To: IAHF LIST
Subject: God Bless Dan Burton: And God Condemn Janet Reno & Al Gore!
From: John Hammell jham@iahf.com
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2000 00:30:25 -0500
All Webmasters: Please post.
Everyone: Please forward widely world wide.
IAHF LIST: [See Congressman Burton's letter below to Communist Traitor Reno] America is blessed to have the leadership of a truly great man, Dan Burton, Chairman of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee. Please read this, and please keep Chairman Burton in your prayers. The future of our nation depends on his ability to expose the crimes of high treason discussed herein. See Burton's letter to Reno below.
Although we require an oversight hearing on the Codex vitamin issue, it is obvious to me from reading this that it has been inexorably crowded off his plate.
Therefor, I urge all of you to arm yourselves to the teeth, and engage in daily target practice. The founding fathers of our nation did not give us the second amendment so that we could have the freedom to engage in target practice or to go deer hunting. They gave us the second amendment in case it should ever become necessary to arm ourselves in self defense against unelected bureaucrats, such as the criminals in the FDA, whom our government is clearly unable to properly protect us from due to time constraints.
On April 4th I will testify in the public meeting that the FDA is holding as a result of the Pearson First Amendment Victory. I will inform the FDA that they are in contempt of court for ignoring the Pearson decision, and that they will lose to Pearson yet again. I must ask you all to keep Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw in your prayers. They are great people and real Americans. I spoke with them today for over an hour, and feel honored to know them. No one in America is more determined to bury the FDA than Durk Pearson is, and he shares my views on the 2nd amendment. We aren't in open war against the government, and hopefully will never HAVE to be, but we must remain vigilant.
If the time should ever arise when it must be necessary to bear arms against the FDA, we must and will be ready. I urge everyone on the IAHF list, regardless of where they live in the world to get a copy of the Art of War by Sun Tzu. Also get a copy of the video "State of the Art Survival Caching, How to Cache Weapons, Ammo, and Almost Anything Else" by Paladin Press, POB 1307 Boulder CO 80306 America. 303-443-7250, fax 303-442-8271. A great source of ammunition is Centerfire Systems 800-950-1231 orders, 606-873-2352. They also sell the Israeli gas mask that I wore while demonstrating in Seattle against the WTO.
If you're going to be demonstrating in DC against the WTO/IMF/World Bank April 16-17, be sure to wear a gas mask, and wear work gloves in order to throw tear gas back at the cops, in case it should become necessary as a matter of self defense as it was in Seattle. Be sure to bring a canteen with water. Do not bring firearms into DC. I never do. Bring a bible, koran, or other holy text instead. And your prayers. We oppose secret combinations of men, operating clandestinely, and the truth is not in them. I pray that the day NEVER comes when we might have to bring our guns into DC. Please, use your voice, use the power of the pen, forward this on to more people world wide.
Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2000 19:58:53 -0500
From: Ron
To: John Hammell Subject: Burton is going to be very busy!
John this letter from Burton to Reno today looks like he WILL BE TIED UP for a long enough time with this more significant issue that the oversight is not likely to happen simply for time constraits.
Regards, Ron
March 27, 2000
Congressman Dan Burton Chairman of the Committee on Government Reform
The Honorable Janet Reno Attorney General U.S. Department of Justice Tenth and Constitution Avenue, N.W. Washington, DC 20530
Dear General Reno:
The Campaign Financing Task Force has announced an investigation of possible obstruction of justice involving documents not produced to this Committee, various Independent Counsels, and the Justice Department. In a Declaration to the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, filed on March 22, 2000, Robert J. Conrad, Jr., the Chief of the Justice Department Campaign Financing Task Force, stated that: "continued inquiry into this matter by the Civil Division . . . would interfere with and potentially compromise the Task Force's investigation of the pending allegations." Thus, the Task Force, which is supervised by you, has declared that the Civil Division, which is supervised by you, might "interfere with and potentially compromise" a major investigation. First, you rejected an Independent Counsel in favor of running your own investigation of the President, Vice President, and your political party. Now you have decided to use the same Campaign Financing Task Force, supervised by yourself, to investigate yourself and the Justice Department lawyers who helped keep the e-mails from being produced to Congress, Independent Counsels, and your own Campaign Financing Task Force.
Under normal circumstances, I would welcome a Justice Department investigation of possible criminal conduct. However, because you and your staff are in charge, the proposed investigation is fatally flawed. When Director Louis Freeh and then-Task Force Chief Charles La Bella recommended an Independent Counsel in 1998, the words they used effectively predicted the current e-mail scandal. They believed that an investigation led by the Attorney General would not be able to take steps necessary to secure evidence, vigorously investigate Democrat political leaders and their party, and promote confidence in the rule of law. Now, two years later, the e-mail scandal has proven their point. This part of the campaign finance scandal, however, points directly at the Justice Department - for what the Justice Department did do (represent the White House in keeping the e-mails from investigators) and for what the Justice Department did not do (force production of the e-mails for its own investigation).
There is growing consensus that you were, and are, unable to supervise investigations involving the President, the Vice President, and your political party. For this reason, I call on you to appoint a Special Counsel to investigate the obstruction of justice charges against the White House. The individual chosen should be completely independent, should have no current ties to the Justice Department, and should be seen by the American people to be fair and impartial. With all due respect to Mr. Conrad, he is under your supervision, and he will be subject to the same constraints that have made your foreign money investigation a tragic misadventure. Simply put, you cannot be in charge of investigating yourself and the Civil Division, which is now headed by your former Chief of Staff.
I will address the following points in turn: (1) the perception that you are not able to do your job; (2) allegations that you are predisposed to provide unfair advantages to your political colleagues in matters involving the campaign finance scandal; and (3) the apparent conflict of interest within the Justice Department in the e-mail obstruction of justice matter.
I. The Perception that You Are Not Able to Do Your Job
I will refrain from using this letter as a vehicle for restating my views of your conduct in the campaign financing investigation. They are well known. Rather, I ask that you consider what the media is telling the citizens of this country. I realize that you believe that you should be free from the pressure of the media, and I share your view that an Attorney General should not be driven solely by the dictates of public opinion. Nevertheless, the perception that you have created is devastating to the cause of justice, harmful to the institution you preside over, and damaging to the thousands of good men and women who serve this country in the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The following selection of assessments speak to your fitness to preside over the e-mail investigation and should give you a taste of what will be said if you elect to run this investigation:
The general election campaign has gotten off to an unusually fast start, and it has done so under a cloud of suspicion created by Attorney General Janet Reno's incompetent and politically biased response to the campaign finance abuses of the 1996 campaign.
The [release of the La Bella memorandum and other] documents are further evidence of Ms. Reno's politicized handling of the campaign fund-raising issue and of her dedication to protecting Democratic Party interests from start to finish.
[O]ccasional glimpses the public has had of the Justice Department investigation have inspired less than total confidence.
She [Attorney General Reno] has sought to protect the White House at every turn, especially after meeting with the President on her reappointment at the outset of his second term. She has named special counsels for trivial cases against Cabinet members, but refused them on serious charges against the President and Vice President despite the La Bella and Freeh recommendations.
Today few doubt any longer that Ms. Reno is an adjunct to the Clinton-Gore political operation. . . . The Justice task force's investigation into the ties between China and the 1996 Clinton campaign contributions has been a catalog of lapses.
The inability of Attorney General Janet Reno and her politicized Justice Department to investigate the Clinton Administration shows that the country needs to polish the independent counsel mechanism, not junk it. [I]n an unforgivable dereliction of duty, Attorney General Janet Reno failed to pursue the clear violation of the letter and spirit of the campaign laws.
If Ms. Reno decides in the end to appoint an independent counsel, the [Government Reform] committee's contempt vote will be rendered meaningless. If, on the other hand, she refuses, she risks the unthinkable. At that point, it would be better for her to resign than to continue to ignore a Congress that finds her unbelievable.
She comes not to expose political corruption, but to bury it.
Every decision she has made and comment she has offered has minimized the offenses and excused the conduct of the White House and the Democratic Party. The person who is supposed to be the nation's chief prosecutor, ever alert for signs of infraction, sounds instead like a technicality-hunting defense lawyer.
"Even if it looks like a duck," a Justice Department source said recently, explaining the task force approach, "we can't make it quack."
These are harsh, yet consistent, assessments of your role in the campaign finance investigation. In many respects, they are your legacy. It is important, however, that the institution you run not be further injured. Doubtless, at your next news conference you will tell us that you 'call them as you see them' and that you don't do 'what ifs.' But this is a serious matter, and it calls for a real investigation, not platitudes. You were in charge when the Justice Department's Civil Division began to help the White House craft its efforts to hide these e-mails. You were in charge when your lawyers went to bat for the White House instead of against it. The e-mail investigation is, in part, of you, and it would be absurd for you to cling to the fiction that you can investigate yourself.
Thus, I call upon you to appoint a Special Counsel.
II. The Perception that You Are Predisposed to Provide Unfair Advantages to Your Political Colleagues in Matters Involving the Campaign Finance Scandal
Charles La Bella, the former head of your campaign financing task force made the following observations to you:
[The] Task Force has commenced criminal investigations of non-covered persons based only on a wisp of information.
If these allegations involved anyone other than [redacted], an appropriate investigation would have commenced months ago without hesitation.
The contortions that the Department has gone through to avoid investigating these allegations are apparent.
[There is] no acceptable explanation as to why one is the subject of a full criminal inquiry and the other is and remains in investigative limbo.
The Department's treatment of the Common Cause allegations has been marked by gamesmanship rather than an evenhanded analysis of the issues. That is to say, since a decision to investigate would inevitably lead to a triggering of the ICA [Independent Counsel Act], those who are hostile to the triggering of the Act had to find a theory upon which we could avoid conducting an investigation.
The Task Force never conducted an inquiry or investigation of the entire campaign finance landscape in order to determine if there exists specific information from a credible source that a covered person . . . has violated a federal criminal law.
These observations go to a central theme: you have presided over an investigation that has given an unfair advantage to the President, the Vice President, high government officials, and members of the Democrat Party. How else can one explain the following:
* The Justice Department failed to ask the President a single question about foreign money or James Riady's promise of one million dollars.
* The Justice Department failed to ask the Vice President a single question about the Buddhist temple fund-raiser. Furthermore, one week before the 1996 election, the Justice Department pulled prosecutors off the Buddhist Temple fund-raiser case.
* The Justice Department failed to investigate, or delayed an investigation of, the subject of the above-mentioned quote ("if these allegations involved anyone other than [redacted], an appropriate investigation would have commenced months ago without hesitation"). My suspicion, from the context of the quote, is that the individual referred to is Harold Ickes, but the fact that you delayed the investigation is perhaps more important than the identity of the individual.
* The Justice Department failed to pursue evidence, ranging from search warrants related to Charlie Trie's documents to the White House e-mails that are the subject of the current controversy. Recently this Committee subpoenaed the actual document requests made to the White House by the Justice Department. I am concerned that we will soon learn that there are many other areas that the Justice Department neglected to pursue.
* When the Justice Department failed to recommend a fine for Charlie Trie, the judge in the case had to take it upon himself to reject the Department's recommendation and stiffen the penalty.
These examples do not stand alone. There are many more.
One other matter cannot be ignored when discussing the predisposition to go easy on your political colleagues and the Democrat Party. When Mr. La Bella wrote his memorandum recommending the appointment of an Independent Counsel, he pointed out that you consistently used an erroneous interpretation of the Independent Counsel statute. He said: "[t]he reference to specific and credible evidence is just wrong." He was referring to your many pronouncements that appointment of an Independent Counsel required specific and credible evidence, as opposed to the language of the statute, which actually required specific information from a credible source. La Bella pointed out that "the threshold has been raised from consideration of the specificity of the information and credibility of the source to a determination that there is specific and credible evidence of a federal violation. Evidence suggests something which furnishes proof, information need not be as directed. While the distinction may appear to be subtle, it is significant." Again, your misapplication of the statute is important when we consider Mr. Conrad's request to have you take charge of the e-mail investigation.
In the e-mail investigation, it would be inappropriate to allow lax enforcement or manipulation of the law in order to benefit political colleagues and a political party.
Thus, I call upon you to appoint a Special Counsel.
III. The Conflict of Interest Within the Justice Department in the E-mail Obstruction of Justice Matter
After all that has happened since you took control of the campaign finance investigation, I believe that you are not able to investigate the possibility of White House obstruction of justice. In fact, there are serious and legitimate concerns that your own lawyers may be part of possible obstruction of justice.
On Friday, March 24, 2000, I received an affidavit from Laura Callahan. She had testified at a hearing before my Committee on March 23, 2000, and, in an effort to correct her testimony from the previous day, she submitted an affidavit. In the affidavit, she stated "I wish to clarify that I did discuss email issues with Department of Justice attorneys in connection with currently pending civil litigation." Her contacts with the Justice Department took place in 1998 and resulted in the submission of an affidavit to the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in 1998.
One of the lawyers who assisted in the preparation of the 1998 affidavit was James Gilligan, who recently denigrated the existence and importance of the e-mails in a filing in District Court in the civil case Cara Leslie Alexander v. Federal Bureau of Investigation, No.96-2123/97-1288 (RCL). Furthermore, Justice Department lawyers assisted Daniel A. Barry in his submission of an affidavit to the same District Court on July 9, 1999. At that time, the problem was widely known within the White House, and Mr. Barry was clearly frustrated by his supervisors' failure to move towards a solution to the Mail2 e-mail problem. Notwithstanding his knowledge of the problem, Mr. Barry failed to refer to the matter in his affidavit.
Although we do not know what Mr. Gilligan knew regarding the extent of the problem, it seems unlikely that he was oblivious to the fact that there was a universe of information that had never been reviewed for responsiveness to subpoenas and document requests. In his zealous representation of your client, the White House, he contributed to the failure to produce information to your own Campaign Finance Task Force, to my Committee, and to various Independent Counsels. Although I risk stating the obvious, I do not see how you could represent both sides in the same case. It is well-nigh impossible to tell your client to produce information when you are counseling the same client how to avoid producing the same information. Indeed, Justice Department lawyer James Gilligan made representations in open court on March 24, 2000, that the Justice Department was "on the horns of a dilemma" and that the Department was faced with either impeding the criminal investigation, or failing to defend vigorously their client, the White House.
>From my perspective, I do not see how you can tolerate the representation that the e-mails are not consequential, as indeed has been made by Mr. Gilligan. I can only imagine how you would react if, in a tax fraud case (or a criminal assault case, or a civil rights case, or a voting rights case, or any other type of legitimate federal investigation and prosecution), the individual under investigation took the position that production of a large quantity of documents freed him from complying with specific requests. This, in effect, is the position of the White House in the current controversy. The "I have complied with some of your request so please go away" theory of investigation may be the standard you have set for your campaign finance inquiries, but it is not acceptable to the Committee of which I am Chairman.
In the case of the White House electing not to inform this Committee that it was not going to undertake a search for documents responsive to subpoenas, an obstruction of justice investigation will ultimately have nothing to do with the content of the e-mails. The issue is relatively simple: either White House lawyers made a good faith attempt to do what they were required to do by law, or they did not. It is my belief that your Justice Department cannot be relied upon to get to the bottom of this matter because of the conflict within the Justice Department and because of your own demonstrated lack of enthusiasm when it comes to investigating the White House, the President, the Vice President, and your political party.
For the reasons cited above, I request that you appoint a Special Counsel to determine whether either or both the White House and the Department of Justice conspired to obstruct justice by either failing to search for information responsive to this Committee's subpoenas, or by failing to represent that the White House had not searched for information responsive to this Committee's subpoenas. I also request that this Special Counsel investigate whether untruthful certifications were made to the Committee regarding productions of subpoenaed documents.
Sincerely,
Dan Burton Chairman
cc: United States District Judge Royce C. Lamberth Louis Freeh, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation
Independent Counsel Robert Ray