Death of American Virtue - Ken Gormley [317]
Documents unearthed from OIC now reveal that the attempt by Hickman Ewing to bring a formal indictment against Mrs. Clinton reached a crescendo in April 1998. Although the details of this effort have largely been kept from the public, the proposed indictment was designed to encompass not only the First Lady, but also one other alleged “co-conspirator.”
A rare photo of Independent Counsel Ken Starr with Jim McDougal, after McDougal had been convicted of multiple felonies and turned into a cooperating witness for OIC. Starr traveled to the small town of Arkadelphia to meet with McDougal in his trailer/cottage at the foot of Claudia Riley’s driveway. Inside the Riley house, Susan McDougal was watching this meeting and directing curse words toward Starr.
Lew Merletti, nineteenth director of the United States Secret Service (USSS) who served under Presidents Reagan, Bush, and Clinton, was committed to the Secret Service motto “Worthy of Trust and Confidence.” Merletti was horrified when Ken Starr’s office subpoenaed Secret Service agents to testify about what they had seen and heard while protecting the president. Courtesy of Lew Merletti
Dr. Richard Clark, a young prison psychologist at the Federal Medical Center in Fort Worth, established a bond with Jim McDougal and assisted McDougal in his efforts to gain parole in early 1998. Clark concluded that there was no legitimate reason for prison officials to subject McDougal to drug tests or to place him in solitary confinement. Clark believed that McDougal died because he was subjected to sudden stress and separated from his heart medicine. Courtesy of Richard Clark
Starr prosecutor Hickman Ewing, Jr.—part of the OIC team that had put Jim McDougal in prison for multiple felonies—delivers a eulogy at the grave-side service for McDougal, held in Arkadelphia in March of 1998, after McDougal died suddenly in a Fort Worth, Texas, prison. Ewing led the assembled mourners in prayer, stating that the Whitewater felon had become a friend, and intoning: “Lord, we thank you for the joy that he brought to people’s lives.” © 2009 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
A tired President Bill Clinton holds a press conference during the long summer of 1998, as the Lewinsky allegations reach a crescendo. © Wally McNamee/CORBIS
Ken Starr shares a light moment with his ethics adviser, Professor Sam Dash, in the OIC conference room on September 9, 1998, the day the Starr Report was delivered to the United States Congress. Courtesy of Hickman Ewing, Jr.
Capitol Police unload copies of the 445-page Starr Report and accompanying evidence from an OIC van, on September 9, 1998, after Deputy Independent Counsel Bob Bittman delivered the carefully guarded report to Congress. Within days, the Republican-dominated House of Representatives released the entire report to the world, electronically, via the Internet. © 1998, Susan Biddle/The Washington Post
Ken Starr stands beside his mother, Vannie Mae Starr, after a church service in San Antonio, Texas. The ninety-year-old mother of the independent counsel was fiercely proud of her sons work as special prosecutor. Yet she was troubled by ongoing attacks in the media and efforts to vilify her son. Mrs. Starr died in late December of 1998, in the midst of the impeachment imbroglio, causing the independent counsel to worry that the strain of these events had added to her discomfort during her final months.
Independent Counsel Ken Starr and his wife, Alice, escape from the pandemonium of the Lewinsky investigation in September of 1998 long enough to visit their daughter Carolyn, a fresh man at Stanford University in California. Chelsea Clinton, the presidents daughter, was also a student at Stanford. The two young ladies had mutual friends but did not interact and avoided talking about the scandal. AP Photo/Paul Sakuma
Ken Starr holds up a copy of the official Starr Report