High Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Case Against Bill Clinton by Ann Coulter Page B

man investigated, and he wanted FBI information on that one man: Daniel Ellsberg, a former Pentagon official who was leaking national security secrets to the New York Times . If that was “unrelated to national security,” what are the implications for an FBI investigation of a public servant whose job Clinton’s friends wanted?
    In any event, like the IRS, J. Edgar Hoover also ignored him, which is why Nixon brought in the Plumbers to plug national security leaks, some of whom were later caught at the Watergate Hotel….
    Indeed, the famous “smoking gun” tape was the direct result of the fact that the FBI would not accede to the Nixon administration’s demands—as is discussed on the tape. Consequently, Nixon listens to Chief of Staff Bob Haldeman’s proposal that he and John Ehrlichman, the chief domestic policy adviser, ask the CIA to tell the FBI to keep stay away from the money trail leading from the Watergate burglars. Nixon accedes to the proposal but then, two weeks later, personally instructs the FBI director himself to “just continue your aggressive and thorough investigation.” A two-week delay of an investigation that would reveal the president hiring the equivalent of Terry Lenzner (Clinton’s private investigator), not to dig up dirt on his critics, but to plug national security leaks—that was once considered an impeachable offense in this country.
    Twenty-five years later the Clinton administration uses the IRS and the FBI—and this time these agencies are responsive—to persecute an innocuous public servant whose job Clinton’s people wanted. Nixon acted from defensiveness; Clinton acts from cupidity. At least Nixon tried to bend these agencies to his will to stop leaks of national security information; at least he tried to manipulate the agencies to protect his people rather than to attack his enemies; at least he was rebuffed; and at least President Kennedy had his sexual trysts with grown women who were getting paid.
    One realizes how low President Clinton has brought the country when you start thinking Bring back the Plumbers! Bring back the paid prostitutes!
    On the other hand, there is no “smoking gun” tape of Clinton acceding to his aides’ proposals to obtain Billy Dale’s FBI file, or to have the FBI investigate Billy Dale, or to have the IRS Commissioner (and FOB) Peggy Richardson audit Billy Dale and UltrAir (as well as eight out of ten other Clinton critics, see Chapter 13). As Bob Woodward remarked, there are “a lot of suspicious circumstances,” but there is no Deep Throat. 39
    But the smoking gun tape was important only because the Nixon administration never got anyone audited and never got the FBI to investigate anyone. The indictment of the Nixon administration was Nixon and “his men” had contemplated doing things the Clinton administration has actually done. The smoking gun tape revealed that Nixon had permitted his subordinates to try to interfere with an FBI investigation and to try to instigate political IRS audits—in both cases unsuccessfully.
    It is true that Clinton’s four misbehaving subordinates received letters of reprimand for their roles in the Travel Office firings—after those roles were revealed in the press. They were not docked pay or suspended from their duties; they merely got letters of reprimand in their files. 40 Nixon’s misbehaving subordinates were fired, and he was still impeachable.
    This we know from the Rodino Report, assembled with the able assistance of Hillary Rodham and Bernie Nussbaum: Nixon was impeachable for the acts of his subordinates in trying to do what we know Clinton’s subordinates actually did .

Chapter Twelve
     
    Filegate: A “Bureaucratic Snafu”
     
    In one of the five federal investigations into the Travel Office putsch, one small fact slipped through the White House stonewall: White House officials had pulled Billy Dale’s FBI file in an after-the-fact attempt to justify his firing. It is important to