Would the Washington Post greet that kind of behavior with bland acceptance? Would the rest of the press remain blithely silent?

Such is the sorry history of the investigation conducted by special counsel Michael E. Shaheen Jr. into questions concerning David Hale and his relationship with the "Arkansas Project" that were first revealed by Salon and the Associated Press last year. Allegations of cash payments, free lodging, the use of an automobile and other substantial gifts to Hale from conservative Clinton critics raised more than eyebrows.

Shaheen, who policed prosecutorial ethics for many years at the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility, spent more than a year and millions of taxpayer dollars trying to answer those questions. He dispatched FBI agents to retrieve documents and conduct interviews. He hauled a series of witnesses before a grand jury in Fort Smith, Ark., to testify about the Arkansas Project and its dealings with Hale, including Pittsburgh billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife, whose foundations financed the project through the American Spectator magazine.

What did the special counsel find? True to his own ethical standards, Shaheen isn't talking; unlike the Office of Independent Counsel, his investigation did not leak and still doesn't. And Kenneth Starr seems to prefer that the public should learn nothing about what Shaheen discovered, beyond his narrow finding that there isn't enough evidence to indict anyone.

The little phrases and sentences snatched from Shaheen's report for the OIC press release left me wondering what context was being omitted. According to the OIC press release, Shaheen's report determined that "many of the allegations, suggestions and insinuations regarding the tendering and receipt of things of value were shown to be unsubstantiated or, in some cases, untrue."

The other snippet lifted from the report elaborated slightly: "In some cases there is little if any credible evidence establishing that a particular thing of value was demanded, offered or received. In other instances, there is insufficient credible evidence to show that a thing of value was provided or received with the criminal intent defined by any of the applicable statutes" (italics added).

So what does all that legalistic verbiage tell us about what really happened? Without the specific information in Shaheen's report, it is impossible to say. To me it seems to say that some of the allegations regarding benefits Hale received from the Arkansas Project were true, others were false and still others remained unproved. It also suggests that in the cases when Hale did get something from the Arkansas Project, there was no proof that it was given with the express purpose of influencing his testimony.

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