Some people don’t believe in rehashing the fights of the past. I’m not one of those people.
With this in mind, I’d like to point out that Ken Starr is still, years later, not telling the truth about Whitewater. Time magazine asked Starr this week if his witch hunt, in retrospect, seems excessive.
“No. There were serious matters that had to be investigated. When one reviews the results of the investigation, they were, unhappily for the country, the conviction of high-ranking officials in state and Federal government — the chief justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court, the Governor of Arkansas — and all were in connection with a business deal in which the President and the First Lady were involved. So, crimes were committed. That’s pretty serious stuff.”
Wrong, wrong, wrong. Starr is no fool; I know he knows better, which is why it’s so frustrating to see him continue to misstate simple facts.
First, the convictions. Yes, it’s true, Starr’s office managed to secure a dozen convictions. But here’s the key detail Starr conveniently omitted — not one of the convictions had any direct relationship to the Whitewater land deal.
As David Kendall recently explained:
“As for the ‘numerous convictions,’ most were guilty pleas wrested by the overwhelming resources of the independent counsel — small, sad cases involving misstatements in loan applications and personal bankruptcy filings. Many of these pleas were to misdemeanors; none involved the Clintons.”
Pretty “serious” stuff? Hardly.
Second is Starr’s assertion that this was an illicit land deal in which the Clintons were “involved.” Again, Kendall set the record straight.
“There was only one [investment], made in 1978 for about $200,000. It was financed by bank loans, which were repaid with interest. Bill and Hillary Clinton lost almost $50,000 on this investment. As even the Office of the Independent Counsel conceded, the Clintons ‘invested a substantial amount of personal funds and realized no profit from the venture.'”
That’s it. That warranted a seven-year investigation that cost taxpayers $70 million. Starr doesn’t regret his crusade, but he should.