Kenneth Starr, the special prosecutor appointed to look into financial wrongdoings in the Whitewater case, is now probing allegations that the CIA used tax dollars to trade in cocaine and guns in Arkansas.
Allegations that the CIA set up a covert operation in southwest Arkansas in the mid-1980s to transport guns to the Contra rebels in Nicaragua have been doing the rounds in Washington, D.C., for months.
In return for the guns, the money-starved Contras are alleged to have paid for the weapons with planeloads of cocaine.
Capitalism being what it is, the cocaine then found its way to all parts of this country, and Arkansas was said to have been flooded with dirty cash that needed to be disposed of.
This scenario was originally seen as preposterous by any thinking human being when it was first proposed a few years ago.
The CIA endorsing drug running? Planeloads of guns being sent to the jungles of Nicaragua by the U.S. Government? And from Arkansas, of all places?
But in the past few months, this far-fetched tale has slowly been gaining credibility as formal investigations slowly move forward on their look into financial irregularities in Arkansas....
The Mena drug operation, if indeed the stories are correct, could be a tremendous embarrassment to both Republicans and Democrats. The operation began when President Reagan, a Republican, was in the White House. And it was in business when President Clinton was still governor of Arkansas.
But the impact on Clinton could be the greatest if the probe finds that he indirectly benefited from illegal money that was flooding his state....
(John Crudele is a financial columnist with the New York Post. His mailing address is P.O. Box 610, Lincroft, N.J. 07738. Click here to send him e-mail).