• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 1784 0

who might be candidates for independent counsel assignments. This Talent Book was kept in a safe in the federal court house, reserved for the eyes of those jurists allowed to view these restricted documents. As Judge Sentelle himself later described this confidential book, in a rare written response to interview questions: “It was a huge looseleaf ring binder from which pages were regularly withdrawn and new pages added.” As judges suggested or vetoed names in consultation with an informal network of advisers, the list would take on a new shape and content. Input came from “anyone who wished to submit it or anyone we could think of to ask.” For Sentelle, the criteria for inclusion in the Talent Book, while nowhere spelled out in print, amounted to a basic formula: If a person “seemed to have the qualifications of being an ethical attorney of good experience and broad reputation, with experience relevant to public integrity and/or investigation, that name went in the book.”

By July 18, 1994, with Whitewater bubbling up in the news and Attorney General Reno’s formal request for appointment of an independent counsel having been filed with the special court, Judge Sentelle now circulated a revised list of forty-one names. For the first time, this list included Kenneth W. Starr in the number thirty-six slot. It also listed Theodore Olson, a close friend of Ken Starr and a leading conservative lawyer in Washington.

Judge Sentelle understood it was best to pick one’s fights carefully. He scratched out the name of Ted Olson, stating in a confidential memo to his fellow judges: “Although I have the highest regard for Theodore Olson (No. 29) I am not sure that he is a top candidate for this post. He has spent so long attacking the constitutionality of the Independent Counsel (law)”—losing a challenge in the Supreme Court—“that it might give a bad appearance if we asked him to be one.”

By July 20, Judge Sentelle had reached a short list of five leading candidates. Sentelle was particularly keen on his former colleague, Judge Ken Starr. He wrote in a confidential transmission to his fellow jurists: “Starr is a former Judge of this Circuit, and a former Solicitor General, with universal respect around the federal and Washington bars and I think the country at large. He was the consensus choice of the Senate and its adversary as the Special Master to review the Packwood diaries. Although he does not have direct prosecutorial experience, his 7 year stint as counselor to the U.S. Attorney General should give him good experience to supervise investigations and any necessary prosecutions that might result.”

The senior Judge Butzner, a Southern Democrat who had spent his career scrupulously avoiding politics, was unpersuaded by this logic. In a respectful but strongly worded internal memo dated July 25, the senior judge wrote to Sentelle and Sneed: “Looking over our candidates, I have serious doubts that we should replace Mr. Fiske unless we can find someone who is well known and who will have the full confidence of the public as well as the President’s supporters, and the President’s critics. I realize this is a pretty stringent requirement, but unless we meet it we will have no principled reason to appoint a substitute for Mr. Fiske.” Butzner went on to implore his two colleagues to “reconsider” replacing Fiske at all.

When it came, specifically, to Ken Starr, Butzner expressed serious misgivings. Seated in his wheelchair years later, his white hair combed neatly, Butzner would make clear that he had concerns on two counts: First, he worried that Starr was a Washington insider. Second, he believed Starr was actively involved in politics and was a political partisan. “Both,” said the retired judge firmly, gripping the bar of his wheelchair. His wife, Viola “Pete” Butzner, recalled that her husband had worried aloud at home, insisting that the panel should adhere to Judge MacKinnon’s rule of excluding all candidates with political connections inside the Beltway. “He was opposed to taking anyone from the Washington area,” she said. “But