PJ. Mostly Harmless

Claims
1. Statute did not function as intended. Should expire
2. If we need an ISC, should revise law in light of experience.

Congress wanted to 1) fix conflict of interest and 2) avoid constitutional problems and be fair to people being investigated.

Interesting idea: an INDEPENDENT prosecutor can be criticized and diminished by the president. Importance of charges minimized by both Bush and Clinton.

Walsh indicted Weinberger immediately before election, accused Bush of involvement. Was that abuse?

With unlimited $ and time, is a prosecutor going to keep going until he "gets somebody."

p. 137. ISC contributed to culture of scandal. (pj: I'd need some evidence there. Seems like scandals contribute to the culture of scandal, but maybe that's just me)

Fairness to Target: no limit on $ or time. Not like ordinary prosecutors, who must prioritize $ time and effort.

p. 142. This seems like crap to me "Twenty-five years after the firing of Archibald Cox, there is as much concern about the abuse of power by the independent counsel as there is about the abuse of power by the President" hogwash.

What about role of ISC in impeachment proceedings? (Recall, Ken Starr felt compelled to make case for Congress, even though others said he should not feel that way.)

Orrin Hatch, famous Senator, actually writes journal articles?

ISC law was passed despite Constitutional questions. Like what?

Attorney general can always investigate. Question is, once a special prosecutor is in place, should the president have power over that person?

Hatch claims the ISC denies Congress's power to pressure anybody. C might pressure president, but can't pressure Atty General. (pj; I don't quite get that)

ISC law requires Atty Gen to ask Court for permission to appoint ISC.

Reno outraged many republicans by refusing to appoint Special Prosecutors, saying standard should not be "may have" but "did commit crimes." Hatch says that was proper. (pj: it takes a lot of power out of the whole idea).

How to fix?

--> find way to force ISC appointment, even if AG does not want? How?

--> ISC violates "unitary executive" principle of separation of powers. (pj: this is silly on so many levels)

Hell, no solution looks good. Forget the ISC, hope for the best.

Remember Susan McDougal: refused to testify against Clinton in Whitewater episode, held in jail for contempt of court for refusing. She claims Starr terrorized her and his team told her what to say, and she refused.

Hale, the convicted loaner who accused Clinton of pressuring him, seemed persuasive to the Special Prosecutor office, but later it was revealed that his legal fees were being covered by a conservative "philanthropist" Richard Mellon Scaife.

Al Shiraa published a story claiming the CIA sold weapons to Iran in return for help in releasing hostages.

Funny that Howard Baker was called in to save the day for Reagan. 20 years before, Nixon railed against him and Baker's house was broken into.

In order to remove a President from office by impeachment, what must be proven? If crimes are committed by "the Presidency" without the knowledge of the President, can the President be held responsible? Why or why not?

The crimes that were committed in the events leading up to the Iran/Contra investigation seem pretty serious to me, and yet no serious voices were heard to talk about impeaching the president. Why?

Maybe this is too sarcastic: Would you rather have a president who lies about kissing interns, or one who lies about selling arms to terrorist nations?

The assessment we have for these crises seems to depend a lot on the intention and motivation of the agents involved. Apply the framework of Peters and Welch to evaluate the severity of the crimes in Iran/Contra.

When you read Woodward's description of what happened when Special Prosecutor Walsh had a chance to question former President Reagan, what were your reactions?

If you were George Bush, would you have pardoned the accused criminals in the Iran/Contra affair? Why?

Watergate had no real lessons! Just "don't break the law, or don't get caught". Nothing else new.

The Watergate episode only manifests a prevalent view of the president as an absolute leader, an embodiment of America. Anything/one against the president is unAmerican and bad.

p. 188. "If these assumptions only barely approximate Nixon's understanding of the presidency, then his actions, including his crimes, are entirely consistent and rational, quite possibly motivated by the highest sense of public interest."

WHOA. One must change the system, rather than focus on the one criminal.

Please remember that Cox is the famous fired Special Prosecutor. He was as close to the investigation of the Nixon WH as anybody could be, for a long time.

Should "Executive Privilege" be accepted as a Constitutional doctrine? What arguments did Nixon lawyers have?

Sup Ct agrees with presidential confidentiality of communications, but says that privilege must give way in a criminal prosecution.

(foreshadow Clinton's body guards decision by SC)

p. 11 "The long range effect of Watergate upon the balance of power between the WH and Capitol Hill is harder to predict; it is still more difficult to formulate specific measures giving substantially greater assurance against recurrence of the abuse of Presidential Power"

p.12 Problem not so general as excess power. Rather "At the core of theevil were the growth of teh power to act monarchically consulting only the White Houses courtiers, the increase in secrecy, and the drift into or consccui9os adoption of a philosophy that looked to the manipulation of the people."

How to fix?

1. Reduce size and authority of WH staff.

2. Reduce secrecy. "In the long run, however, if the Executive is left to itself, the claims of executive privilege will surely increase. Secrecy, if sanctified by a plausible claim of constitutional privilege, is the easiest way of hiding inefficiency, maladministration, breach of trust or corruption, and also a variety of potentially controversial executive practices not authorized by Congress."

The best approach: change law so President must respond to legislative subpoenas.

PJ: note how he predicts the problems that have occurred since Nixon. The clash between Reagan's EPA and Congress over the toxic waste superfund and later Iran-Contra.

I clipped this part from p. 64-74 because it gives a thumbnail sketch of the Nixon administration's most bizarre extra-legal strategies.

The IRS pursues anti-Nixon political organizations

The "Enemies List" is created by Colson for Nixon, told to use DOJ and any other federal agencies to give trouble to them.

FBI, CIA domestic surveillance

p 68 "sweeping language that sought to redefine 'inherent' executive power is rather chilling in retrospect..."

p. 73 Haldeman "We've got to be repressive" --> PLUMBERs

Ellsberg "neutralization" breakin at psych's office

Watergate breakin by same crew

I worked pretty hard to cut this down to just the highlights.

When you see comments about the Nixon administration, you don't usually get actual support for the claims. This book is different, it is base on a painstaking review off the actual audio tapes in the White House.

What kinds of bad things did they do? It is a pretty long list.

Raising milk prices in return for 2 million campaign fund

Broke into Daniel Ellsberg's home, and his psychiatrist's office.

Nixon Ordered breakin at the Brooking's Institutions to "clean their safe out"

Staff and supporters, with knowledge of Attorney General Mitchell, engineered a comprehensive scheme of surveillance and infiltration of democratic campaigns around the country. The Watergate break in was one manifestation.

The Watergate coverup. Nobody really knows for sure "what did the president know, and when did they know it?" But the tapes show Nixon working to interfere with investigators, and there's no doubt at all he fired the Attorney General for refusing to fire the Special Prosecutor Cox.

The behavior of the president and assistants is so bad that one is left wondering how many other bad things they did that were not documented.

One of the things you often read is that the Nixon administration kept an "enemies list" of about 30,000 people. These were people they wanted to mess with in any way they could. They were to receive bad treatment from the federal government. Organizations and individuals opposed to Nixon were harassed by the IRS and other organizations.

Senator Howard Baker of Tennessee was one of the young Republicans that was critical of the Nixon administration. After he visited the President to ask for information on behalf of the committee, his home was broken into and ransacked by unknown agents. Any doubt that the Nixon administration was behind it?

Don't forget the illegal campaign contributions. 1971 law required reporting of donations and that law was ignored. Many famous people were convicted of federal crimes afterward, including the owner of an American League baseball team in New York.