I just finished Ken Gormleyís The Death of American Virtue: Clinton v. Starr (Crown 2010) and recommend it highly to anyone who is interested in a thorough examination of the dynamics and circumstances that lead to the abuse of the governmentís enormous prosecutorial power.

What started out as an investigation into Bill and Hillary Clintonís small investment in a failed real estate deal (Whitewater) turned into a tsunami of litigation that practically paralyzed the executive and legislative branches of the federal government for months. Essentially, when the attorneys involved in the investigation couldnít pin anything of substance on the Clintons in regard to Whitewater, they jumped at the opportunity to set President Clinton up to lie in a civil deposition and before a grand jury in regard to his relationship with former White House intern, Monica Lewinsky.

Although few of the attorneys involved in either side of this battle come out looking good, this scrupulously even-handed book places most of the blame at the hands of Ken Starr and his Office of Independent Council prosecutorial team. The fact that Starr and his team thought they could get away with intimidating Lewinsky in a hotel room for over 12 hours without allowing her to contact her counsel speaks volumes of how out of touch they were with the pursuit of justice, not to mention legal ethics. That type of reasoning is why, on balance, Starr and his prosecutorial team come out looking worse than President Clinton and his defenders despite the fact that Clinton lied about his relationship with Lewinsky under oath on two occasions.

One of the most interesting of the dozens of fascinating anecdotes in the book involves Starrís dubious decision to de-emphasize the Whitewater investigation in favor of the Clinton-Lewinsky investigation. Hickman Ewing, who was Starrís deputy running the Whitewater investigation in Little Rock at the time the Lewinsky investigation exploded in Washington, had concluded that Hillary Clinton had committed crimes in regard to her involvement in Whitewater. Iím not as sure as Ewing that she did commit any crime ñ most of what Hillary did appeared to me to be the actions of a lawyer who was simply over her head in dealing with a faltering real estate development and a failing S&L.

At any rate, "[i]n Ewing’s eyes, Mrs. Clinton had lied to the [Office of Independent Council], had lied to the grand jury, and would keep lying until the cows came home if she was not brought to justice," writes Gormley. Ewing went so far as to draft an indictment of Hillary for conspiracy to conceal her true relationship with the Madison Guaranty S&L in order to ìavoid and evade political, criminal and civil liability, fraudulently secure additional income for the Rose Law Firm and safeguard the political campaigns of William Jefferson Clinton.î But because the focus of the investigation had turned toward President Clintonís relationship with Lewinsky, Starr and the other prosecutors outvoted Ewing and elected not to dilute their investigation with a prosecution of Hillary.

Thus, with more than a touch of irony, Ewing observed, "Monica saved Hillary."