit from the beginning, the networks aired nothing on the Lamberth decision or Archer’s call for Magaziner to step down.
