Media Ignores Real Scandals,
Diverts Attention Elsewhere

By William Perry Pendley

(Editor’s note: William Perry Pendley is president and chief legal officer for Mountain States Legal Foundation, a public interest law firm specializing in issues of private property and individual liberty.)

Is the media in denial? Web Hubbell admits during a taped conversation that he received $700,000 on which he paid no taxes and the big news story is how the tapes were released. The First Lady asserts that there's a "vast right wing conspiracy" (including apparently The New York Times) and the media rushes to find the conspirators. President Clinton and Vice President Gore engage in the most brazen violations of campaign finance laws in history and the media asks why Republicans oppose new laws.

Thus it comes as no surprise when a federal judge ruled that Interior Secretary Babbitt's mining regulations violate federal law, and when the House Resources Committee reported on ethical and legal lapses in the promulgation of those rules, the media’s focus was elsewhere.

On May 13, Judge June L. Green ruled for the Northwest Mining Association, holding that Babbitt's rules violated the Regulatory Flexibility Act. So blatant was Babbitt's violation that the Clinton administration’s own Small Business Administration filed a brief supporting the NWMA.

The next day the Resources Committee issued a report based on documents obtained by subpoena from Babbitt's department blasting the agency for its illegal rules and the dubious way in they were issued.

This is big news! Babbitt, under an ethical cloud with the appointment of an independent counsel, ignores due process requirements of federal law and is condemned not just by the Resources Committee and an agency of the Clinton administration, but by a federal judge. Thus Babbitt ran afoul of all three branches of the federal government.

But one member of the media saw a "bigger" story. Babbitt's top lawyer asserts that the subpoenaed documents may have been given to others, including those suing the Clinton administration. In addition, the NWMA's lawsuit followed Resources Committee hearings on the mining rules. Furthermore, the Resources Committee held hearings on two other actions of the administration, one regarding Clinton's Utah land grab the other addressing Clinton's American Heritage Rivers Initiative. Both actions were also challenged in federal court. Finally, all three lawsuits were filed by Mountain States Legal Foundation.

This is a story? The Clinton administration takes three controversial actions: it attempts to regulate the western mining industry out of business; it locks up a trillion-dollar coal deposit and kills thousands of jobs with a 1.7 million acre Utah land grab; and it asserts control over the nation's rivers. All three actions breach federal law and two appear to conflict with the Constitution. Is it any wonder that they prompted hearings and lawsuits?

Caught violating the law, Babbitt and his lawyers try what has worked so well for the White House: deny, dissemble and direct attention elsewhere. Thus Babbitt says he didn't deliver documents to the Resources Committee except under subpoena, fearing they would fall into the wrong hands — those of a federal judge. This isn't just a specious argument, it is a new excuse for an old tactic: the White House refused to produce AHRI documents until ordered to do so by a Committee subpoena.

One irony is that when Democrats ran Congress for the years preceding 1995, documents flowed readily from the Executive to Congress to environmental groups. Called the "Iron Triangle," its points used those documents before federal agencies in hearings and during litigation. The cries from Babbitt, whose League of Conservation Voters no doubt benefited from that cozy relationship, are the sound of one being hoisted on his own petard.

The final irony is that the documents never made it into the hands of the NWMA's attorneys. Although they were sought pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act, Babbitt's minions refused to comply. The day Judge Green held her hearing, Babbitt's lawyers had not produced the documents, saying more time was required. It didn't matter. There was no need to learn of the skullduggery behind Babbitt's regulations; their lawlessness was obvious to everyone — everyone, that is, except the media.