Sunshipper
07-08-2004, 09:26 AM
"It was my task to complete the investigations begun by Bob Fiske, whom Ms. Reno had appointed during a period when the independent counsel law had lapsed. A three-judge panel appointed me pursuant to a 1994 law, which Mr. Clinton himself signed, that re-established the office of independent counsel. The sad and undisputed facts revealed by those investigations scarcely need retelling. Numerous criminal prosecutions and convictions dotted the legal landscape, including the conviction (and resignation) of a sitting governor of Arkansas; the convictions of Jim and Susan McDougal, business partners in Whitewater; and the guilty pleas of, among others, a former associate attorney general of the U.S. (and chief justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court).
The crimes were ferreted out through the hard work and professionalism of men and women from the FBI and the IRS, the honorable service of honest citizens serving on grand juries in Little Rock, Ark., and Washington, and, finally, through the courageous and sacrificial service of (largely career) prosecutors. Many of those prosecutors in both Little Rock and Washington were on assignment to our office from U.S. attorneys' offices around the country and from "Main Justice," the Justice Department itself. Two boasted the Department of Justice's highest award for career prosecutors. These men and women were honest, hardworking, law-abiding public servants.
At various turns in the investigation, witnesses and defendants mounted legal challenges to the independent counsel's authority to investigate possible criminal activity. In every instance, those challenges were rejected either by a federal district court or by a court of appeals. The reason: In every instance the investigation was properly authorized under the independent-counsel law. "
Full story at: http://www.opinionjournal.c om/editorial/feature.html?id=1100 05325
The crimes were ferreted out through the hard work and professionalism of men and women from the FBI and the IRS, the honorable service of honest citizens serving on grand juries in Little Rock, Ark., and Washington, and, finally, through the courageous and sacrificial service of (largely career) prosecutors. Many of those prosecutors in both Little Rock and Washington were on assignment to our office from U.S. attorneys' offices around the country and from "Main Justice," the Justice Department itself. Two boasted the Department of Justice's highest award for career prosecutors. These men and women were honest, hardworking, law-abiding public servants.
At various turns in the investigation, witnesses and defendants mounted legal challenges to the independent counsel's authority to investigate possible criminal activity. In every instance, those challenges were rejected either by a federal district court or by a court of appeals. The reason: In every instance the investigation was properly authorized under the independent-counsel law. "
Full story at: http://www.opinionjournal.c om/editorial/feature.html?id=1100 05325