Some crusades never end

Washington Monthly, May, 2003 by Susan Threadgill

Some crusades never end. More than two years after Bill Clinton left office, an independent counsel is still investigating his former housing secretary, Henry G. Cisneros. In 1992, you may recall, Cisneros told FBI investigators conducting his background check that he had given a former mistress, Linda Medlar, about $2,500 a month.

Later, Medlar released phone tapes in which Cisneros said he may have given her as much as $250,000 over four years. When grandstanding FBI director Louis Freeh found out about it, he ordered an investigation to determine whether Cisneros lied to his agents. In 1995, a three-judge panel, including notorious Clinton-hater David Sentelle, appointed lobbyist-cum-lawyer David Barrett as independent counsel--an odd choice, given that during the 1980s, Barrett was accused by House investigators of using his GOP connections to win housing contracts from the Reagan administration. But even though Clinton pardoned Cisneros before leaving office, Barrett continued to pursue his investigation, which has lasted nine years and cost taxpayers $19 million. Why? According to the Los Angeles Times, Barrett "believed that officials of the Internal Revenue Service, conspiring with Clinton appointees at the Justice Department, had withheld tax information that could have implicated Cisneros in other crimes." The panel has lost patience, however, and last March ordered Barrett to cease "all investigative and prosecutorial activities" and issue a final report. Finally.