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- THE WEEK, Page 13NATIONThe Search Goes On
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- A special prosecutor will probe the Clinton passport caper
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- Someone told Elizabeth Tamposi to search through Bill
- Clinton's passport files last fall. That at least will be the
- working hypothesis of the special prosecutor, named at the urging
- of Attorney General William Barr, to investigate lingering
- questions about a campaign caper that threatens to involve
- officials in the outgoing Bush White House. Chief of staff James
- Baker and his aides insist they didn't. But their statements
- contain troubling omissions and inconsistencies. Other evidence
- suggests that top Bush aides were desperate to confirm -- and
- publicize -- a rumor (false as it turned out) that the youthful
- Clinton had taken steps to renounce his American citizenship to
- avoid the draft.
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- A three-judge panel of the federal appeals bench named
- former U.S. Attorney Joseph diGenova to conduct the probe of
- senior Bush aides who have admitted they knew of the searches
- as they were occurring and did nothing to stop them. DiGenova
- must determine whether the Bush staff members in fact lied to
- State Department Inspector General Sherman Funk or violated
- Clinton's privacy with leaks. Regardless of the outcome, the
- tawdry passport affair will cloud Bush's last days, and perhaps
- someone's future.
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