Will the hearings be open?

The delivery of 36 boxes of evidence to Congress from Kenneth Starr
on Wednesday now puts Republicans on the spot.

House leadership wants to keep the Starr report and hearings secret.
But that would conflict with a Republican principle of open government.

Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, R-GA, recently stated that he
would like to keep the Starr report sealed to protect innocent parties.
A debate over his proposed plan to keep the pending Judiciary Committee
hearings behind closed doors is already under way.

Many Republicans, including a personal friend of Gingrich, do not
like doing business behind closed doors and believe he is making a
mistake.

“I would vehemently disagree and say that the speaker is wrong on
this issue,” said Matt Glavin, president of the Southeastern Legal
Foundation and personal friend of Gingrich. “This is America, and in
America we do things out in the open. That’s the way the system is
designed. We’re supposed to have an open and honest government. We’re
not supposed to be a government where business is transacted behind
closed doors. Particularly, particularly business as important as
impeachment of our leader.”

Glavin has been working closely with Gingrich on a successful lawsuit
to stop Bill Clinton’s plan to alter the method of taking the year 2000
Census. The case has been appealed and is now being expedited through
the Supreme Court. Glavin said he hopes Gingrich is still his friend in
spite of their disagreement.

“Once a document reaches Capitol Hill, there is no such thing as
confidentiality,” he said. “So many staffers have access to that
information, the information will be out.”

There were even concerns expressed by the Republican National
Committee over Gingrich’s desire to keep the report and hearings from
the American people. A major Republican platform plank has been to have
open meetings. It was also part of the “Contract with America” in 1994.

“This belongs to the American people,” stated Clifford May,
Republican National Committee communications director. “They paid the
bill for all of it. I believe in the truth. I believe the truth should
get out there in the marketplace of ideas, and I think people have a
right to know. I wouldn’t want to see it sealed up. People have a right
to
the information that’s been gathered. They have a right to know the
truth.”

A resolution currently being drafted by a combination of Republicans
and Democrats may be voted on by the House as early as Friday, if all
goes according to the present plans. The resolution will establish the
rules by which the House will deal with the Starr
report and the mountain of evidence that arrived with it.

Conservative Republicans who have campaigned on the principles of
open meetings will have difficulty supporting Gingrich.

“One of the most important elements of the Contract with America was
opening up meetings to the general public. Since the decision on whether
or not to impeach is based partially on the Starr report, that
information should be generally available.” said Rep. Richard W. Pombo,
R-CA, in a recent statement.

“What will happen is, there will likely be some hearings, not the
full impeachment hearings, but there will be some hearings prior to the
November elections. I think right after the election, unless there’s
some absolutely egregious facts in this report, I don’t
think impeachment hearings will take place before the election. I think
that will happen after the election. I think Congress has a
responsibility to do that after the election, before the new Congress
convenes in January. They have a responsibility to deal
with this issue as quickly as possible,” predicted Glavin.

Democrats have been rapidly distancing themselves from Clinton’s
problems to protect themselves in close campaigns. Republican candidates
have been reminding voters of opponents who have been strong Clinton
supporters. If the concern continues to
build among Democrats in office, there may be an effort to have Clinton
step down.

“If Democrats want to go to Clinton before that process plays out and
say, ‘For your sake, for the party’s sake, for the country’s sake it’s
best that you resign,’ that’s up to them. As far as we’re concerned,
we’ll stick by the Constitution and the rule of law. We’ll see where
that takes us,” said May who claims there is a rapidly growing division
in the Democratic Party over the Clinton problems.

“I am encouraged,” May added, “by things like Sen. Joseph Lieberman
of Connecticut, a Democrat and a friend of the president getting up on
the Senate floor as he did last week and saying things that frankly
Republicans have been saying for a long time. And people of great
integrity like Democratic Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York who
made similar statements. It means it’s no longer possible for Clinton
supporters to say, ‘Oh, it’s a vast right-wing conspiracy and prejudice
against Arkansas. This is an out of control
prosecutor.’ And all the other excuses you’ve been hearing. Among
serious people those things are no longer said.”

Glavin believes Clinton will be asked to step down by key Democratic
leaders prior to the start of full impeachment hearings.

“It is at that point that I believe a delegation of two or three or
four very prominent Democrats … will make a quiet trip to the White
House and say, ‘Mr. President the jig is up. You’ve got to go. You’re
hurting the party.'”

It will soon be clear that the Starr investigation has not been the
source of the many media leaks, according to Grover Norquist, head of
the bipartisan Americans for Tax Reform.

“If it was Starr that was leaking everything there will be no new
information in these reports. My sense is that Starr wasn’t leaking,”
said Norquist. “The White House was leaking. The White House was only
capable of leaking things that they knew. They don’t
know everything that’s in the Starr report.”

Some claim the Starr report can be expected to contain a great deal
of information that was not ever leaked to the public. Others have also
claimed that the White House damage control team has purposely tried to
leak information to take the surprise out of the Starr report when it
becomes public. If there is no new information in the report the public
will not be outraged by the findings. However, if Norquist is correct,
new information in the report will get the public upset about new
allegations as well as the Clinton spin tactics.

The Starr report can be expected to contain evidence from all aspects
of the investigation, focusing on obstruction of justice. The report
will detail investigations by Starr, as well as the House and Senate
investigations pertaining to Whitewater, the FBI files, the White House
travel office firings, Madison Guaranty, the deaths of Vincent Foster
and Commerce Secretary Ron Brown, as well as the Monica Lewinsky
scandal. Charges of obstruction of justice will be made throughout all
areas of the investigations, along with other charges.

David Bossie, attorney and former investigator for several of the
House and Senate investigations on Clinton scandals believes there are
many examples of high crimes and misdemeanors in the Starr report to
Congress.

“The travel office investigation, to the firing of those seven travel
office employees and the obstruction of justice and the abuse of power
that went on in the dealings with those seven people and the use of the
IRS and FBI to harass those people. As well as the FBI files
investigation and how those were used illegally to procure information
on Republicans,” are all issues that Bossie says will now be used by
Starr.

A number of pending indictments of others, including Hillary Clinton,
could still come out of the Starr investigation. Bossie pointed out that
Starr is not finished and additional evidence will continue to be
gathered. Starr may even indict Bill Clinton at some point after he
either resigns or is removed from office.