Last week a federal judge denied the Clinton administration's request to
end the probe of Democratic Party fundraising by Larry Klayman's
Judicial Watch. He ordered further testimony from John Huang and former
Commerce Secretary Mickey Kantor in an attempt to evaluate charges that
staff aides to the late Commerce Secretary Ron Brown removed and
destroyed fund-raising documents from Brown's files shortly after his
death in 1996.
The judge stated openly that there was significant shredding and removal
of documents from Brown's office. He said that "the circumstances
strongly substantiate the claim that the agency was deliberately
destroying and jettisoning documents." He cited evidence of the sale of
seats on overseas trade missions in exchange for political donations,
and deliberate interference in investigations into donation
irregularities.
Many people try to pretend that the Clinton impeachment is an isolated
instance caused by a mere lapse on Bill Clinton's part. We know that
this is nonsense, of course, even in terms of the President's own
behavior. But it is also nonsense because of the environment of lying,
cover-up and law-breaking that permeates the entire administration.
Such offenses have been constant characteristics of this administration,
noted even by members of the press when they say that these are people
who will never tell you the truth if a lie will do.
This pattern of deception has also been recognized officially before, as
it was in the case of Ira Magaziner when he lied about activities of the
health care task force. Clinton administration officials work for a
real prince of lies -- Bill Clinton -- and the administration has been
characterized by a steady stream of lies. I believe that this culture
of lies extends even to the phony statistics that the administration
releases. The Clinton administration is simply incapable of basic
integrity in dealing with the business of the country, because
everything has to be twisted and distorted to serve its various power
agendas. And in the current case a federal judge reached the same
conclusion, noting that in the case of the investigation of the Commerce
Department the Clinton administration showed "disregard for law."
So these things all fit a pattern. Very often recently we have seen the
impeachment discussion conducted as if it can take place in isolation
from the rest of the activities of the administration, but that is not
true. This administration has been characterized by a pattern of lying,
cover-up and destruction of evidence, and that pattern has been noted in
several situations that the administration has been involved in. As
noted, the list includes Ira Magaziner's lies about the health care task
force and the Commerce Department cover-up of illegal fundraising. In
both instances we have judges from the bench saying that Clinton
administration officials are liars, destroyers of evidence, and
obstructors of justice. The list goes on to include things like the
loss of the "suicide note" and various files from Vince Foster's office,
the lack of any explanation for the abuse of FBI files, and many other
irregularities that that we are supposed to pretend did not happen --
including, of course, a great deal of evidence that our national
security has been deeply compromised by Bill Clinton's corrupt dealings
with the Communist Chinese.
And we are supposed to be surprised that the president also lies and
obstructs justice? Lies are the heart and soul of the Clinton
administration, and everyone now knows it. The people who obstinately
continue to support Bill Clinton, whether in the Senate or elsewhere,
announce by their support that they are people of no integrity. This is
a harsh judgment, but it is where the evidence inescapably takes us.
Anyone who can stomach this administration must have a stomach for all
kinds of immorality, wickedness and lawbreaking.
Bill Clinton has become a litmus test for the thuggery in our
citizenry. Thugs are people who take what they want and don't care
how. A certain portion of the people in this country are basically just
thugs -- so long as they get theirs, they don't care by what means they
get it or whether we tear down the Constitution, the laws, and the
system of justice. They are content to take us from a system of
self-government to a gangster-style polity, the way that things were run
in the Soviet Union and elsewhere, as long as they are "taken care of"
by an administration that they ludicrously assert to be "competent."
People died on battlefields and risked their lives throughout many
decades to make sure that we would not be subject to such thuggish,
brutal rule internationally from the Soviet Communists. And yet now we
are supposed to just sit back and accept it from these American thugs.
We need to start right now to put the people in the Senate on notice
that this is not a choice about what precisely calibrated species of
censure to settle for. We understand what is really at stake here -- it
is the thugs versus the rest of us. The reason we must have a real
trial and a real vote in the Senate is that we need to know which
senators are on the side of thuggery. We need to know which senators
support the introduction of the gangster style into the politics of this
nation's life. It is imperative that we find out who is willing, in the
end, to stand with these criminals.
Because this is a criminal administration. It is led by a criminal
president; it has been characterized by criminal practices; and those
who support it are identifying themselves with a criminal gang that has
taken over the government of the United States.
The Senate Democrats are eager to avoid a trial because they know that
in a trial the truth about this president will come out, and that just
as it affected the minds of many so-called "moderates" on the Republican
side of the House when they finally looked at the evidence, so it will
affect the mind of the public in a full and open trial.
When it comes right down to it, the vote on whether or not to remove
Bill Clinton will be a vote for or against respect for law, decency, and
the integrity of the Constitution. It will be a vote about whether we
will conform ourselves to evident facts or to the corrupt will of
thugs. Democratic senators, many of whom have carefully cultivated
reputations for integrity, know that this is the truth, and that if they
fail this test they will, in effect, be passing judgment on their own
integrity. They do not want to have to face this test of integrity.
The fact that Clinton is now being impeached for lying and obstruction
of justice is symbolic of what has been true of his entire
administration, not just of one episode of his conduct. Removing Bill
Clinton is a responsibility of the Senate. Senators who avoid this
responsibility and succumb to the will of the criminal ambition of the
Clinton White House by giving in to a dirty deal will discredit the
entire political establishment in this country. They will be announcing
that we have now got an thoroughly corrupt political class in America --
all of them will be tainted by this corruption. And it will be clear
that this republic is at the stage before the end, when the political
leadership is so corrupt that it cannot defend the rule of law against
the thugs taking over our government.
This has happened before. It happened in the Roman republic, it
happened in Germany in this century, and sadly it appears to be
happening here. And our national capacity to resist such thuggery is
what is really about to be tested in the Senate of the United States.