Dig And Delve Signs Of Progress Visible In Hunt For Corruption Pro: Watchdogs Are Into Blatant Malfeasance

My status as Certified Social Pariah has just been confirmed by the White House, which has again stricken my name from the list of invitees to the Clinton media Christmas party. Also disinvited from this taxpayer-supported stroking function is my colleague Maureen Dowd, which leaves her devastated, as she had already beribboned a puppy biscuit for the new First Dog.

All I did lately was to point to this flagrant example of malfeasance in Lee Radek’s laughably titled “Public Integrity” section at Justice: The see-no-Democratic-evil bureaucrats there - influenced by the unconfirmable Robert Litt, the Clintons’ de facto boss of the Criminal Division - declined to prosecute a high official in the Agriculture Department, and then went to court to obstruct Independent Counsel Donald Smaltz’s prosecution of the same man.

Now, two years later, despite Clinton Justice’s wrongful protection of a corrupt Clinton official, a jury has convicted him for lying about a $22,000 payment. That, in my book, is also an indictment of Public Integrity. Quis custodiet?

Here’s some good news: Justice’s Office of Professional Responsibility has launched an investigation of what one official calls “somnambulism at Public Integrity.” If Janet Reno lets the departing Michael Shaheen’s deputy, Richard Rogers, get to the reason for the attempted prosecutorial obstruction, we may see changes at the rotting core of the department.

That is but one reason that I am seized with a sense of progress in what has seemed to be a hopeless cause of uncovering Clinton corruption. First, see how the Indys are awakening:

Independent Counsel Smaltz, fresh from a major conviction, is bringing former Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy to trial and is hot on the trail of Clinton’s Tyson connection.

Independent Counsel David Barrett, whose grand jury indictment of ex-Housing Secretary Henry Cisneros was handed up last week, has sent a shock of concern into stonewallers in other cases who may be misleading investigators, or feigning forgetfulness, on far weightier matters than mistress upkeep.

Independent Counsel Ken Starr, weaving his tangled Web, seems to be coming to a conclusion about hush money and the Lippo Group. (One of these years, I’m going to be right about Starr.) Next, Chairman Dan Burton’s committee in the House turns out to be more responsibly probing than many expected. Examining Reno and Louis Freeh, Burton showed he could control a newsworthy hearing; the new counsel he hired, Richard Bennett, is a pro and Representative Bob Barr is a terrier on interrogation.

Under unwavering questioning by Rep. Chris Cox, Reno needed constant prompting from aides. When Cox asked if Justice had commenced a preliminary investigation of Lippo check-handler Antonio Pan, she was forced to admit “No, we have not.” Asked the same about the Clinton aide Mark Middleton, who may be in a different category, she again had to reveal she had not.

This comes on top of recent revelations in this space that Lippo’s John Huang - at the center of the money-raising from foreign sources - has not been asked one question by the sleepwalkers at Justice. He has not taken the Fifth as he did with Congress; he has just not been bothered, and we’ve known of his Oval Office assignment for 14 months.

But under noodging from the Burton committee, I get the sense that we’ll be seeing a few token indictments soon. Then, when Burton brings forward the Babbitt Indians in January, Reno will be hard pressed to continue her protection of a Public Integrity section being discredited both from without and within. A new Indy Counsel for the campaign scandal is inevitable.

And that’s not all: The writing press is advancing the story. The L.A. Times develops leads for Congress; the Wall Street Journal and New York Times editorialists are unrelenting, and David Johnston of The New York Times is uncovering Justice as nobody else. (Hillary Clinton will be ladling out extra eggnog to The Washington Post, defender of Reno, at the holiday bash.) That’s why I have this sense of security about the republic as the holiday season approaches. Exposure of wrongdoing is in the air. Here come the chickens home to roost.

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