MediaWatch: September 1994
Table of Contents:
Janet Cooke Award: The Ken Starr Conspiracy
Both sides of the political aisle have warned of conspiracy in the Whitewater investigation. Conservatives charge the White House and its allies are covering up for the Clintons; liberals suggest that Clinton's enemies are using Whitewater to destroy the Clinton presidency. For promoting a one-sided story of conservative conspiracy around the appointment of new independent counsel Kenneth Starr, CBS Evening News earned the Janet Cooke Award.
On August 8, Dan Rather announced: "There is growing controversy tonight about whether the newly named independent counsel in the Whitewater case is independent, or a Republican partisan allied with a get-Clinton movement. Among the questions about Kenneth Starr are these: the involvement of anti-Clinton activists in pushing for Starr's appointment to replace Robert Fiske. Also, Starr's public stand actively supporting a woman's current lawsuit against the President. This is a potentially important and explosive story...Rita Braver has the latest."
Braver's story did include Starr supporter Terry Eastland, but mostly stuck to the liberal script, with soundbites from Clinton lawyer Robert Bennett and liberal Sen. Howard Metzenbaum: "Democrats are raising questions about Starr, a former federal judge, because of how he was picked. Under the new independent counsel law, Chief Justice William Rehnquist chose fellow conservative David Sentelle to head the three-judge panel that selects independent counsels. Sentelle himself was appointed by President Reagan with sponsorship from Senate conservative Jesse Helms, and Sentelle was lobbied to replace Robert Fiske by constant Clinton critic Floyd Brown, and congressional conservatives."
But for this Republican plot to work, the Independent Counsel Act had to be reauthorized. That bill -- which placed Rehnquist in charge, who picked Sentelle for the three-judge panel, who picked Starr -- was supported 246-2 by Democrats in the House. By contrast, seven of the ten Republicans who signed a letter to the three-judge panel opposing Fiske voted against the bill which made Starr's appointment possible.
Four days later, Rather returned to the "explosive" story: "Questions abound about how and why Republican Kenneth Starr suddenly came to be the new independent counsel in the Whitewater case replacing Republican Robert Fiske. New disclosures are fueling questions about whether or not Starr is an ambitious Republican partisan backed by ideologically motivated anti-Clinton activists and judges from the Reagan, Bush, and Nixon years. Correspondent Eric Engberg has tonight's CBS Evening News `Reality Check.'"
Engberg's story included no Clinton critics, but aired three Democrats questioning Starr's integrity. He began: "Kenneth Starr's history of partisan Republican activity is not the only thing troubling Democrats. The way Starr got the job, which bears the footprints of every Republican President from Nixon to Bush, is also becoming a hot issue. Independent counsels are chosen by a panel of three federal appeals court judges. By law the panel is selected by Chief Justice Rehnquist, a Nixon appointee to the Supreme Court named Chief Justice by President Reagan. Rehnquist chose Judge David Sentelle of the D.C. Court of Appeals, a Reagan appointee, to head the three judge panel. Sentelle is from North Carolina where he was an active worker in the Republican organization run by Senator Jesse Helms, who is among Mr. Clinton's fiercest critics. Sentelle owes his job on the federal bench to Helms, who urged the Reagan White House to appoint him. Sentelle's two most famous rulings overturned the Iran-Contra convictions of Oliver North and John Poindexter."
Engberg elaborated: "The Sentelle panel last week decided to replace independent counsel Robert Fiske with Kenneth Starr, saying a change was needed to insure the appearance of a truly independent investigation. Nothing wrong with Fiske, the judge said, just a perception problem. Time out." Engberg countered with Sen. Carl Levin (D.-Mich.) charging that Starr was less independent than Fiske.
Neither Braver nor Engberg described GOP complaints about the inconsistencies in Fiske's report on the Vince Foster suicide or appearance of a conflict of interest. Republicans cited his law firm's representation of International Paper Company, which sold land to Whitewater Development; his professional relationship with former White House counsel Bernard Nussbaum; and his representation of firms involved with the Arkansas Development Finance Authority, a player in the Whitewater mess.
Engberg continued: "The appearance problem got worse today when The Washington Post revealed that Judge Sentelle had lunched at the Capitol with his old patron Helms and Senator Lauch Faircloth, leader of the Republican dump-Fiske movement. The lunch partners say the subject of the independent counsel didn't come up." Engberg aired Rep. David Bonior (D.-Mich.) saying Sentelle and the senators shouldn't have had lunch.
"In Ken Starr, the White House faces a prosecutor who served in the Reagan and Bush administrations and is often mentioned as a GOP Supreme Court nominee," Engberg declared, supported by a soundbite from Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.). Engberg added: "Starr has given more than $6,000 to Republican candidates in the last year, one of whom has built his entire campaign around Whitewater...Another Republican, Virginia congressional candidate Kyle McSlarrow, lists Starr as a co-chairman. Former Attorney General Ed Meese and William Barr were also co-chairmen...Senator Levin, whose commitee oversees the independent counsel law, today asked Sentelle to get a list of all of Starr's political activities and consider whether to ask him to withdraw."
Since Engberg was recovering from surgery, MediaWatch talked to producer Virginia Mosley, who explained: "It wasn't a story on the independent counsel law and how it came about, it was a story trying to explain why...to most people, why Fiske was replaced by Ken Starr was a confusing story. If we had ten minutes, we could have done the whole nine yards. This wasn't a `Starr is appointed today' story. It was an attempt to explain how this very complicated process works."
Engberg's story wasn't complicated enough to answer the question: If Starr was so partisan, why did he make Janet Reno's short list before she chose Fiske? As for Sentelle's partisanship, CBS didn't talk to Mark Levin, a lawyer for Ed Meese. In the September 1 Washington Times, Levin wrote that Sentelle upheld Lawrence Walsh's right to deny Meese access to parts of his final report. Wrote Levin: "If Judge Sentelle and the panel deserve criticism, it is for supporting Walsh's extra-constitutional conduct...To believe Judge Sentelle is not impartial in administering his legal duties is to believe a contemptible lie."
