Money to Investigate Bill = 70 mil, money to investigate Karl = 0

[MissWaverly]

Whitewater investigation finally ends

LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas (AP) -- The seven-year, $70 million Whitewater investigation that toppled an Arkansas governor and dogged Bill Clinton for most of his presidency officially drew to a close Monday when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the last remaining appeal.

"It has been drawn out a long time," said W. Hickman Ewing, who was a chief deputy to Whitewater special prosecutor Kenneth W. Starr. "It just shows you people can keep things going."

Clinton was never charged.

http://edition.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/03/20/scotus.whitewater.tucker.ap/index.html

Rove investigation in jeopardy due to funding.

In April, the Office of Special Counsel launched a six-member task force examining “the firing of at least one U.S. attorney, missing White House e-mails, and White House efforts to keep presidential appointees attuned to Republican political priorities.” The task force is in now jeopardy. “Without a last-minute infusion of nearly $3 million, the special task force may be unable to pay its staff and buy the kind of technical equipment it needs” for the investigation, according to Jim Mitchell, the office’s spokesman. But the funds may be hard to come by:

The cost of the task force for 2008 would be $2.89 million, according to OSC estimates. But Bloch started the probe long after he submitted his 2008 budget request. And now he’s having a hard time convincing those holding the nation’s purse strings to loosen up and give him some last-minute extra funding.

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/09/17/rove-investigation-in-jeopardy-due-to-funding/

[MissWaverly]

1. here's what Waxman said about Clinton investigations

But this changed when Republicans took control of Congress. In 1997, when Rep. Dan Burton took over as chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, the Committee majority voted to grant him unilateral authority to issue subpoenas. Over thc next four years, Mr. Burton unilaterally issued over 1,000 subpoenas to investigate allegations of Clinton Administration and Democratic Party wrongdoing. That's two subpoenas per day the House was in session. As a result of these subpoenas, the Government Reform Committee received over two million pages of documents. That's like getting 4,000 pages of documents to review every day the House was in session.

Many of these documents were highly sensitive. The information Congress demanded and received included details of discussions between President Clinton and his closest advisors, internal e-mails from the Office of the Vice President, FBI interview notes, and documents describing internal Administration deliberations. At one point, I asked GAO to assess how much White House time was involved in responding to congressional inquiries relating to allegations of campaign finance abuses over an 18-month period between 1996 and 1998. GAO found that White House staff spent over 55,000 hours responding to hundreds of congressional requests. Government Reform and its Senate counterpart were the most visible investigative committees during this period.

But they weren't the only committees involved in these investigations. GAO reported that 22 different congressional committees had campaign finance - related investigations during thc Clinton Administration. The subpoena power was not the only authority Congress misused during these investigations. The House gave Mr. Burton the authority to conduct depositions as part of his campaign finance investigation.

Mr. Burton used this authority to haul 141 individuals who worked in the Clinton Administration, including top advisors to the President, before the Committee for depositions. These officials spent 568 hours in depositions before Committee staff. This is equivalent to 71 business days - over half the number of legislative days in a typical year in the House of Representatives - devoted solely to conducting depositions of Clinton Administration officials.

REMARKS OF REP. HENRY A. WAXMAN - SYMPOSIUM ON CONGRESSIONAL OVERSIGHT - September 18,2006

oversight.house.gov/Documents/20060918165855-55473.pdf

[MissWaverly]

2. nice little contrast here

Congress reduces its oversight role
Since Clinton, a change in focus
By Susan Milligan, Globe Staff | November 20, 2005

WASHINGTON -- Back in the mid-1990s, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, aggressively delving into alleged misconduct by the Clinton administration, logged 140 hours of sworn testimony into whether former president Bill Clinton had used the White House Christmas card list to identify potential Democratic donors.

In the past two years, a House committee has managed to take only 12 hours of sworn testimony about the abuse of prisoners at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.

The jarring comparison reflects the way Congress has conducted its oversight role during the GOP's era of one-party rule in Washington.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/11/20/congress_reduces_its_oversight_role/

[MissWaverly]

3. and of course Socks investigation vs oversight of wiretapping

GOP Investigated Pres. Clinton’s Cat But only plans oversight on Pres Bush’s
Admitted Illegal Spying


1995-Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN), then chair of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, investigated whether taxpayers were footing the cost of stationery and postage for the fan club dedicated to President Clinton’s cat, Socks. (They were not - and it turns out Barbara Bush’s dog Millie had a fan club too.)

2005-Two weeks ago, President Bush admitted he willfully flouted a law that requires him to get warrants before wiretapping U.S. citizens. His justification for ignoring the law appears to be noblesse oblige. In reaction, Republicans in charge of the Senate Judiciary Committee announced on Friday that they are planning “oversight” hearings into the matter.

http://www.pensitoreview.com/2005/12/26/gop-investigated-pres-clintons-cat-but-only-plan-oversight-on-pres-bushs-admitted-illegal-spying/

[rosesaylavee]

4. Damn it.

Kick and Rec.

This needs to be seen - one more rec will get it to the greatest page.

[MissWaverly]

5. thanks for the kick

I do hope folks get to see it.

:-)

[MissWaverly]

6. they impeached Nixon for ignoring subpoenas

When President Nixon ignored Congressional subpoenas during the Watergate investigation, Democrats introduced Articles of Impeachment to tell Nixon that ignoring subpoenas was an impeachable offense. Now George Bush is behaving just like Nixon, and Democrats should once again introduce Articles of Impeachment.

there is an awesome chart here that you gotta see!

http://www.democrats.com/subpoenas

[MissWaverly]

7. Here's a Wash Post expo on this

Under Rove's direction, this highly coordinated effort to leverage the government for political marketing started as soon as Bush took office in 2001 and continued through last year's congressional elections, when it played out in its most quintessential form in the coastal Connecticut district of Rep. Christopher Shays, an endangered Republican incumbent. Seven times, senior administration officials visited Shays's district in the six months before the election -- once for an announcement as minor as a single $23 government weather alert radio presented to an elementary school. On Election Day, Shays was the only Republican House member in New England to survive the Democratic victory.

Investigators, however, said the scale of Rove's effort is far broader than previously revealed; they say that Rove's team gave more than 100 such briefings during the seven years of the Bush administration. The political sessions touched nearly all of the Cabinet departments and a handful of smaller agencies that often had major roles in providing grants, such as the White House office of drug policy and the State Department's Agency for International Development.

"What we are seeing is the tip of a whole effort to make the federal government a subsidiary of the Republican Party.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/18/AR2007081801182.html

[gateley]

8. K&R. Even if I'd been a Republican during the Clinton debacle, I'd have been

furious at the time and money spent on such a non-issue. I still can't get over it.

[MissWaverly]

9. yes, I didn't realize it was 50% of their legislative time (House)

50% of their time taken up just listening to depositions regarding Clinton investigations.

not to mention a major albatross around the neck of the White House Staffers who have still accomplished
100x the work of this current crew.

[rosesaylavee]

10. One more kick

just because of the outrage I am feeling.

Bookmarked.

[MissWaverly]

13. yes, there are some gold nuggets we can refer to

a Cliff Notes to the Republicans guide to ethical oversight.

[rosesaylavee]

15. O yeah.

Bookmarked for the nuggats. Thanks for compiling!

[MissWaverly]

16. Hey, remember the lyric about a candle in the wind

well, that's what we have to be now, with apologies to Elton John

[rosesaylavee]

17. ...

http://www.eltonography.com/songs/candle_in_the_wind.html

...

And it seems to me you lived your life
Like a candle in the wind
Never knowing who to cling to
When the rain set in

...

[MissWaverly]

18. oh, thanks for that

:-)

[autorank]

11. K*R $70 million for Whitewater and what, 1/10th of that for 911 Commission

They starve investigations that they are unable to stop. That's the rule.

The Rove data is new to me. What a joke, these people are crooks.

Thanks for the "oldie" and the new stuff Miss Waverley:)

[MissWaverly]

14. You are welcome

One article said that counting the Whitewater investigation and everything else, the tab was really
$120 million to investigate Clinton. Imagine what we could do with $120 million for head start
or student aid or for veterans medical care.

[slipslidingaway]

12. Kick n/t