The independent counsel's long probe began as an inquiry of a president's pre-presidential activities � but failed to uncover the one thing the president's most strident opponents craved.
He found no evidence of a provable, impeachable offense.
But then the president's political enemies devised a scheme to entrap the president into committing a new impeachable offense � and it worked! Then they worked in secret collusion with the independent counsel's office. Never mind that the new crime had nothing to do with anything the counsel was originally tasked to investigate.
The new evidence was used to entrap the president into committing a new crime � and, lo, he fell for it, bigtime! Because it exploited his famous weakness � his compulsion for aggressively seeking sex outside his marriage. And, of course, lying about it.
And that's how the independent counsel finally got what he needed for the impeachment of the president.
ATTENTION PRO-TRUMP READERS: Do not erupt in understandable outrage � we aren't talking here about President Donald Trump (at least not yet) or special counsel Robert Mueller.
We are talking about independent counsel Kenneth Starr's investigation of President Bill Clinton. It began as an inquiry into an Arkansas land deal, but wound up entrapping Clinton into lying under oath about sex in the Oval Office. And once he blundered into his perjury crime, the Republican-controlled House impeached him (a verdict the Senate narrowly rejected).
And mainly, we're talking today about the judgment of Starr's eager assistant, Brett Kavanaugh, then 33, who this week appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee as Trump's U.S. Supreme Court nominee.
In 1998, Kavanaugh favored aggressively using evidence that was obtained through an illegal phone taping to entrap Clinton into lying about sex, this time under oath � a manufactured crime that became his impeachable offense.
Now this warped way of defining justice needs to be re-explored � for it highlights Kavanaugh's flawed instincts and judgment. No American, of any political persuasion, should be proud of Kavanaugh's unchallenging acceptance and exploitation of evidence obtained in this entice-and-entrap scheme.
The entrapping of a president began when a politically-connected conservative, literary agent, Lucianne Goldberg, tripped over a secret. A client, former White House aide Linda Tripp, confided that her young friend, then-Clinton White House intern Monica Lewinsky, had a sexual relationship with Clinton but was distraught because he wasn't paying enough attention to her. Goldberg convinced Tripp to lure Lewinsky into recounting the sex stuff in tape-recorded phone calls.
Then Goldberg told Starr's office about the new dirt she'd dug up. Attorneys for an Arkansas woman, Paula Jones, were clued in � and they asked Clinton, in a sworn deposition, if he'd had "sexual relations" with Lewinsky. Clinton of course lied � under oath.
Enter Kavanaugh. Starr's assistant drafted questions Starr's team could ask Clinton under oath, as a prelude to impeaching the president for perjury. Kavanaugh's Aug. 15, 1998, memo to Starr said: "The idea of going easy on him at the questioning is thus abhorrent to me." The man who Trump wants as a Supreme Court justice suggested 10 questions so sexually explicit they should have a XXX rating. Sample: "If Monica Lewinsky says that you inserted a cigar into her vagina while you were in the Oval Office area, would she be lying?"
Later, as Kavanaugh became a prospect for a judgeship, he shifted into rethink and adopted a view presidents might find more comforting. In 2009, he wrote that presidents are so busy that they shouldn't have to deal with "time consuming and distracting" things like civil lawsuits or criminal investigations while in office.
Clinton's conduct in the Oval Office was abhorrent. But the judgment of Starr, Kavanaugh, et al, to use illegally obtained evidence to entrap a president into committing a crime � so he could then be impeached for it � was abhorrent too.
EPILOGUE: During a recess at Kavanaugh's Senate hearing, two fathers who have always been overflowing with pride in their loving daughters came face to face. One, Kavanaugh, would be extolling the virtues of his two daughters in his opening statement, as they beamed with pride over his shoulder. The other, Fred Guttenberg, could not reciprocate; but he extended his hand invitingly as he approached the nominee, introducing himself and explaining that his daughter, Jamie, was murdered at Florida's Parkland High School. Their eyes met; Kavanaugh glared, turned his back and walked away from the grieving father, whose hand was still extended, yet never grasped.
There is no expiration date on abhorrent judgment.
.jpg?w=600)
