by: F.R. Duplantier

In September 1996, Judicial Watch filed a class-action lawsuit "on behalf of eight former Reagan and Bush Administration appointees and employees whose FBI background investigation files were improperly obtained by the Clinton White House." Judicial Watch Chairman Larry Klayman reports that his organization has "uncovered substantial evidence of unlawful misuses of information in government files, abuses of power, and violations of the Privacy Act." That evidence "links key presidential advisors . . . and even the President himself to this unlawful conduct," Klayman continues. "The obvious purpose behind the unlawful misuse of this information is to discredit, if not destroy, perceived adversaries and critics of the President."

In his Interim Report on Crimes and Other Offenses Committed by President Bill Clinton Warranting His Impeachment and Removal from Elected Office, presented to Congress in late September, Klayman points out that the Clinton Administration's invasion of privacy "goes beyond acquisition of the over 900 FBI background investigation files on former Reagan and Bush Administration appointees and employees. It also includes evidence of misuse of information in government files and attempts to discredit or destroy the credibility of key witnesses in Independent Counsel Kenneth W. Starr's investigation of the Monica Lewinsky matter. . . . It also includes attempts to discredit and destroy congressional adversaries and other perceived opponents. At times, information in government files is released directly to the media by Clinton Administration officials," Klayman contends. "Other times, information is leaked to members of the media . . . so that it can be disseminated to the public without it being associated directly with, or coming from, the Clinton Administration."

Klayman speculates that examples of this tactic may include "revelations about the personal lives of Speaker Newt Gingrich, House Judiciary Chairman Henry Hyde, and Representatives Dan Burton and Helen Chenoweth. . . . Clinton aides also demonstrated their readiness to play dirty in the last week of August," he adds, "when they 'reminded' TV talk-show hosts of the highly dubious 'controversy' surrounding Pennsylvania Democratic Representative Paul McHale's military record." Klayman charges that, "as more revelations about the Lewinsky matter become public and the President comes under increasing threat of impeachment and possible indictment, the White House and its allies are increasingly resorting to scorched-earth tactics to avoid impeachment or resignation."

This Spring, Judicial Watch filed suit against IRS Commissioner Margaret Milner and other IRS officials for violating the First and Fourth Amendment rights of the Western Journalism Center, a nonprofit organization. The suit alleges that the IRS sought to punish the Center for sponsoring a journalistic investigation into the death of former Deputy White House Counsel Vincent Foster. Other conservative organizations targeted for retaliatory audits include the magazines National Review and the American Spectator, and the nonprofit groups Citizens Against Government Waste and the Heritage Foundation. Klayman emphasizes that these reprisals are tellingly "consistent with the Clinton Administration's use of the IRS in the White House Travel Office matter."