Cisneros Gets Off With a Slap on the Wallet

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Oct 4, 1999 | by Jamie Dettmer, | Timothy W. Maier

It was like a "whimper without a bang," says a news alert/source close to the Henry Cisneros case. The former San Antonio mayor and disgraced ex-Housing and Urban Development secretary walked away a free man after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge and paying a $10,000 fine -- pocket change for him -- for lying to the FBI about how much he paid his ex-mistress.

The press has been wondering why Independent Counsel David Barrett caved in after spending nearly $10 million on his probe but, according to a source close to Barrett, it actually wasn't that way. The source says that Cisneros "caved in" after losing a majority of pretrial motions that put dicey tapes of his phone conversations into evidence. The tapes proved Cisneros lied to the FBI about how much hush money he paid to Linda Medlar Jones: more than $200,000. The plea-bargain deal had been on the table for nearly 18 months. "Look," says the source, "no one wanted Cisneros to go to jail."

And, yes, the prosecution did have one serious problem: "Jones was a kook," says the source. Her credibility was in shambles after she admitted lying to the FBI and being convicted of an assortment of charges stemming from the incident. She got three years for her role in the ordeal -- compared with Cisneros, who simply had to humble himself before a judge and open up his wallet.

It also didn't help matters that Jones deleted selected portions of her secret tape recordings. And what did those deletions concern? Perhaps some conspiracy involving higher-ups: After all, President Clinton himself was listed as a potential witness. Not at all.

"She deleted all the love bullshit," says the source. "She wanted to keep the phone sex out of it."

While Barrett, who did not return news alert! calls, has been besieged with criticism for letting Cisneros off too easy, his team points out that at least this was the one and only case in which a Clinton independent counsel did get its target.

The future for Cisneros isn't all blue sky. There still are some questions about his finances and tax returns. His financial-disclosure statements don't entirely add up -- a little detail that the IRS may take to heart.

And, what now for Barrett? He plans to hit the trail with criticism of the independent-counsel statute. He believes it doesn't work.