One of the issues that came up in a lengthy suit (American Physicians and Surgeons, Inc, et al. v. Hillary Rodham Clinton, et al.) was whether White House aide Ira Magaziner, speaking on behalf of Hillary Clinton’s health task force, told the truth when he claimed that only federal employees were members of the group. This was found to be false and Judge Royce Lamberth issued an opinion, part of which follows:

“[I]t is clear that the decisions here were made at the highest levels of government, and that the government itself is–and should be–accountable when its officials run amok. . . The court agrees with plaintiffs that these were not reckless and inept errors taken by bewildered counsel. The Executive Branch of the government, working in tandem, was dishonest with this court. . . .

“The Department of Justice has a long tradition of setting the highest standards of conduct for all lawyers, and it is a sad day when this court must conclude, as did the United States Attorney in his investigation, that the Department of Justice succumbed to pressure from White House attorneys and others to provide this court with “strained interpretations” that were “ultimately unconvincing.”

“It seems that some government officials never learn that the cover-up can be worse than the underlying conduct. Most shocking to this court, and deeply disappointing, is that the Department of Justice would participate in such conduct. This was not an issue of good faith word games being played with the Court. . . . The United States Attorney found that the most controversial sentence of the Magaziner declaration–”Only federal government employees serve as members of the interdepartmental working group”–could not be prosecuted under the perjury statute because the issue of “membership” within the working group was a fuzzy one, and no generally agreed upon “membership” criteria were ever written down. Therefore, the Magaziner declaration was actually false because of the implication of the declaration that “membership” was a meaningful concept and that one could determine who was and was not a “member” of the working group. . . “

PROGRESSIVE REVIEW, 1997 – It was just symbolic and, in the end, the money comes out of our pockets but at least one judge has called the White House for lying, assessing a fine of over a quarter of a million dollars. As the above excerpt from Judge Lamberth’s opinion indicates, this was no minor peccadillo but rather, “The Executive Branch of the government, working in tandem, was dishonest with this court.” At issue was the composition of Hillary Clinton’s health task force, a body stacked with those from the medical industry who would gain most from the faux reforms of the Clintonistas.

You might think a federal judge calling one of Mrs. Clinton’s top aides a liar would be big news, but the Washington Post found room on its front page for “Seniors Strut Their Stuff in Pool Pageant” while burying the health care story on page 21 under a boring headline. That was nine pages better than the New York Times, which ran the story under “Judge Rules Government Covered Up Lies on Panel,” hardly descriptive of the story’s significance.