Letters

Taxpayers have Starr to blame

It has been reported that former President Clinton and his wife,
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, have asked a court to have taxpayers
reimburse them for legal costs related to the massively expensive,
multi-year Whitewater investigation. While some may have the need
to condemn this petition as an outrage of sensibility as well as
responsibility, maybe a brief review of recent history should
preface the argument.

In 1996, President Ronald Reagan was awarded $562,111 in legal
fees by a federal appeals court that said he had reason to believe
he faced “a realistic possibility” of being indicted in
the Iran-Contra case. Reagan had sought $777,651. The court also
approved legal fee reimbursements to George Bush Sr.,
Reagan’s vice president, for $272,352, and for two Reagan
Cabinet officers, former Secretary of State George Shultz and
former Chief of Staff and Treasury Secretary Donald Regan.

The independent counsel law, as crafted and passed by both
parties, pays legal fees for the subject of an investigation if no
indictment results.

It seems at least ironic, and perhaps even fitting, that the
taxpayer-financed Whitewater investigation, with all its scornfully
schemed political hatchet work, so industriously cultivated by the
Clintons’ hate-driven, partisan pursuers, may now guarantee
the former president and senator a substantially lucrative last
laugh. This in addition to their huge book deals and top rate
speaking fees.

If the public gets shafted a second time with the approval of
the Clintons’ reimbursement petition, we will have only the
keystone cop crew of Prosecutor Starr and their dogged band of
zealot backers to thank, once again.

Solomon Matsas

Office of Student Affairs