Bush operatives then leaked to Newsweek the existence of the confidential criminal referral and got the newsmagazine to go with the spin about a Clinton friend possibly tampering with the file. George H.W. Bush and other Republicans then linked the FBI probe with other "suspicions" about Clinton's patriotism, causing the Democrat to sink in the polls. [For details, see Robert Parry's Secrecy & Privilege.]
Backfiring
The passport gambit might have worked, except that some House Democrats smelled the odor of a Republican dirty trick and exposed the extraordinary late-night search of the passport files of Clinton and his mother. The FBI also rejected the criminal referral, further causing the attack on Clinton's patriotism to backfire.
In the days after Bush's electoral loss to Clinton, the State Department's inspector general Sherman Funk cited possible criminal violations surrounding the passport search. Because of the political sensitivity of the case, the law at the time required that the case be referred to a three-judge panel for the selection of an independent counsel.
The outgoing Bush administration was lucky, however, because Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist recently had shaken up leadership of the panel, replacing moderate Republican Judge George MacKinnon with right-wing Republican Judge David Sentelle, a prote'ge' of Sen. Jesse Helms and an appointee of Ronald Reagan.
To investigate Passport-gate, Sentelle recruited a fellow Reagan appointee, former U.S. Attorney Joseph diGenova, to act as the independent counsel. DiGenova was named in a sealed order on Dec. 14, 1992.
Though diGenova's appointment was made under court seal, an order that barred disclosure of the investigation, diGenova promptly alerted the Bush White House. According to a White House phone log, diGenova called presidential counsel Boyden Gray at 2:40 p.m. on Dec. 16. DiGenova left an "urgent" message which read: "Not at liberty to give subject b /c [because] of court order."
When I asked diGenova about the unusual message, he said he called to inform Gray that a subpoena for White House records would be forthcoming.
DiGenova also recalled that he had contacted Gray only after word of the appointment had appeared in the Washington Post. I informed diGenova, however, that the Post story didn't break until the evening of Dec. 17, more than a day after the phone call.
DiGenova called me back a few days later with a more formal answer: "One of the first things I did was to call the White House counsel's office to advise him [Gray] that there was a criminal investigation and he was to protect and preserve documents in the White House. " They had to know there was an investigation."
Whatever diGenova's intention, however, the call did not spur Gray to issue an immediate order to White House staff about protecting records.
According to another document I obtained, Gray notified the White House staff about the need to "preserve and maintain documents" only on Dec. 21, five days after diGenova's early warning and only after the White House had received formal notification of the Passport-gate investigation.
Later, diGenova's investigation did find that some relevant White House files were erased, but it was not clear if the erasures occurred between the time of diGenova's first call on Dec. 16 and Gray's letter to the staff on Dec. 21.
Relieved White House
While diGenova's early call may not have prompted an immediate protection order, the call apparently did reassure Gray that the White House had little to worry about.
On Dec. 17, after President Bush heard about the independent counsel appointment, he called Gray, and Gray "said that the special prosecutor [diGenova] is a good and fair person and that the thing is mainly at the State Department - the handling of the Clinton matter," according to Bush's diary.
As part of the investigation, diGenova conducted two formal interviews with former President Bush at his office in Houston.
Handwritten notes from the first interview on Oct. 23, 1993, stated that diGenova first assured Bush that his staff lawyers were "all seasoned prof[essional] prosecutors who know what a real crime looks like. " [This is] not a gen[eral] probe of pol[itics] in Amer[ica] or dirty tricks, etc., or a general license to rummage in people's personal lives."
Backfiring
The passport gambit might have worked, except that some House Democrats smelled the odor of a Republican dirty trick and exposed the extraordinary late-night search of the passport files of Clinton and his mother. The FBI also rejected the criminal referral, further causing the attack on Clinton's patriotism to backfire.
In the days after Bush's electoral loss to Clinton, the State Department's inspector general Sherman Funk cited possible criminal violations surrounding the passport search. Because of the political sensitivity of the case, the law at the time required that the case be referred to a three-judge panel for the selection of an independent counsel.
The outgoing Bush administration was lucky, however, because Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist recently had shaken up leadership of the panel, replacing moderate Republican Judge George MacKinnon with right-wing Republican Judge David Sentelle, a prote'ge' of Sen. Jesse Helms and an appointee of Ronald Reagan.
Though diGenova's appointment was made under court seal, an order that barred disclosure of the investigation, diGenova promptly alerted the Bush White House. According to a White House phone log, diGenova called presidential counsel Boyden Gray at 2:40 p.m. on Dec. 16. DiGenova left an "urgent" message which read: "Not at liberty to give subject b /c [because] of court order."
When I asked diGenova about the unusual message, he said he called to inform Gray that a subpoena for White House records would be forthcoming.
DiGenova also recalled that he had contacted Gray only after word of the appointment had appeared in the Washington Post. I informed diGenova, however, that the Post story didn't break until the evening of Dec. 17, more than a day after the phone call.
DiGenova called me back a few days later with a more formal answer: "One of the first things I did was to call the White House counsel's office to advise him [Gray] that there was a criminal investigation and he was to protect and preserve documents in the White House. " They had to know there was an investigation."
Whatever diGenova's intention, however, the call did not spur Gray to issue an immediate order to White House staff about protecting records.
According to another document I obtained, Gray notified the White House staff about the need to "preserve and maintain documents" only on Dec. 21, five days after diGenova's early warning and only after the White House had received formal notification of the Passport-gate investigation.
Later, diGenova's investigation did find that some relevant White House files were erased, but it was not clear if the erasures occurred between the time of diGenova's first call on Dec. 16 and Gray's letter to the staff on Dec. 21.
Relieved White House
While diGenova's early call may not have prompted an immediate protection order, the call apparently did reassure Gray that the White House had little to worry about.
On Dec. 17, after President Bush heard about the independent counsel appointment, he called Gray, and Gray "said that the special prosecutor [diGenova] is a good and fair person and that the thing is mainly at the State Department - the handling of the Clinton matter," according to Bush's diary.
As part of the investigation, diGenova conducted two formal interviews with former President Bush at his office in Houston.
Handwritten notes from the first interview on Oct. 23, 1993, stated that diGenova first assured Bush that his staff lawyers were "all seasoned prof[essional] prosecutors who know what a real crime looks like. " [This is] not a gen[eral] probe of pol[itics] in Amer[ica] or dirty tricks, etc., or a general license to rummage in people's personal lives."
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