Date: Mon, 24 Jul 1995 22:43:52 -0400 (EDT)
From: Brad Dolan <[b--ol--n] at [use.usit.net]>
To: Carol Moore <[c--oo--e] at [CapAccess.org]>
Subject: Re: WACO: Did David Jewell "Abuse" Kiri?? (fwd)
Message-ID: <[Pine SOL 3 91 950724224306 27188 A 100000] at [use.usit.net]>

Sunday London Telegraph, 7/23/95

SLOPPY RIGHT LETS CLINTON OFF THE HOOK

Whitewater and Waco look like spelling out whitewash as
Republicans fail to fault the president says Ambrose Evans-
Pritchard.


It was one of those rare times when Bill Clinton could sit out on
the balcony of the White House, light a cigar, and smile.

The Waco and Whitewater hearings in Congress have failed to
inflict any serious damage on the Clinton presidency.  Quite the
opposite.  The Republicans are the ones in trouble, struggling to
counter criticism that they are engaged in a cheap attack on the
White House.  If things carry on the same way next week they will
have a major fiasco on their hands.  And it serves them right.

The Whitewater hearings, which began on Tuesday in the Senate,
are sickening to behold.  Many of the Republican committe
staffers do not know what they are doing.  They have called the
wrong witnesses to the stand, asked the wrong questions,
addressed the wrong issues.  For years the Republicans have been
hankering after the full subpoena power of the majority party: 
now they have it, they promptly squander the advantage through
incompetence.  

These hearings are likely to do more harm than good.  They give
the impression that the death of deputy White House counsel
Vincent Foster is being examined "exhaustively", for the
umpteenth time, making it harder to keep up public pressure for a
real inquiry.  But the committee has refused to look into the
death itself, having concluded last year in a single day of
superficial testimony that Foster took his own life.

The Republicans are confining the inquiry at this stage to the
removal of documents from Foster's office by a White House
raiding party.  But they are setting themselves up for failure by
going on a wild goose chase to link Foster's death and the
Clinton's Whitewater property investments.  The idea that Foster
shot himself over Whitewater is infantile.  *Whitewater is not
important* (repeat after me a thousand times).  It is a decoy, a
distraction, a nonsense.  The Republicans are willing to commit
themselves to this idiocy, while ignoring the mountain of
evidence suggesting that the crime scene was staged to make a
murder look like a suicide, and that elements of the US Park
Police and even the FBI were partners in the cover-up.

Good riddance to Whitewater.  But the collapse of the Waco
hearings in the House of Representatives is another matter.  The
assault on the Branch Davidian cult in 1993 was the worst abuse
by federal authorities since the killing of 200 American Indians
at Wounded Knee in 1890.  And in many ways it was similar - two
cultures talking past each other.

However it is dawning on the American public that the Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms fabricated drug allegations against
the Branch Davidians to justify a request for assistance from the
military.  It is also clear that the ATF never tried to deliver a
search warrant by peaceful means, insisting instead on a "dynamic
entry" from the beginning.

Witnesses disputed the official story that cult members started
the original firefight by preparing an "ambush" for the ATF. 
Moreover, they alleged that Texas National Guard helicopters drew
the first blood that day by strafing the compound in an
unprovoked assault from the air.  If this is true, it is an
outrage.

But precious little of this has reached the general public.  The
first day was totally eclipsed by the testimony of Kiri Jewell, a
14-year old girl who said that she was sexually abused by cult
leader David Koresh when she was 10 years old.  Her descriptions
of life in the compound - babies beaten until they bled, girls
molested at every turn, constant talk of suicide - was music to
the ears of the Democrats.  Who can blame them for seizing on her
words?

But how could the Republicans fail to anticipate that this would
happen?  Why did they let her testify in front of the TV cameras
knowing that it would be impossible to conduct a cross-
examination of the poor girl in such an atmosphere?  And why
didn't they do their homework on the Jewell story?

A few telephone calls would have told them that Kiri had not been
a resident in the compound - despite press reports to the
contrary.  She was living with her mother and grandmother in
California for most of the years in question.  Her father, David
Jewell, has been promoting her allegations on the TV talk show
circuit.

He is a man of questionable character.  He abandoned Kiri in
Jamaica when she was an infant, has had a series of unstable
marriages, and was arrested in 1988 for failure to pay child
support.

So, legitimate hearings probing alleged federal abuse of power
have turned into a kangaroo-court trial of David Koresh.  The
Democrats, working with a liberal-leaning media, have won the
first round.

It will be interesting to see whether next week's testimony about
the use of deadly and flammable CS gas in a compound full of
children is also dismissed by America's opinion elite.