THIS FAR AND NO FURTHER
A Timeline of Events Surrounding the Radical Right's Attempt to Subvert American Democracy
Written and Compiled by Black Max
1998
May
- May: The Oklahoma City office of the FBI issues a warning that a large number of Islamic males are receiving flight training in the area, and that this may be a prelude to a terrorist attack. Only one newspaper reports the warning, and the FBI does not follow up on it. (CCR)
- May: Lawyer Mark Geragos submits a motion for Susan McDougal's early release on medical grounds, time served, and exemplary behavior. The judge grants the motion, and releases SM into the custody of her parents. She almost immediately goes back on trial for 12 counts of embezzlement and other charges based on allegations by her former employer Nancy Mehta. The jury finds her innocent of all charges, and in an unusual move, addresses the press directly to tell them that the entire trial was, in their opinion, ludicrous. One juror says that it is hard to imagine that there was any other reason for the case to go to court unless there was pressure brought from the OIC. (Susan McDougal)
Unabomber convicted of mail bombings
- May 4: After a trial that has lasted for nearly two years, former UC-Berkeley professor and survivalist Theodore Kaczynski pleads guilty in exchange for a life sentence in conjunction with the Unabomber mail bombings. He receives four consecutive life sentences plus thirty years. During the trial, Kaczynski is found to be a paranoid schizophrenic; his numerous court antics, including the firing of his lawyers and his unsuccessful attempts to represent himself, draw the trial out for months and cause a national sensation. Materials found at his Montana cabin, including an unfinished bomb and a detailed journal, prove critical in proving his guilt. Although many attempts are made by right-wing commentators to link Kaczynski with left-wing political and activist groups, it is conclusively shown that Kaczynski acted alone. (Unabomber Timeline)
Starr commission proves to leak information to press to influence investigation
- May 6: David Kendall, the Clintons' lawyer, provides evidence that the Starr commission is deliberately leaking information to the media in an attempt to smear the Clintons' reputation and further his investigation. Kendall writes in a letter to Starr that a news article that quoted unnamed prosecutors on Starr's staff contains "plain violations of grand jury secrecy" rules. "The comments of you and persons in your office directly and indirectly quoted in the magazine article flout all these obligations. ...Grand jury secrecy rules are aimed at preventing precisely this kind of leak-and-smear damage." Starr defends his actions, saying that his media leaks are legal, and files contempt charges against Kendall, accusing him of leaking his own information. (CNN, Clinton Impeachment Timeline)
Burton admits to doctoring evidence against Clinton
- May 6: Republican congressman Dan Burton, one of Clinton's most outspoken and moralistic critics, admits that his staff doctored evidence that Burton tried to present as proof of campaign fundraising violations during the 1996 Clinton presidential campaign. Transcripts of telephone conversations made by convicted Clinton advisor Webster Hubbell were altered by Burton's staff, most prominently Burton's chief investigator, David Bossie, to create the appearance that Hubbell was admitting that the 96 Clinton campaign had committed campaign fraud; the unaltered transcripts are ambiguous at best in regard to any campaign violations, and constitute no evidence of wrongdoing. (Bossie leaves Burton's employ after his fraudulent behavior becomes public, but continues to work as a smear artist for Republican causes.) Burton tells fellow Republicans in a letter that he is "sickened by the thought" that anyone believes he would purposely release less-than-accurate material. A House committee investigator, Arkansas Project operative David Bossie, has resigned over the doctored transcripts. House Speaker Newt Gingrich publicly decries the furor over the tapes as White House "spin," but reportedly has privately lambasted Burton. Gingrich has ordered House Republicans to "circle the wagons" to ensure Democrats get as little political benefit from the doctored transcripts as possible. Democrats are publicly demanding Burton's resignation from the House campaign finance committee, but minority leader Richard Gephardt has declined to offer a resolution to have Burton forcibly removed. In response to the altered transcripts, Clinton says, "I think virtually everyone in America now recognizes it was wrong to release selected portions of the tapes apparently to create a false impression of what they -- the whole record -- indicated." The proudly unrepentant Bossie will win the 1998 Ronald Reagan Award by the Conservative Political Action Conference for his "outstanding achievements and selfless contributions to the conservative movement." (CNN, Salon, Hilton and Testa)
India-Pakistan nuclear standoff
- May 11: India detonates a number of experimental nuclear weapons at an underground test site south of New Delhi. The tests stun Clinton administration military and national security advisors, not the least because spy satellite information had not revealed the existence of such weapons -- indeed, the administration only learned of the tests by watching CNN. (The US knew that India had tested a prototype nuclear weapon in 1974, but its intentions to build stockpiles of nuclear weapons since then had always remained murky.) India's neighbor and rival Pakistan will respond by lifting the restraints on its own nuclear weapons program and begin testing its own nuclear weapons within days. Frantic diplomacy by the Clinton administration heads off any possible conflict between the two countries, and US intelligence begins to learn that its reliance on technological surveillance is no substitute for human-based intelligence. Unfortunately, this lesson does not fully sink in until the September 11, 2001 debacle, which went largely unrecognized by US intelligence. (Philip Taubman)
- May 11: World Net Daily's Geoff Metcalf addresses Internet rumors about concentration camps for US citizens. "The U.S. Army director of resource management has confirmed the validity of a memorandum relating to the establishment of a civilian inmate labor program under development by the Department of Army," he writes, before validating Representative Henry Gonzalez's 1994 statement, that "The truth of the matter is that you do have those standby provisions, and the statutory emergency plans are there whereby you could, in the name of stopping terrorism, apprehend, invoke the military, and arrest Americans and hold them in detention camps." (Buzzflash)
- May 21: Indonesian dictator General Suharto, in power since late 1965, resigns as part of a last-ditch effort to preserve the existing military regime, turning power over to his vice president and longtime associate B.J. Habibie. Armed forces leader General Wiranto is widely believed to be the real ruler of Indonesia. Suharto's departure is widely believed to have been engineered not just by the ruling military junta, but by the International Monetary Fund, which has been withdrawing crucial support from Indonesia's economy. Habibie's new government wins the support of both the US and Australian governments. (BBC/East Timor Timeline, WSWS)
- May 25-28: A group of around 100 Nigerian villagers travel by boat to an offshore oil rig leased by US oil giant Chevron, and refuse to leave until they can meet with the head of Chevron's Nigerian arm, George Kirkland. A company representative meets with the villagers, who ask for compensation for the environmental damage inflicted on their villages by Chevron's numerous oil spills, as well as for jobs for their children. After three days of peacefully occupying the oil rig, a fleet of Chevron helicopters carrying Nigerian soldiers and police arrive; the troops disembark and attack the villagers. The troops fire tear gas and rifles into the unarmed crowd; two villagers are shot to death, and thirty others are wounded. Far from denying its involvement, Chevron, in the person of company spokesman Sola Omole, readily admits that not only did the company provide the helicopters for the soldiers' attack, but top-level Chevron management demanded the attack by the Nigerians. Chevron's head of security in Nigeria, James Neku, accompanies the Nigerian troops, and later confirms that the troops include among their numbers members of the notoriously brutal Nigerian mobile police -- the "Kill 'n' Go" death squads. Omole also admits that the villagers were known to be unarmed, and posed no threat to Chevron workers. Eleven villagers are held for weeks after the massacre; one, Bola Oyinbo, says that he was handcuffed and hung from a ceiling fan hook for hours after refusing to sign a statement that said the protesters had destroyed a helicopter. After the massacre, Nigerian human rights activist Oronto Douglas files a lawsuit in the US on behalf of the villagers, saying, "It is very clear that Chevron, like Shell, uses the military to protect its oil activities. They drill and they kill." Bill Spencer, area manager for ETPM, the company that leases the oil rig to Chevron, confirms that "[The security forces] were not ours. They were paid. They were supplied by Chevron, all of them. Everybody that was out there." Steve Lauterbach, spokesperson for the US embassy in Nigeria, merely says, "It is the policy of the embassy to support American companies and their operations abroad." (Amy Goodman and David Goodman)
- May 27: Monica Lewinsky's lawyer William Ginsburg writes an angry "open letter" to Ken Starr which was published in California Lawyer. In it, he writes, "Congratulations, Mr. Starr! As a result of your callous disregard for cherished constitutional rights, you may have succeeded in unmasking a sexual relationship between two consenting adults." A week later, Ginsburg will be replaced. (Clinton Impeachment Timeline)
- May 28: Investigative reporter Dan Moldea finally blows the whistle on the incessant and illegal Starr commission leaks to the press. Moldea, who never made a secret of his support for Clinton and his belief that the Starr commission was on a partisan witch hunt, tells how Starr deputy Hickman Ewing explained the entire leak process that conveyed information from Starr's office to the press. "He told me that yes, they do give information that is not on the public record on an off-the-record basis to selected reporters who are approved by Ken Starr in advance. He told me Ken Starr also approves specific leaks as long as the reporter's views are in sync with the office of the independent counsel's position. Our conversation took place on December 10, 1997, six weeks before the Lewinsky story broke." Moldea later wrote on his own investigative journalism web site, "During my twenty-five years as a crime reporter, I have never asked a prosecutor for information from a sitting grand jury -- for fear of being used as a shill or stalking horse for the prosecution. Even though I would never make an issue over reporters who do accept grand jury leaks, I will take a stand -- as I did in my August 1998 affidavit to Judge Johnson about the OIC leaks -- against journalists who accept grand jury leaks and also feed the prosecution information from their own sources...while allowing the prosecution to identify them as 'confidential informants.' ...Regardless of whether you are a conservative or a liberal, a supporter of the President or not, you should be very concerned when prominent journalists become shills and stalking horses for any prosecution team." Starr himself later confessed to Steven Brill of Brill's Content that he and his deputy Jackie Bennett had frequently met with reporters to give them information, yet insisted that he and Bennett had done "nothing improper," insisting that he and Bennett, and presumably the other Starr leakers, were merely "countering misinformation that has been spread about our investigation that has been spread about our investigation in order to discredit our office and our dedicated career prosecutors.... We have a duty to promote confidence in the work of our office." So in other words, Starr admits to repeatedly and flagrantly breaking the law in order to shape public perception; Carville calls Starr's justification a "cockamamie excuse" and "plain pathetic." (Salon/Brill's Content/James Carville, Dan Moldea)
- May 29: Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and other members of PNAC write to Newt Gingrich and Trent Lott, the Republican leaders of the House and Senate, urging them to support an immediate invasion of Iraq. The letter says that the US should "establish and maintain a strong U.S. military presence in the region and be prepared to use that force to protect our vital interests in the Gulf -- and, if necessary, to help remove Saddam from power. ...We should take whatever steps are necessary to challenge Saddam Hussein's claim to be Iraq's legitimate ruler, including indicting him as a war criminal. US policy should have as its explicit goal removing Saddam Hussein's regime from power and establishing a peaceful and democratic Iraq in its place. We recognize that this goal will not be achieved easily. But the alternative is to leave the initiative to Saddam, who will continue to strengthen his position at home and in the region. Only the US can lead the way in demonstrating that his rule is not legitimate and that time is not on the side of his regime." The letter says nothing about weapons of mass destruction, but it does state that Hussein's control of such a large reservoir of oil is unacceptable; Iraq's oil must be under US control. (Liberal Slant)
- May 30: A federal court dismisses Kenneth Starr's further charges against Webster Hubbell, calling Starr's charges "a fishing expedition." Starr may have indulged in some personal vindictiveness in his relentless pursuit, and ultimate victimization, of Hubbell. In early 1993, during Starr's final days as solicitor general for George H.W. Bush, Bell Atlantic sued the federal government to overturn a ban on phone companies providing video services (a ban later overturned by the Clinton administration). Starr, while still serving the Bush administration, joined the Bell Atlantic legal team. After the Clinton team took office, new associate attorney general Hubbell informed Starr that his presence with the Bell Atlantic legal team could constitute a conflict of interest and advised him not to involve himself with the case. Judging from Starr's Whitewater-spurred vendetta against Hubbell, Starr must have been quite upset. The federal judge who dismisses the Hubbell charges calls Starr's case against Hubbell a "quintessential fishing expedition" and calls Starr's tactics in trying to find evidence against Hubbell "scary." Democratic consultant James Carville later writes that the judge "threw Starr's attempts to destroy Webb Hubbell out of court and into the gutter where they belonged." (Washington Post, The Nation/James Carville)
