Stupid Republicans Bury Clinton Investigation

Many of us who read The American Spectator's series of articles on X42 (Bill Clinton, the Monica Man) remain aghast at the gross violations of laws, ethics, morals, national security, and the rights of US citizens which were perpetrated by the President, his wife, his Attorney General, and countless other X42 operatives.

One of Clinton's convict-employees was Henry Cisneros, Sec'y of HUD, who was playing in a strange sandbox and writing off (!!!) the expenses against his taxes. Cisneros resigns and does time, which is fine.

But that's hardly ALL there is to this story.

As Tony Snow relates:

Like most independent counsels, Barrett didn't set out on such a mission. He was assigned the duty of looking into whether former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Cisneros committed tax fraud in trying to cover up payments to a former mistress.

Yet, as published reports have indicated, he soon discovered that he was onto something much bigger. He found unsettling evidence that Justice Department officials were actively interfering with the probe and even conducting surveillance of Barrett and his office. Worse, there were indications that Team Clinton was using key players at the IRS and Justice to harass, frighten and threaten people who somehow got in the former president's way.

Yup. That's Bill and the Hildebeeste, all right. Doing what comes naturally, except that there are no dead bodies (we think.) Well, who knows? Maybe there ARE dead bodies.

By all accounts, the 400-page Barrett report is a bombshell, capable possibly of wiping out Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential prospects. At the very least, it would bring to public attention a scandal that would make the Valerie Plame affair vanish into comical insignificance.

Democrats know this. Using provisions in the independent-counsel statute that permit people named in a report to review the allegations against them and file rebuttals, attorneys close to the Clintons have spent the better part of five years reviewing every jot and tittle of the charges arrayed against their clients and friends.

So--why hasn't the American public seen the Barret Report?

Democrats inserted language [into an appropriations bill] that would prevent public release of the 120 pages of the report listing the Clinton transgressions. They offered what may have looked like a good deal. They promised not to object to letting Barrett continue with any prosecutions already underway.

Republicans negotiators, led by Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., and Rep. Joe Knollenberg, R-Mich, took the bait. They agreed to keep the public in the dark about the important stuff in exchange for a big, fat nothing. Unbeknownst to Bond and Knollenberg, Barrett shut down his grand juries three years ago.

STUPID PARTY!!! ARISE!!! CROWN BOND AND KNOLLENBERG KINGS OF STUPID!!!!

Something stinks, and the only way to get at the truth is to release the full report. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, who fought a lonely battle to ensure the document's publication, is furious. So is House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wisc. The question is whether Republican leaders Bill Frist and Denny Hastert will step in and ensure the report's publication, or whether they'll just sigh and look the other way.

Don't bet spit on Frist and Hastert growing spines in the next couple of weeks, or in the next several decades. Hastert and Frist are distinguished only in their feeble "minds," and in their home-town newspapers.

But don't count Sensenbrenner or Grassley down and out. Jim's a pretty foxy guy, and Grassley has laid it on the line numerous times, as well.

Let's hope Paul Harvey gets to tell "the REST of the story" on X42 and the Hildebeeste.

HT: Powerline