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420 19 Defending the President against Impeachment in late July 1994, Barney became involved in the investigation of whitewater as a member of the Banking committee and began defending President Bill clinton against accusations relating to the failed arkansas real estate venture. “robert Fiske, kenneth Starr, and Jay Stephens have investigated all of this and have come up with no misdeeds against the clintons. . . . with all the investigating . . . no one has yet brought forth any accusation against either President clinton or hillary regarding any violation of the law or misuse of public funds regarding whitewater,” Barney said. he referred to the hearings as “allegations in search of proof.” Prior to the whitewater hearings, Barney had been asked by Bristol community college in Fall river to help get Secretary of labor robert reich to speak at the college. he made the request and Secretary reich committed to appear at the college. it was a major event for the small college and they invested a great deal of time and energy publicizing the event. Two days before the Friday event, reich’s staff informed the college that the secretary had a conflict that day and would not be able to attend. an upset college administrator contacted Barney’s office and asked what the school should do at this late date. “reich broke his word. There was no good reason why he couldn’t come,” recalled Barney. an angry Barney phoned the white house and told presidential adviser George Stephanopoulos that he would not be able to attend the whitewater hearing the next day because he was “busy having to deal with the damage caused by reich not speaking at the college.” Stephanopoulos asked him to hold for a moment. when Stephanopoulos returned to the line he told Barney that Secretary reich would be speaking at the college on Friday as scheduled and that Barney would have the time to attend the whitewater hearing the next day. Defending the President against Impeachment 421 Barney also defended the president against charges related to incidents that became known as “Filegate” and “Travelgate” and against other attacks by the republicans that he believed were unfounded. referring to the FBi files of several hundred republicans that were obtained by the white house’s office of Personnel Security, Barney said, “clearly the white house erred in having those files, but again all the evidence seems to suggest it was an honest error, not one instance of anyone—a reporter or anyone else—alleging they were given negative information about any political opponent of the president based on the FBi files.” referring to the firing of employees in the white house Travel office, he said, “i do not think the white house had a justification for firing them. . . . They were guilty of hasty overreacting and unfairness to individuals but did not act illegally.” at a Judiciary committee hearing in october 1997, Barney defended attorney General Janet reno’s decision not to appoint an independent counsel to investigate a litany of events involving President clinton that committee republicans had urged her to investigate. he dissected the letter the republicans had sent to the attorney general. “They want a criminal investigation for bribery because the president designated land in Utah for a monument, something which environmentalists were very for, and this stopped coal mining there and he may have done this as a favor to the lippo Group [which has coal in indonesia].” Barney called the suggestion that the Utah monument was really a lippo plot “one of the silliest things i have ever heard advanced in 18 years.” he advised attorney General reno, “don’t spend too much time on the Utah connection. leave that to the movies.” a second charge Barney took issue with involved Vice President al Gore, who called some people to ask for money. one of the people he called said he felt pressure to contribute because he has so much business that touches on federal government telecommunications, tax policy, and regulations. “among the things we cannot do is to accuse each other of being hypocritical, so i will not do that,” Barney said. “But for members of congress who have authority over telecommunications, tax policy, and regulations, and almost all of whom, in my experience, regularly call people up and ask them for money, to say the vice president ought to be criminally investigated simply because he called somebody and an anonymous person said ‘gee, i felt pressured,’ if everybody who one of us called...

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