Worse Than Drudge
Clinterngate entered its
baroque phase Sunday, when Joseph diGenova, a prominent Washington lawyer who
has been one of the most incontinent television commentators on the scandal,
appeared on Meet The Press . In a tone of quivering outrage, diGenova
announced that he had received a tip from a reporter that diGenova and his
wife, Victoria Toensing (who is also his law partner), were the targets of a
private investigator connected to the Clinton White House.
There is
no evidence for this. But it has now been widely reported--as an allegation by
diGenova. Sunday and Monday, White House spokesman Mike McCurry denied it.
Tuesday, Clinton's lawyers David Kendall and Robert Bennett issued a statement
saying that while Terry Lenzner, a professional investigator, was working with
them, "We have not investigated, and are not investigating, the personal lives
of Ms. Toensing, Mr. diGenova, prosecutors, investigators, or members of the
press." DiGenova interprets the phrase "personal life" as Clintonian fancy
footwork and thus as confirmation of his charge. "The White House lied about it
on Sunday, they lied about it Monday and they lied about it yesterday,"
diGenova said in a telephone interview. "Mike McCurry lied and he did it well.
That's his job. But the rest of us don't have to believe this crap."
Why would the White House be investigating Joe diGenova and
Victoria Toensing? DiGenova says he is at a loss to explain, since he and his
wife have been "very fair" to the president in their scores of recent
appearances on programs including Rivera Live and Crossfire . TV
bookers love diGenova because he is a former prosecutor who goes for the sound
bite, and also because he is a former independent counsel himself. Between 1992
and 1995, he looked into charges that Bush administration officials instigated
an improper search of Bill Clinton's passport files during the 1992 campaign.
(And largely exonerated the accused. Imagine how Republicans would howl if a
Democratic independent counsel let a Democratic administration off the hook.)
Though both diGenova and Toensing are Republicans who are hostile to Clinton
and supportive of Kenneth Starr, they usually argue against the
independent-counsel law in general.
But
diGenova is being disingenuous in pretending he has no idea why anyone would be
interested in him. If the Clinton team has investigated diGenova and Toensing,
it might be because the couple seems to act as a conduit for leaks from Starr's
office. Starr is using his subpoena power to investigate anti-Starr leaks from
the Clinton camp. What would be so terrible if the Clintonites were
investigating Starr's anti-Clinton leaks? Those leaks may be illegal and
violate the president's rights. Clinton's lawyers have every justification for
trying to track them down.
If Starr wanted to use an intermediary,
diGenova would be a good bet. He is a friend of several members of Starr's
staff and is especially close to Starr's chief deputy, Hickman Ewing, with whom
he served as a U.S. attorney during the Reagan administration. DiGenova has
longstanding relationships with reporters, dating from his days as U.S.
attorney for the District of Columbia. One could legitimately describe either
diGenova or Toensing as a "Washington lawyer knowledgeable about the
investigation," newspapers' favorite leaker ID. There is no proof that either
has served as a cutout for Starr. But if they haven't, why do they qualify as a
"source" about anything? In fact, the unreliable gossip they sometimes pass on
makes the notorious Matt Drudge look discreet.
One gets a glimpse of Joe
and Vicky's peculiar role in the fiasco that occurred in late January, when the
Dallas Morning News reported, then retracted, then semi-reasserted that
a Secret Service witness to a Clinton-Lewinsky encounter was prepared to
testify. To recap: On the evening of Monday, Jan. 26, the paper published a
report on its Web site. It quoted a lawyer "familiar with the negotiations" as
saying there was a Secret Service agent who had seen Clinton and Lewinsky in a
"compromising situation" and that he had become a government witness. Hours
later, the paper recanted: "the source for the story, a longtime Washington
lawyer familiar with the case, later said the information provided for
Tuesday's report was inaccurate." The paper further noted that, "The source is
not affiliated with Mr. Starr's office." But the following day, the paper
reissued a version of the story. An intermediary for a witness or witnesses who
might or might not be a Secret Service agent or agents had told Starr's office
about seeing Clinton and Lewinsky in what was now described as an "ambiguous
situation." Inexplicably, the story quoted "former U.S. Attorney Joseph
diGenova, who is not directly involved in the case," as saying that the
intermediary had made contact for the witness or witnesses with Mr. Starr's
office. "In essence, your story is correct," diGenova told the paper.
Was the
original source also diGenova or Toensing? I think it must have been. Click to
find out why.
Whether diGenova was the source or not, we do know
that diGenova spoke to the Dallas Morning News on the record, confirming
that a witness of some sort did indirectly pass information to Starr's office.
And we know that Toensing spoke off the record, contradicting the originally
published version. Since diGenova says they weren't representing anyone
involved, on what basis did they know? "This is a small Southern town," says
diGenova. "People talk to a lot of people. Reporters talk to people. Lawyers
talk. You hear things and you pass them on to reporters so that they might
investigate. Sometimes people don't investigate the way they should." This
sounds almost like an admission, and suggests that Starr's office may be
indirectly using journalists to try to substantiate rumors it has heard. In any
event, the fact that the Dallas Morning News considered diGenova a
legitimate source would suggest that the paper's reporter thought he wasn't
just relating third-hand gossip, but had real information from Starr's
office.
All this
mischief is made much weirder by the fact that diGenova and Toensing are
supposed to be presiding over a big investigation themselves. Rep. Peter
Hoekstra, R.-Mich., the chairman of the House Committee on Education and the
Workforce (formally Education and Labor Committee) subcommittee on
investigations hired the pair in October to investigate corruption in the
Teamsters election, including allegations of involvement by the Democratic
National Committee. In October, they signed a contract that pays them at the
rate of $300,000 a year for 80 hours of work a month each. Committee Democrats
objected to this arrangement from the outset. DiGenova and Toensing are
lobbyists registered on behalf of several clients including the American
Hospital Association. They may be called upon to lobby legislators for whom
they also work as committee lawyers. DiGenova says the problem is theoretical
and that he and his wife have agreed not to lobby members of the committee
they're working for.
And there's more. DiGenova also represents
another House committee chairman, Dan Burton, the goofish Indiana Republican.
Burton, too, is both investigator and investigatee. He has been looking into
the 1996 campaign-finance scandals. Meanwhile, he is being looked into for
allegedly putting the arm on a Pakistani lobbyist for campaign
contributions.
Democrats complain that
given the amount of time they spend with Geraldo, diGenova and Toensing can't
possibly be doing their government job. A Nexis search turns up 368 hits for
the two in the first month after the scandal broke. As of a few weeks ago, the
committee had issued no subpoenas, interviewed no witnesses, and held no
hearings. (DiGenova says it has since issued five subpoenas and has a hearing
scheduled for late next month.) Democrats have demanded to see time sheets; the
lawyers have refused to show them. "We don't work for the Democrats," diGenova
says. "We work for the majority." He says that they do their congressional work
during the day and do media in the evening.
But the
real problem with diGenova and Toensing isn't their pundit addiction or their
neglect of an investigation that Democrats would just as soon they neglect
anyhow. It's that their myriad, dubious, and overlapping roles keep piling up
without ever being properly explained. It's like one of those Westerns where
the town barber is also the postmaster and the saloonkeeper. In the next scene,
it turns out he's the sheriff too.
If you
missed the demonstration that either diGenova or Toensing was the original
source for the Dallas Morning News report about a Secret Service agent
who witnessed Clinton and Lewinsky in a "compromising situation," click
.
