(Washington, DC) - Bob Weiner, Ken Starr's Clinton Grand Jury witness, is telling us on the fifth anniversary of the "parade of witnesses" that "we must not forget" Starr's "control of the national agenda and overreach into privacy."

    In a statement, Weiner, former director of public affairs for the White House Drug Policy Office, reminds us of the over 100 witnesses Starr called over the course of 1998 and says, "Neither our Capital nor the Nation wants anything like that personal harassment again.  Starr went way too far.  He put Washington and the country through public torture.   Prosecutors were nearly universal in stating that he was exceeding prosecutorial discretion in a case of consensual private activities with no one claiming harm" - and, says Weiner, despite the "imperious" arguments Starr and many congressional Republicans used, "the American people understood that fact.   The more Starr victimized Clinton, the higher was Clinton's popularity, reaching 70%, while Starr's descended into single digits."

    Weiner says, "Starr caused the Justice Department to be seen as a peeping Tom organization" and contends that Starr's actions "were far more damaging to the country than Clinton's." Weiner asserts that it is "bothersome" that Starr is teaching constitutional law and ethics at area high schools and colleges - "kids should not be led to believe his model is the right one." Weiner is especially chagrined over recent press reports that Starr is a leading Bush candidate for Supreme Court.   "Picture Hillary Clinton and others' colloquies on the Senate floor.   Even if some make the case that aside from the Clinton investigation Starr has a respectable record - I won't even get into the controversies of his other cases - it would still be like saying, 'Aside from that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?'"

     January 26, 2003, is the fifth anniversary of the subpoena Weiner received from Ken Starr in 1998, and this week also marks the fifth anniversary of the entire Grand Jury testimony phase of the Clinton-Lewinsky investigation.  Betty Currie was the first witness forced to testify, on January 27, 1998; Weiner testified on January 30.   Weiner's subpoena was for personal home phone calls by his wife and him to friends on a local Democratic club - an intrusion by Starr that the couple called "Big Brother at its worst." Over 100 Clinton staffers, Secret Service agents, friends, and associates were victimized by Starr's subpoenas and demands to testify before the Grand Jury. Weiner was Director of Public Affairs for the White House Drug Policy Office May 1995-August 2001 under Drug Czars Lee Brown and Barry McCaffrey.   He now is president of a public affairs and issues strategy company (Robert Weiner Associates).

     For more information, the full written statement, or interviews of Weiner, media may call 301-283-0821.

For Immediate Release, Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2003
Contact: Bob Weiner or Armando Hernandez (301-283-0821 or 202-329-1700)
 

    In the five years since Ken Starr began the parade of witnesses before his Clinton-Lewinsky Grand Jury and the four years since he left the job, the former Independent Counsel has been busy changing the subject.   His post-Whitewater agenda includes leading the legal opposition to the just-passed McCain-Feingold campaign finance reforms now that he has rejoined his old Washington law firm, Kirkland-Ellis, with a corner office's panoramic overview of the White House.   He is also supporting Ohio school vouchers and assisting opponents of Microsoft.   He teaches constitutional issues to law students at NYU and George Mason University, and to inner city seniors at Anacostia High School in Washington (taking pride in a particular graduate who then interned at the conservative Heritage Foundation).   He stumps for Republican candidates including his paying client, the Ohio Attorney General, Betty Montgomery, who had hired him as an "independent contractor" on the voucher case (that made the campaigning OK).   He gives speeches to a broad array of groups from the American University Alumni to a Pennsylvania "Friends of the Family" banquet.

    He addresses media gatherings regularly now, and of his actions against President Clinton, he says, "We were vindicated at every turn." He has written a book about Supreme Court ethics, published at the end of 2002, in which he which supports the outcome of Bush v.Gore and declares the nearly silent Clarence Thomas "the most intriguing and original" current Supreme Court justice.>P> The post-Clinton Starr rehabilitation fervor has reached such momentum that he is even being talked of as a possible early Bush Supreme Court nominee in both the December and January issues of the Washingtonian Magazine, and earlier on CNN, in the Christian Science Monitor, and other media.

    Whoa! Let's slow down a minute here.  Let's remember the overarching perspective:

    January 26, 2003, is the fifth anniversary of a subpoena I received from Ken Starr, and that week is also the fifth anniversary of the Grand Jury testimony phase of the Lewinsky investigation.  Betty Currie was the first witness to testify, on January 27, 1998; I testified on January 30.

    While I worked at the White House Drug Policy Office, my wife, Pat, and I were among over 100 Clinton staffers, Secret Service agents, friends, and associates victimized by Starr's subpoenas and demands to testify in front of his Grand Jury.

    This fifth anniversary of Starr's launching his nearly year-long parade of witnesses is not marked by any ceremony or notation in Washington's calendar of events.   As a lesson in what should never be allowed to occur again, it ought to be.

    In our case, Starr's harassment was for personal phone calls we made from home expressing our opinion to friends on my wife's local Democratic club.  We agreed with, and congratulated them for, their press release that we saw covered on TV asserting the Tripp tapes were illegal.   From press accounts, we learned what happened next, leading to my subpoena and forced testimony: Unbeknown to us, one of our friends whom we called had left the Democratic Club months earlier and changed parties to Republican.  After we called her, she called the Columbia, MD (Tripp's home town) Republican Chairman who in turn called the Republican State Chairman, who in turn called the Republican State's Attorney, who in turn called Starr's office.   Starr took this kids' whispering game of expand-the-story, here played by Republican grown-ups, and turned our little congratulatory call to friends for their press release into a suspected White House conspiracy without even questioning me before he issued the subpoena and the call to testify.   He demanded testimony in front of one of the most important grand juries in history with no research into the facts.   TV shows do a better job of pre-screening guests.

    Starr went way too far.   Neither our Capitol nor the nation wants anything like that personal harassment again, regardless of party.   After I testified before the Grand Jury - whose members showed agreement in the courtroom with my outrage over the subpoena and the demand to testify - my wife and I went onto the Courthouse steps.   We said that what Starr was doing to us and others in the case was Big Brother at its worst, a violation of our free speech rights under the First Amendment which are a big part of our democracy.   We pointed out that the partisanship and violation of privacy Starr obviously displayed and embraced despite his denials were what the American people hated more and more about the whole case.

    My wife's and my victimization were typical of Starr's violations of privacy and overreach.  When Ken Starr brought forth a mother who cried, turned trusted college intern friends of Lewinsky into political cynics having to testify about their friend's sex life, and made the Secret Service violate the first word of that title and the confidentiality they require to do their job, all to investigate what other prosecutors uniformly said they routinely do not pursue - consensual sex unchallenged by any harmed party - he exceeded prosecutorial discretion. He put Washington and the country through public torture.   He dominated the media and the national agenda.   Hillary Clinton told me at a White House event a few months after my subpoena that she agreed with me that what is important is the future of the country and that Starr was deflecting that agenda.

    Isn't it bothersome that Ken Starr is teaching constitutional law to high school and college students and writing books about Supreme Court ethics? Kids should not be led to believe that his model is the right one.   It is not, no matter what his revisionism of his handling of the Clinton case might be.

    Yes, President Clinton should have been honest about his affair and specific with the court and in his statements but it's still like the Chinese fortune cookie joke: Whatever it says, add "about sex." The American people understood that.   Starr and the Republicans were viciously making all these imperious arguments as though the country were at stake instead of just Clinton's private life.  No one wants to be or deserves to be treated like that over their private life - that's why prosecutors use discretion and don't prosecute consensual sex unchallenged by any potentially harmed party.

    Moreover, the vicious Linda Tripp whom Starr arranged to betray the privacy of what Monica Lewinsky thought was friendship - the country understood that too.   While the American people knew that Clinton's behavior was wrong, they were deeply offended more by Starr's actions and repercussions, and what he caused the country to go through over Clinton's personal behavior.   In my own lawyer's words about what Starr did to my wife and me, Starr "way overreached." That's true about the whole case and most of the witnesses he forced to testify.   Starr's abuse of his power was the primary reason Congress refused to renew the Independent Counsel Act - a Watergate-generated legal tool which, if used properly, would make a real contribution to oversight of actions by major players in our government.

    Ken Starr caused the country great anguish which he did not have to do, by exceeding prosecutorial discretion in myriad of ways.  There was a reason Starr's popularity was in single digits while Clinton's skyrocketed to 70% at the height of the Whitewater (actually Lewinsky) investigation, the same reason Republicans lost House and Senate seats during the Starr report and its impeachment offspring.   Americans knew that Starr violated the privacy all are entitled to, even a president, in personal relationships.   Starr caused the Justice Department to be seen as a peeping Tom organization and, as evidenced in the international press at the time, made the country something of a joke because of the scope of his investigation and report, not because of Clinton's actual behavior.

    His actions were far more damaging to the country than Clinton's and would properly be brought up and highlighted in a nomination scenario.   Picture Hillary Clinton's and others' colloquies on the Senate floor.   Senator Carl Levin, who brilliantly pointed out Starr's abuses at the time, could well lead a filibuster if even necessary.   Do the Republicans really think they'd get 60 votes for cloture on the nomination? Do they want the whole Impeachment scenario - which they lost - revisited?

    Some make the case that aside from the Clinton investigation, Starr has an excellent record.   I won't even begin to get into the controversies of his other cases and positions but even if you agreed with every one, it would be like saying, "Aside from that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?" Bork would be pale in comparison - and for good reason. Let's go back to leaving private sex lives out of the courtroom and away from political prosecutions.   Let's keep private lives private.   That's how the country felt five years ago, and no amount of revisionism will change the merits of that position.   America survived President Clinton's relationship with Monica Lewinsky, survived Clinton's impeachment, and was a better place at the end of Clinton's term than at the beginning.   Ken Starr belongs right where he is, without a revisionist switching of the facts and impact of his actions, and he certainly does not belong on the Supreme Court.

    Like the McCarthy hearings of an earlier era, we must never forget the reality of the Starr Grand Jury.

    Robert Weiner was Director of Public Affairs for the White House Drug Policy Office May 1995-August 2001.   He now is president of a public issues strategy company, Robert Weiner Associates.