Editor's note: WorldNetDaily columnist David Limbaugh's new book, "Absolute Power," is an eye-opening, comprehensive, case-by-case expos? of the Clinton-Reno Justice Department. Claiming that Clinton's was the most politicized Justice Department in history, Limbaugh draws on his experience as an attorney and political analyst to describe the many abuses of power -- from Waco to Elian to Travelgate, Chinagate and Monicagate. He wrote "Absolute Power," he says, because "the sordid details must be exposed and articulated in a way that is accessible and intelligible to the average reader."

These excerpts from Limbaugh's book discuss how Janet Reno thwarted any meaningful investigation into the Clinton-Gore fund-raising scandal.

Purchase Limbaugh's book, available autographed by the author, at WorldNetDaily's online store.

The Clinton-Gore administration's rampant corruption and trampling of the rule of law permeated the entire executive branch. Whether conscious conspirator or unwitting puppet, Janet Reno dedicated the awesome enforcement power of the Justice Department to protect and defend President Clinton's multiple crimes and abuses of power. She prostituted Justice into a base political arm of the administration.

In 1993, shortly after she was installed as attorney general, Janet Reno sent an unmistakable signal that her Justice Department would primarily serve the political ends of Bill Clinton rather than the ends of justice. At once, she fired all 93 of the country's United States attorneys. According to no less an authority than Ted Olson, President George Bush's chief post-election attorney, Reno's move was extreme and unprecedented. "In order to maintain continuity in thousands of pending prosecutions, and as a statement to the public that elections do not influence routine law enforcement, the nation's top prosecutors are traditionally replaced only after their successors have been located, appointed, and confirmed by the Senate. On instructions from the White House (she claimed it was a 'joint' decision; no one believes that), Reno ordered all 93 to leave in ten days. There could not have been a clearer signal that the Clinton campaign war room had taken over law enforcement in America."

The firings were only the beginning. Throughout Clinton's two terms, the Clinton-Reno Justice Department, instead of dispassionately enforcing the law, waged war against the administration's political and legal enemies.

When President Clinton wanted to practice character assassination on the White House Travel Office staff, Ken Starr or Linda Tripp, he relied on the Justice Department for logistical support. When frustrated by a recalcitrant Republican Congress, President Clinton used Janet Reno to orchestrate end runs around the legislative branch -- misusing the judicial system to usurp legislative prerogatives, such as with their wholesale war on the tobacco industry.

When Clinton ducked responsibility for his excesses, as at Waco, the buck stopped with Janet Reno rather than the president. But if the polls swung in her favor, he swooped in to take personal credit. When the president became embroiled in a personal lawsuit, he enlisted the aid of Reno's department to file briefs on his behalf.

When he was at legal war with the independent counsel, Reno joined forces with the president rather than the independent counsel whom she was legally obliged to assist. Throughout the Clinton-Gore administration, Reno was complicit in the assertion of phony legal privileges and disruptions of the judicial process.

When congressional and independent counsel investigations struck close to the administration, Reno conveniently assumed jurisdiction over the investigation and became the president's surrogate stonewaller. While pretending to conduct investigations, she blocked Congress, denying it access to critical information and stalled long enough to stifle whatever momentum and progress investigators had achieved. Just as Clinton failed to maintain a wall of separation between his private and public lives, he misappropriated Justice to do his private dirty work and refused to keep his private attorneys separate from the Justice Department.

Even when matters as serious as national security and illegal foreign campaign contributions were involved, Reno, instead of performing her constitutional duty to enforce and uphold the law, used her office to insulate the Clinton-Gore Administration from scrutiny and resulting accountability.

When Charles La Bella, the Special Task Force attorney she appointed to investigate the campaign finance scandal, recommended the appointment of an independent counsel, she brazenly ignored the request and denied Congress access to La Bella's recommending memo. ...

The Clinton-Reno Justice Department, from Waco to Elian -- with Travelgate, Chinagate, Monicagate, and the illegal war against tobacco in between -- was one continuous, perfidious scandal factory. The republic cannot long endure such corruption and abuses of power. …

Mother of all scandals moves to Congress

In early December 1996, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., announced that the Senate would open a probe of the campaign finance scandal. The Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, under the leadership of Sen. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., would conduct the investigation. ... At the heart of the FBI's inquiry would be a closer look at three of the principal fund-raisers associated with illegal foreign contributions: John Huang, Charlie Trie and Pauline Kanchanalak. ...

House begins hearings

On the other side of the Capitol, Congressman Dan Burton, R-Ind., who chaired the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, began the House's campaign finance scandal probe by issuing more than one hundred subpoenas. ...

When the White House failed to turn over all the records subpoenaed by Burton's committee, Burton threatened contempt proceedings against it. Burton asked White House counsel Charles F. C. Ruff to appear on Capitol Hill and explain why the White House hadn't supplied all the documents, accusing the administration of "stonewalling."

"Rather than produce the documents essential to a complete investigation, the president continues to withhold these records based on novel claims of exemption and purely political complaints about the committee's document security protocol," said all 22 Republican committee members in a statement.

Ultimately, the House committee faced incredible obstacles to its investigation, far beyond the inevitable stalling by the White House and the DNC. One hundred and twenty subpoenaed witnesses either fled the country or pled the Fifth Amendment.

Al Gore: Solicitor in chief

Vice President Gore was at the center of the Democratic Party's fund-raising efforts for the 1996 election. Both he and Clinton received weekly reports of the DNC fund-raising meetings. Both men micromanaged strategies to acquire more funds. Clinton personally reviewed "mind-numbing campaign budget minutiae on a weekly, and sometimes daily, basis."

Clinton and Gore were also well aware that their activities were illegal. In a memo from Harold Ickes reporting that the DNC [Democratic National Committee] would have to set aside $1.5 million for audit costs and another $1 million for potential fines from the Federal Election Commission, Clinton scribbled in the margin, "Ugh" -- clearly revealing his awareness that they were breaking the law.

Gore made personal phone calls, soliciting big donations in what was described as a heavy-handed and offensive manner. It was unprecedented for a vice president to inject himself into direct solicitation, but because Clinton didn't like to make the calls, Gore had to. He soon acquired the moniker "solicitor in chief." One person commented that Gore sounded more like the DNC finance director than the vice president of the United States.

In at least one case, Democrats admitted there was an uncomfortable connection between the solicitation of funds and government action. After Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown helped a Texas telecommunications company acquire a $36 million contract in Mexico, the firm contributed $100,000 to the Democratic National Committee. Gore personally called an executive at the company to thank him for the donation. ...

All together, Gore was responsible for raising $40 million of the DNC's $180 million take during the election cycle.

Some of Gore's targets were offended by his high-pressure approach. One, who was supposedly a longtime Gore friend and supporter, described his tactics as "revolting." Another donor who wrote a $100,000 check to the DNC under pressure by Gore, said, "There were elements of a shakedown in the call. It was very awkward. For a vice president, particularly this vice president who has real power and is the heir apparent, to ask for money gave me no choice. I have so much business that touches on the federal government -- the telecommunications act, tax policy, regulations galore."

Gore spokeswoman Lorraine Voles vigorously disputed the notion that there was anything untoward about Gore's direct participation in the process. "There is nothing inappropriate about the vice president calling people for money."

After four months of silence -- and after watching White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry fumbling to explain Gore's level of involvement in the mounting fund-raising scandals -- Gore called a press conference. He insisted he had broken no laws, but said he would no longer make fund-raising calls from his office. Gore said that he was "very proud" of the millions of dollars he had raised through his fund-raising efforts. During the 24 minute conference, Gore resorted seven times to answering allegations of illegality with the statement: "My counsel advises me, let me repeat, that there is 'no controlling legal authority' that says that any of these activities violated any law." ...

When confronted with a 1995 memo from then-White House counsel Abner Mikva ordering White House employees not to make fund-raising calls or send mail solicitations from the White House or other federal buildings, Gore said the memo didn't apply to him or President Clinton. Gore denied reports that his solicitation calls had amounted to a shakedown of donors. "Well, I cannot explain to you what some anonymous sources want to say," said Gore. "I can tell you this, that I never, ever said or did anything that would have given rise to a feeling like that on the part of someone who was asked to support our campaign. I never did that, and I never would do that." Gore added, "I never did anything that I thought was wrong. If there had been a shred of doubt in my mind that anything I did was a violation of law, I assure you I would not have done that."

If Clinton and Gore treated their own campaign funds and DNC funds as one giant pot, that in itself had legal ramifications because, when the Clinton-Gore campaign decided to accept $62 million in public funds for the 1996 campaign, it expressly agreed to abide by the proposed spending limits. Gore denied the funds were mixed, saying, "No, there was a clear distinction" between the DNC and the Clinton-Gore campaign. "There was a separate message. There were separate legal requirements," said Gore.

Reno again says, 'No'

In the spring of 1997, Janet Reno once again rebuffed Republican demands for an independent counsel to investigate the Democrats' campaign finance improprieties. She said the Justice Department's special task force would continue to handle the probe "vigorously and diligently" and added that the allegations against Clinton and other top administration officials were not specific and credible enough to trigger the independent counsel act.

In a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, Reno said, "I can assure you that I have given your views and your arguments careful thought, but at this time, I am unable to agree, based on the facts and the law, that an independent counsel should be appointed to handle this investigation." Sen. Lott accused Reno of a "clear conflict of interest" and bemoaned the "politicization of the Clinton Justice Department." House Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry Hyde's reaction was even more pointed. "It is reasonable to assume that she is under enormous pressure from the White House," he said. ...

The Republicans responded by publishing an open letter to President Clinton that read, in part, "The evidence of Democratic fundraising improprieties continues to mount, day after day. Among those charges: soliciting and accepting foreign funds, laundering money, cash for government favors, influencing a union election in return for campaign contributions and, not least, the possibility of espionage. ... With so many senior officials of your administration and your party under this dark cloud, it is impossible to expect officials from your administration's Department of Justice to conduct a credible and independent investigation."

More Justice cover-up

Janet Reno admitted on Sept. 5, 1997, that her Justice Department task force first learned that much of the money solicited by Vice President Gore from his White House office went into hard-money accounts from a Washington Post story. When Reno sought an explanation from the task force, officials confessed that records had been in their possession to show the hard-money deposits, but no one had examined them.

This embarrassment partially contributed to her decision to reorganize the task force and bring in new people to direct it. She appointed Charles G. La Bella as chief prosecutor to replace Laura Ingersoll. La Bella was head of the U.S. Attorney's office in San Diego and had extensive experience in public corruption investigations. The task force would help Reno determine whether to request an independent counsel and/or to pursue criminal charges. Reno made the changes to the task force in the middle of a 30-day review of Gore's fund-raising activities that was scheduled to end Oct. 3, 1997.

In addition to having reopened a review into Gore's phone solicitations, Reno began a review of allegedly similar calls by Clinton. Call sheets revealed that Clinton was requested in February 1996 to call musician Frank Zappa's widow to solicit a contribution. Several months later, she contributed $30,000 to the DNC, of which $20,000 ended up in a hard-money account. Clinton was also suspected of calling Robert Meyerhoff, a Maryland businessman, from the Oval Office. Meyerhoff made a $100,000 contribution to the DNC. White House spokesman Lanny Davis said, "We are confident no laws were broken."

Contrary to Reno's assertion that her original task force had done "a very professional, very fine job," the investigation was nearly immobilized with internal disagreement among its members. The FBI officials strongly objected to the approach that the Justice Department was taking, believing it to be much too narrow, restrictive, and focused on newspaper accounts rather than interviewing senior administration officials and Democratic National Committee staff.

The FBI believed that the procedure was almost assured to insulate "covered persons." "The FBI wanted to investigate the president and the vice president," said one Justice Department lawyer, but the agents were instructed not to seek out evidence of crimes by "covered persons." They were merely to flag such evidence and take it to Reno if they happened on it. "You can't ask someone whether a covered person committed a crime," said the Justice lawyer. More than that, according to a Justice attorney, the task force was to avoid investigating new information of Democratic fund-raising scandals. The FBI and Justice task force deadlocked even over routine matters, which were referred to their supervisors who sometimes were equally divided.

The original task force didn't allow FBI agents to interview senior administration officials for eight months into its investigation. Reportedly, even the White House was incredulous that they had escaped stricter scrutiny. "It was something of a mystery to us," said one senior White House official, who added that neither the Justice Department nor the FBI had even asked to interview witnesses concerning the main issues being investigated.

Speaking of the Justice Department's unwritten prohibition against interviewing top administration officials, one Justice Department prosecutor observed, "You don't tell the FBI that in this particular investigation -- unlike any other -- you don't seek a full explanation of what happened. You follow the facts and let them lead where they may."

The refusal of the Justice Department to permit the interviews was strong proof of Reno's conflict of interest, the prosecutor explained. "If they said we're not going to look into this because it might lead to a covered person ... it's prima facie evidence of proof of conflict of interest. If they were restraining the agents, if they curtailed the manner in which questions could be asked, that should have been the moment when they appointed an independent counsel," said the attorney.

Terry Eastland, a former Justice Department official under Ronald Reagan and an expert on the Independent Counsel Act, said, "If you feel that constrained that you can't interview anybody ... you've already bumped up against the statute, and you ought to hand it off" to an independent counsel.

Regardless of what was motivating her, Reno, at least outwardly, seemed hamstrung by her interpretation of the Independent Counsel Act. It involved a catch-22. She apparently didn't believe that she could home in on a covered person without specific and credible evidence that he had committed a crime. Yet she wouldn't allow her investigators to do the necessary footwork to determine whether such a covered person may have committed a crime.

It was later revealed that Charles La Bella complained about this catch-22 in his memo. He said that the task force was never allowed to conduct a comprehensive investigation because "an inquiry can only be conducted pursuant to a preliminary investigation under section 591 of the Act. However, we have been told that we can only commence a preliminary investigation if there exists specific and credible evidence that a potential criminal violation has occurred. That is, you cannot investigate in order to determine if there is information concerning a 'covered person,' or one who falls within the discretionary provision, sufficient to constitute grounds to investigate. Rather, it seems that this information must just appear."

The result was that investigators were placed in the extraordinary position of being in a passive, rather than an aggressive, role. One senior Justice Department official warned that Reno's restructuring of the task force would result in no change in its investigative approach -- primarily because Reno's philosophy had not changed. "The overall strategy has not changed," he said. "The idea is to investigate a criminal case, piece by piece, and be alert at all times for any evidence that triggers the [independent counsel] statute." As it turned out, those were prophetic words.

Reno declines -- yet again

After the Justice Department completed its 90-day preliminary investigations, Janet Reno announced on Dec. 2, 1997, that she would not recommend the appointment of an independent counsel to investigate Clinton or Gore. She emphasized that she personally made the decision, denying that politics or any other outside pressure had influenced her. "They should know that we have worked as hard as we can to do the right thing," said Reno.

Reno determined that there was no reasonable basis to believe that Clinton or Gore violated the law against fund-raising on federal property. She said the White House calls variously were made from residential quarters, did not involve direct solicitations, or did not raise actual campaign money. "Evidence found by the investigators shows that the vice president solicited only soft money in these calls, not hard money," said Reno. Reno formally advised the three-judge panel of the D.C. Court of Appeals of her decision that there were no reasonable grounds for further investigation.

Republicans criticized Reno's decision, pointing to a recommendation by FBI Director Louis J. Freeh that Reno should seek an independent counsel. Freeh stated publicly, "Lawyers and investigators can and often do disagree. I and all of my colleagues in the FBI respect her decision and understand fully that it is the attorney general's by law to make."

Outside forces criticized Reno, too. Common Cause President Ann McBride, within mere minutes of the announcement of Reno's decision, denounced the attorney general for "turning a deaf ear" to Louis Freeh, head of the nation's top law enforcement agency.

When word of Freeh's recommendation came out, White House officials privately denigrated Freeh, calling him a disloyal subordinate. News of Freeh's dissent led the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee to issue a subpoena for Freeh's memorandum. Reno had refused to volunteer the memo, saying that to release it would compromise her investigation -- without explaining how it would do so. ...

Afterword

Fewer than 600 votes, cast in a single state, are all that stood in the way of a Clinton-Reno-style Justice Department lasting for at least another four years. There's no need to relive the tawdry spectacle of Al Gore's suing to win the presidency. But what might have escaped many readers' notice was that near the end of the Florida imbroglio, the Justice Department reportedly dispatched the illegally appointed Bill Lann Lee to investigate alleged civil rights abuses in the Florida election.

While the Justice Department probably had no authority to bring any legal action that could have changed the results, it could have wielded its considerable power to try to undermine the election's legitimacy. There is certainly nothing wrong with the Justice Department investigating actual civil rights abuses, but it crosses the line when it allows itself to be used as an agent to serve the administration's political ends.

Shortly after assuming office, Clinton assigned two men, Bernard Nussbaum and Peter Edelman, to conduct a top-down review of the department. The result was a book-length, scathing indictment of Justice under the previous 12 years of Reagan and Bush. "The attorney general shapes the image of Justice by communicating the core values and ideas that all Americans expect from the government's lawyers," read the report. "The department now faces a crisis of credibility and integrity. Its performance over the past 12 years has diminished the trust and respect the department once enjoyed among the Bar, the legal academy and political leaders. ... [The department] is perceived as politicized when it speaks on matters of central importance. ... The department has lost its reputation as an even-handed tribune for those needing judicial and other legal protection." While those words were unfairly applied to Republican administrations by the Clinton team, they couldn't be more appropriate for the Clinton-Gore-Reno Justice Department.

Article II, Section 1, of the United States Constitution makes the president the nation's chief executive officer. Article II, Section 3, provides that the president "shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed." The Department of Justice is the primary government agency charged with the implementation of the president's constitutional duty to execute the laws faithfully. As the Department of Justice is entrusted with the duty of impartially enforcing the law, it is important that to the maximum extent possible it stay above politics. When justice is administered unfairly, when those in power are treated as being above the law, the system disintegrates.

Sadly, however, this has been the legacy of the Clinton-Gore-Reno Justice Department. As we've seen, this was a Justice Department that, among other things:

 

Assisted the Clinton administration in framing permanent, loyal and exemplary White House employees in the Travel Office so that those "slots" could go to Bill and Hillary Clinton's cronies;

 

Sat idle as the Clinton-Gore campaign machine inhaled illegal foreign contributions and relaxed our national security -- refusing to allow an independent counsel to investigate this "mother of all scandals," notwithstanding the unambiguous opinion of four high-ranking Justice officials that it do so;

 

Subverted the very independent counsel whose appointment it had recommended;

 

Was complicit by its inaction in the White House's egregious violation of whistle-blower Linda Tripp's privacy rights;

 

Allowed itself to be used as a campaign tool for the candidacies of Hillary Clinton and Al Gore, by compromising its objectivity in evaluating the pardon requests for terrorist groups;

 

Directed its Immigration and Naturalization Services to change its immigration policy in midstream to accommodate the shifting political concerns of the Clinton administration regarding the asylum claim of Eli?n Gonz?lez;

 

Trampled on the Fourth Amendment rights of Eli?n's Miami relatives in bringing the Eli?n matter to a disgracefully violent close.

These offenses are so stark, so stunning, and, most of all, have gone so unpunished, that it leaves you breathless. The lesson of the Clinton-Gore administration is that you can politicize justice, use the executive branch of government to punish political enemies, abuse executive power for personal and political ends -- and get away with it.

All it requires is brazenness, stubbornness, a loyal staff of yes-men, dagger-men and smear artists, and an absent conscience. It's a recipe that other politicians are sure to follow. Unless, that is, the new administration -- and Congress, which has oversight authority -- takes drastic steps to restore the integrity of the Justice Department. ...

The Clinton-Gore administration's politicization of the Justice Department has no parallel in our nation's history, and this dangerous period, which made federal law enforcement a political calculation, must never be repeated.

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