Heard on Fred Honsberger's Show Yesterday

Kathleen Willey has written a book. And for that, she was on Fred's air. You can listen to the interview here and here.

For those who don't remember, in 1998 Kathleen Willey accused then-President Clinton of sexually assaulting her in the White House in 1993.

During the interview with Fred, she stated that she'd been offered a great deal of money from the tabloids for her story. She didn't take that money because she felt that it would damage her credibility.

Oops. Too late.

Take a look at what the Office of Independent Counsel (the good folks who spend tens of millions of dollars investigationg the Clinton White House in the late 90s) had to say about Willey's honesty.

Page 7:

The Independent Counsel agreed not to prosecute Willey for any offense arising out of the investigation, including false statements in her Jones deposition, so long as she cooperated fully and truthfully with the investigation. Following that first immunity agreement, Willey gave false information to the FBI about her sexual relationship with a former boyfriend, and acknowledged having lied about it when the agents confronted her with contradictory evidence. Following Willey’s acknowledgement, the Independent Counsel agreed not to prosecute her for false statements in this regard.

She acknowledged lying to the OIC and the FBI.

And then there's the contradictions with other OIC testimony. For instance Linda Tripp's. This is from Salon.com:

Tripp testified she saw Willey "a lot" the day of her meeting with Clinton. "A lot," she repeated. And she met Willey after the meeting, as planned, and described her as being "very excited, happy, but flustered and completely overwhelmed by the event." Tripp said her face was "flushed," and she "smiled from ear to ear." Tripp said Willey related that she told Clinton "something to the effect that she was throwing herself" on his mercy, when he suddenly kissed her forcefully. "'His tongue was down my throat'" and "'I think I kissed him back,'" Tripp quoted Willey as saying. "His hands were all over her backside," and "he put her hand on his penis," Tripp claimed Willey told her. That night Willey and Tripp "discussed whether Willey would be a girlfriend of the president," said Tripp.

Hardly good news for Bill, but a far far cry from a sexual assault. And given the context of the feeding-frenzy at the time, why would Linda Tripp tell this story and not an assault story if she knew the assault story? Why wouldn't Kathleen Willey tell Linda Tripp the assault story?

According to the salon.com article, Willey and Tripp had been working together for months to somehow get Clinton to return Kathleen Willey's flirtatious affections.

Finally there's this from the OIC:

Willey and President Clinton, the only two percipient witnesses to the alleged encounter, substantially and materially disagree on what occurred. The burden of proving what actually occurred in a case against President Clinton rests on the prosecutor, and Willey would be the government’s principal witness. In the Independent Counsel’s judgment, the evidence was insufficient to prove to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that the President’s deposition testimony about his conduct with Willey was false.

Linda Tripp’s testimony that Willey had a previous romantic interest in President Clinton (and appeared to view his alleged advances positively) departed from Willey’s testimony. Tripp’s cooperation with this Office in the Lewinsky investigation ultimately yielded evidence about President Clinton’s conduct with Monica Lewinsky that was contrary to the President’s testimony. Thus, evidence supplied by Linda Tripp regarding Willey that was consistent with President Clinton’s testimony would likely be favorably received by a jury.

Even assuming Willey’s testimony was truthful about the incident with President Clinton, her testimony at trial would be subject to further challenge based on the differences between her deposition and grand jury statements, as well as her acknowledgement of false statements to the Office of the Independent Counsel. Concerns about the probative effect of Willey’s testimony would likely be sufficient to negate a conclusion that “the person [charged] probably will be found guilty by an unbiased trier of fact.”

In short, there was insufficient evidence to prove to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that President Clinton’s testimony regarding Kathleen Willey was false. Accordingly, the Independent Counsel declined prosecution and the investigation of potential criminal wrongdoing relating to Willey’s allegations is now closed.

This is the OIC talking here. In short, Kathleen Willey has some serious credibility problems. None of which made it onto Fred's show, of course. In fact, he did say on the show that he believes Kathleen Willey. Ugh.

Fred also made mention of Yassir Arafat "waiting in the Rose Garden" during one of the Clinton/Lewinsky encounters. Uh, not so fast, Fred. This is from the Committee of Concerned Journalists. The CCJ's mission is described here:

The Starr Report differed in some key areas from the Drudge Report. Lewinsky testified to using the cigar sexually and to Clinton then putting it in his mouth and commenting on it. But according to Lewinsky's testimony there was no mutual masturbation and the meeting was in general less sordid than the leaks. There is also no support in the Starr Report for Drudge's allegation that Yassir Arafat was waiting in the Rose Garden when an encounter took place (the Drudge Report is not clear about what encounter it is writing about)[emphasis added]

So Fred was channelling the Drudge Report?? Oh, Fred. You gotta do better than that.

Oh, and Fred also reran the discredited Juanita Broaddrick story.

All in all, standard Fred.

Every now and then it's good to go home.