In my 40 years of public life, since serving as District Attorney of Philadelphia in 1956, this is the first time I have found it necessary to respond this way to a news story quoting me. I have been quoted thousands of times in the past, and although, like others in my position, I have not always liked the way a story came out, I had to agree it was fair reporting. Not so Joe Conason's story about me published today in the New York Observer.This past Monday, I agreed to talk to Mr. Conason about my role as Ethics Counsel to Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr, as I have done with numerous reporters over the past months, with Mr. Starr's approval, in order to provide some accounting of the unusual process of oversight and review Mr. Starr has set up to ensure objectivity and fairness in the investigations and prosecutions under his responsibility. What I said to Mr. Conason was pretty much what I have said to other reporters, who have published stories about these interviews.
As can readily be seen by reading these stories, I have reported on the conduct of the Independent Counsel and his staff clearly in a way that has been supportive of their integrity and fairness ... and I have had no reason to change my views on these matters.
One would not think so, however, on reading Mr. Conason's account of my interview. He reports me as trivializing the charges under investigation by the Independent Counsel; second-guessing the validity of the prosecution in Little Rock; claiming that the lawyers working for Starr have to be "reined in" or they will abuse power; and threatening to quit my position. How Mr. Conason could have derived any of these views on my part from my interview bewilders me. I believe, from what he said to me, that these are Mr. Conason's positions. Unfortunately, he has permitted them to be expressed in his story through quotations he erroneously attributes to me.
I want to respond specifically to some of Mr. Conason's misquotations:
The last paragraph of Mr. Conason's story is pure fiction. In it he represents that I have threatened to quit, and that by so doing, I hold some power over Mr. Starr which "ensures that Whitewater ultimately concludes as the trivial matter it is." I have neither suggested nor threatened that I will quit as Ethics Counsel.
- (Conason) "Samuel Dash ... doesn't think there is much to the Whitewater affair ... and that it may have not ever merited the appointment of an independent counsel. "
I actually said that Whitewater cannot be compared to Watergate as a national scandal, but that what Whitewater has come to mean under Mr. Starr's investigation ... is a very important and significant matter which had to be investigated by an independent counsel.
- (Conason) "Even there (the present charges being tried in Little Rock), however, he (Dash) has reservations. 'There may have been fraud in the Tucker-McDougal case,' he said, 'But if Bill Clinton was not President, would anybody have looked into it? No."'
I actually expressed no reservations about the indictment returned by the grand jury, now the basis of the trial in Little Rock. My reference to Mr. Clinton being President was in the context of telling Mr. Conason that if Mr. Clinton were not President, there would be no basis to appoint an independent counsel, and that, therefore, there may not have been an investigation of these important charges. My statement was in support of the Independent Counsel legislation. But Mr. Conason's report makes it look like I was attributing partisan political motives to the investigation.
- (Conason) Quotation attributed to Dash: "None of what was said by Hale about conversations he had with the President has any relevance to the case against Tucker and McDougal."
I did not make such a blanket statement. I repeatedly emphasized to Mr. Conason that I was speaking only of those conversations which Hale has alleged he had with Mr. Clinton alone.
- (Conason) "He (Dash) acknowledges that the independent counsel engaged him in a 'Faustian Bargain' to defuse early doubts about Mr. Starr's partisanship."
The term "Faustian bargain" is foreign to me. I have never used it, and certainly did not use it in my interview with Mr. Conason.... It is a strong term indicating selling one's soul, which is entirely out of bounds in any effort to describe the relation that was established between Mr. Staff and me...
- (Conason) "Given his continuing doubts about Whitewater. . ."
I expressed no such doubts about "Whitewater" as it is being investigated by Mr. Starr-but, on the contrary, expressed strong support of his investigations....As I told Mr. Conason, I have discussed with Mr. Starr that I may not be able to perform this role this summer, since I will be in Heidelberg, Germany, serving as an exchange professor at the University of Heidelberg Law School. . . . I stressed to Mr. Conason that I believed it [Whitewater] was not a "trivial matter," as he suggested, but an important and significant matter that needed the attention of the criminal justice system, and particularly that part of the system that called for an independent counsel.