LETTER TO HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE

EVIDENCE OF PRESIDENTIAL OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE ON "WACO"
DISTRIBUTED BY THE COMMITTEE FOR WACO JUSTICE

Representative Bill McCollum                                  September 22, 1998
House of Representatives
Washington, D.C.

Dear Representative McCollum:

        Mr. Bill Buckell sent me a copy of your July 17, 1998 letter to him regarding whether an independent counsel is justified in the Waco matter.  You write, in part: "As discussed in House Report 104-749, the Subcommittee on Crime found that the President had no decision-making role in the activities of federal law enforcement officials toward the Davidians."
        As author of the book, The Davidian Massacre, and an ongoing "Waco" researcher, I would like to point out important evidence not only of decision-making by President Bill Clinton, but of outright obstruction of justice, evidence that your committee overlooked or did not obtain for the 1995 House Waco hearings.  (Hearings, which, you know so well, the White House did its best to disrupt!)  I urge the whole House Judiciary Committee to look into these matters again or a-new in any impeachment proceedings against President Clinton.  It would be absurd if ClintonBan obvious sexual predator--escaped impeachment after in depth questioning on sex charges, but was never asked about his complicity in mass murder!!

1.     Evidence of President Clinton's possible foreknowledge of the initial BATF raid and/or cooperation
with BATF obstruction of justice.
        One of the chief planners of the February 28, 1993 BATF raid on the Branch Davidians was Bill Clinton's personal friend William Buford, Special Agent in Charge of Little Rock BATF. According to a March 9, 1993, Wall Street Journal article, on March 1, the day after the February 28 raid, then-Deputy Treasury Secretary Roger Altman visited the injured Buford in a Texas hospital. He reported back to Clinton about his visit on March 3. Committee members never asked Waco hearing witnesses Altman or Buford about what they discussed with each other or with President Clinton.
        Did President Bill Clinton have foreknowledge of, or involvement in, the Waco raid which has not been revealed?  Did Buford make it clear to Clinton, through Altman or in some other way, that he wanted the Justice Department to obstruct evidence of BATF agents' crimes?  (Specifically, illegal gunfire from the ground and helicopters that killed six Davidians and wounded several others.)  If so, what kind of leverage did Arkansas resident Buford use to ensure Clinton complied with his demands?

2.     Webster Hubbell-related evidence of Clinton's involvement in Waco decision-making and obstruction
of justice.
        Confidential memoranda and handwritten notes presented during the 1995 House Waco hearings revealed that the Treasury Department, under pressure from the Justice Department and then-Associate Attorney General Webster Hubbell, halted its post-February 28 shooting review investigation because agents= stories "did not add up."
        The Justice Department protested that the interviews were generating "exculpatory" material that could help the Davidian defendants at trial.  The documents show that Webster Hubbell even threatened to go to his good friend President Bill Clinton if the Treasury Department did not cooperate in the suppression of such exculpatory evidence. Your Committee never asked witness Webster Hubbell about his role in squelching these interviews. The Committee also took Hubbell's word that during the siege he had only one conversation with his golfing partner Bill Clinton about Waco. And even though Hubbell promised to produce his personal AWaco files@ to Congress, I did not see them in your final published transcripts of the hearing.

3.     Evidence that on April 19th Clinton and Reno discussed the in-progress FBI tank attack.
On April 19, 1993, Attorney General Janet Reno and Webster Hubbell sat in the FBI Operations Center in Washington, D.C. for four hours watching the tank attack on Mount Carmel.  Reno mentioned during the April 28, 1993 house hearings that she talked to Clinton at 11:00 a.m. on April 19th, just before she left the Operations Center.  Incredibly, Congress never asked her then, or during 1995 hearings, about the content of this conversation.  Did Clinton tell her to press on with the attack?  What instructions did he give her? Did he tell her to leave Webster Hubbell in charge? Was there any discussion of the evidence of BATF crimes that FBI tanks were destroying as they smashed apart the Davidians' home, Mount Carmel?
         The Committee took Reno's word when she said she was mistaken in asserting originally that Clinton had spoken to Hubbell on April 19th about the FBI assault.  Might Hubbell have spoken to Clinton right after Reno spoke with him by phone at 11:00 a.m.?  Reno did leave Hubbell in charge of the Operations Center during the remainder of the attack, but Committee members never asked either about Hubbell=s role that day.

4.     Evidence the White House suppressed or destroyed evidence about Vince Foster's involvement in--and distress over--Waco.
        An FBI report on White House counsel Vince Foster=s suicide revealed that his wife, Lisa, told the FBI that Foster felt responsible for the deaths of the Davidians. During the House Waco hearings the White House released Foster's "Waco file." The White House asserted it included only one memorandum about a video tape.
        However, Foster's former executive assistant, Deborah Gorham, told the Senate Banking Committee in June, 1997, that Foster kept a file on the Waco incident locked in an office cabinet.  Congress should ask her if it contained more than that one memorandum previously released to Congress.  Foster intern Tom Castleton told the Senate committee that Foster had been working on a letter regarding Waco the day of his death.  However, no such letter was presented to the House Waco hearing investigators.

5.     Congress has never sought evidence from White House staff or attorneys.
        Former White House employee Linda Tripp was also a Foster aide.  What could she, or Deborah Gorman, Tom Castleton, or other staffers, or White House attorneys, tell Congress and the American people about the White House's involvement decision-making and obstruction of justice regarding Waco? Congress has questioned White House staffers and attorneys on far lesser matters than the mass killing of civilians and the destruction of evidence of those killings.  Why hasn't it done so in the far more important matter of the Waco massacre?

        President Clinton's possible involvement in, and obstruction of justice regarding, the massacre of 82 civilians at Waco is a far more heinous crime than than lying under oath about his sexual predations. Many Americans believe Congress has ignored such evidence in order to protect federal agents from prosecution for negligent or intentional homicide. Millions of such Americans have seen the video "Waco: the Rules of Engagement" which presents evidence BATF agents shot from helicopters and FBI agents shot on Mount Carmel during the fire. (The full text of my book, The Davidian Massacre, plus four years of "Waco Updates" covering other new evidence, are available at my web page: http:///carolmoore.net/waco/)
        Congress already has discussed the possibility of imposing martial law should year 2000 computer problems prove sufficiently disruptive.  Having seen federal agents slaughter 82 people because of allegations one individual had produced illegal weapons, Americans can only wonder how many civilians Congress will permit federal, state and local law enforcement to slaughter should they question or disobey martial law. Congress may have only fifteen more months to convince both law enforcement and citizens that it will permit no more "Wacos" in America.

Carol Moore for Committee for Waco Justice     202-635-3739   202-797-9877

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"DEAR COLLEAGUE" LETTER
FROM REP. BOB BARR (R-GA)
October 30, 1997

Dear Colleague:

During my tenure as a United States Attorney (Northern District of  Georgia, 1986 to 1990), I was called upon to address matters of  public concern in the context of our federal criminal laws.  Not  every body of evidence, not every proposed case, presented to  me or to my office, resulted in an Indictment; and not every Indictment resulted in a trial by jury.

The exercise of prosecutorial discretion meant that each and  every matter presented to me be carefully weighed, prioritized  and evaluated; to ensure, among other things, that only those  matters deemed serious and clearly provable, and which could  not be appropriately disposed of in some other manner short of  indictment and trial, be handled by indictment and trial.

The responsibilities of a Member of Congress are similarly to be  carried out by weighing important decisions carefully; considering  alternatives; and prioritizing one's time, resources and attention.   The current matters involving alleged misdeeds by the President of the United States, must be so considered.

We can, for example:

     Leave all aspects of these allegations to the process and procedures of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee and the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee.

     Call for one or more Independent Counsels to address all aspects of these allegations.

      Leave all investigations of these matters to the Department of  Justice.

      Do nothing.

As a former federal prosecutor,  I have concluded that the allegations  of campaign law abuse, bribery, conversion of government resources,  improper quid pro quo, labor law abuse, obstruction of justice, foreign  influence and money asserting themselves in the highest levels of  Executive Branch decision-making, cannot be handled in any forum  other than the one mechanism provided us to address abuse of power or abuse of office:

Impeachment.

I have reached this conclusion only after careful study and analysis,  including from my perspective as a member of both the Judiciary Committee and the Government Reform and Oversight Committee.

I keep in mind that no prosecution by any entity (including an  Attorney General, any United States Attorney, any Independent  Counsel or any Special Prosecutor) can remove the President or any  other civil officer from office for any misdeed, no matter how serious.  Only impeachment can do this.

I understand that no investigations or oversight hearings by any  committee of the Congress can remove from office the President or  other high civil officers, for any misdeed, no matter how serious.  Only impeachment can do this.

I also know that Impeachment was a power and a responsibility  very explicitly and exhaustively considered by our Founding Fathers,  in such forums as the "Federalist Papers" and public debates on  the adoption of the Constitution.  We know, by review of the public,  historical record, that Impeachment was never intended to address  criminal offenses; rather, it was explicitly to address abuse of office or abuse of power (a pattern of activity or a specific act).

This understanding of the power of Impeachment was so used in  1973 and 1974 in analysis of, debate on, and House Resolutions  introduced to impeach or inquire into, the impeachment of Richard  M. Nixon.  Hillary Rodham Clinton had a hand in that precise  analysis and conclusion (i.e., that abuse of office in a political sense  was the precise wrong against which impeachment was to be employed). Many others then, and now, reach similar conclusions.

As do I.

Sincerely,

BOB BARR
Member of Congress