Clinton attacks federal judge, defends White House liar

After a federal judge denounced a White House aide for providing false testimony under oath to his court, President Clinton decided to attack the judge rather than fire his dishonest subordinate.

In his decision (see HuMAN EvENTS, January 2, page 3), Judge Royce Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia determined that Ira Magaziner, the director of First Lady Hillary Clinton's health-care task force (which designed the President's nationalized health-care plan), provided the court with false information in a sworn statement.

In addition, Lamberth accused the Justice Department and the White House of deliberately covering up for the false statement. He fined Mrs. Clinton and her fellow defendants in the White House almost $300,000, which the White House says will be paid by taxpayers.

After the judge issued his decision, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Archer (R.-Tex.) wrote a forceful letter to Clinton asking that the President fire Magaziner and make sure that taxpayers not pay the fine levied against the White House. "I call on you to dismiss immediately Mr. Magaziner from any position of trust he holds in the government, and to take all steps necessary to protect taxpayers from paying the . . . sanction," wrote Archer.

Thumbing his nose at Archer and Judge Lamberth, Clinton responded in a written statement: "I am quite confident that Mr. Magaziner acted appropriately. . . Mr. Magaziner is, and will remain, a valued member of my administration."

Unnamed White House aides have pointed to the Clinton Justice Department's decision not to prosecute Magaziner for perjury, made by then-U.S: Attorney Eric Holder for the District of Columbia (a Clinton appointee whom Clinton has since elevated to the No. 2 spot in the Justice Department), as vindication of the President's position.

Unless it is appealed, Lamberth's decision marks the end of a case brought in 1993 by a number of plaintiffs, led by the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, against Mrs. Clinton and her staff for holding their health-care task force meetings in secret. The plaintiffs argued that such secrecy was illegal under the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which requires government committees that include private citizens and interest groups to meet in public. The task force, it turned out, included hundreds of private citizens.

Liar, Liar

But White House Senior Adviser Magaziner, in charge of helping the First Lady formulate her mammoth scheme to take over the entire U.S. health-care system, swore in a March 3, 1993, declaration that all the members of what was officially called the "President's Task Force on National Health Care Reform" were government "employees" and thus entitled to hold their meetings in secret.

After Lamberth referred perjury charges against Magaziner to the Justice Department, an investigative report issued by the soon-to-be-elevated Holder on Aug. 3, 1995, concluded that Magaziner's statement was not "factually false." But critics point out that Clinton-appointee Holder's proMagaziner argument amounted to a rationalization of Magaziner's lie that could have been dreamed up by O.J. Simpson's legal team. Holder decided it was impossible to legally determine what the words "membership" and "employee" meant. He argued that someone who never applied for a government job, never worked for the government, and was never paid by the government, could be considered a government "employee." (See box.)

Holder did admit in a letter delivered to Judge Lamberth a few weeks after his investigative report that the administration did commit "tactical misjudgments." That cop-out, ironically, could now have implications for Beth Nolan, who as an attorney in the White House counsel's office helped draft Magaziner's lying affidavit. Nolan awaits confirmation in the Senate as chief of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel.

Copyright Human Events Publishing, Inc. Jan 16, 1998
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