Hi folks. We're here with Julie right now. There are literally hundreds
of questions
which we won't be able to get to, so we're going to pick out a representative
sample
from what's being asked. Thanks very much for joining in.
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Fairfax, VA : I have heard that you have
not been able to find a job since your indictment.
Do you belive that you are being discriminated
against because of your inctment?
Julie Hyatt Steele: I know I have been in certain instances.
I also had a very severe accident in the
fall of 2000, which kept me from working. Even where I live now, I've
been somewhat isolated as a
result of the Starr investigation. Even the Democratic party of Richmond
told me I was too politically hot.
Colby, Kansas : Why did the republicans
want to bring down a president who was elected
by Americans not just once but twice?
Julie Hyatt Steele: That's why! They hated Clinton and his stance
on everything from guns to tobacco.
And they wanted to regain power. It was a quest for power driven
by their hatred of President Clinton.
West Lafayette, IN : If given the opportunity,
what would you say to Ken Starr?
Would you have any questions for him?
Julie Hyatt Steele: I don't single out Ken Starr. The entire
OIC is responsble, and partisan politics
drove them. I would like to ask him one question, though, and that
would be if he believes Americans
are too interested in their own interests over the effect those interests
have on others, and that this
"callous disregard" is a threat to our democracy, isn't it true that
Adam and I were Starr's collateral
damage in the quest to rid the country of our last elected president?
Wasn't I just in the way between
him and his indictment of our last ELECTED president?
ha ha
Go Julie!
Royal Oak, Michigan: Why do you think the
so-called "liberal media" fail to investigate and report
on the lies and misconduct of Republicans (such
as Kathleen Willey and Ken Starr) with the same
tenacity as they did in the case of President
Clinton?
Julie Hyatt Steele: First of all, Kathleen
Willey was a Democrat. Ken Starr was running the show,
and the story kept people glued to their televisions.
The story was a total distraction for journalists and
the public. I was indicted on the very day the
day of the opening ceremony of the Senate trial, and my
arraignment coincided with the first day of the
actual trial. Some journalists pondered the meaning of my
indictment, but were distracted by the impeachment
trial. In general, how you're tagged by journalists
in the beginning of a story is what you'll be
throughout.
In my case, I was perceived as peripheral by the
press. I didn't think I was even that. The reality is that
I was at the center of his quest to overthrow
the presidency, since I stood in the way of Kathleen Willey's
credibility. Although we've never met, President
Clinton and I were saying the same thing about the
so-called "grope". He said he didn't grope her,
and I said she never came to my house and told me
and I didn't think it happened. I was indicted
every time I said that -- four counts.
(Sidebar:
Right about here, I wrote to them that
they were spelling her name wrong.)
Norman, OK : Have you ever thought about
suing Willey or Starr or even the Federal Government for
their treament of you and your family? Has anyone
ever offered an apology (and compensation for your losses)
for their actions? And when will 60 Minutes have
YOU on when they gave Willey her chance to lie again
so you can refute her bogus claims? You should
never have gone through all of what you have gone through,
and the Federal government owes you an apology
(at the very least).
Julie Hyatt Steele: I'll go on 60 Minutes
when they explain the financial circumstances surrounding their
interview with Kathleen Willey. I've never been
compensated in any way, nor have I had an apology.
I adopted a grievance filed against Ken Starr
in the Eight Circuit, the result of which would have been a
full investigation of Ken Starr. The first 13
judges recused. The 14th judge, a Judge Nagle, took the case,
and then ruled against me, stating that I was
a witness who changed my story all the time to avoid legal trouble,
despite the fact that you can see in the trial
transcript and the final OIC report I was consistent in my statements
every time. The judge also dismissed my complaint
because of the government's false allegation that Kathleen
Willey didn't fail a lie detector test.
Do you know why all the discovery in this case
is under seal? Because it's an egregious example of
absolute power corrupting absolutely. It's shows
what the government can do to any ordinary citizen.
Key West, Fl : Would you tell us how Brock's dirty work is tied to your situation?
Julie Hiatt Steele:
It was all part of an attempted coup. This entire saga was driven by a
determination to overthrow the last elected president
and seize power.
Brick, NJ : Do you believe the truth will ever come out?
Julie Hiatt Steele: Yes, because I will
tell it. I've been telling it, and I'll keep on telling it.
What matters to me is that no other American
family have to endure what we had to.
I want to keep it from happening again. This
is not the way America is supposed to work.
Fairfax, VA : Why is this still important?
Julie Hiatt Steele: Starr may have gone
home, but the machine didn't grind to a halt.
They simply seized the next opportunity they
had, which was Election 2000.
My indictment nearly destroyed my family's life.
Based on Ken Starr's authority to investigate
Monica Lewinsky and "others", I was indicted.
I became "and others". I'm it.
Take a look at the Patriot Act. To question anything
related to government action these days
is tantamount to treason. It's a travesty.
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Comment from Julie Hiatt Steele: It's important
to understand that the government's
persecution and prosecution of me didn't happen
in a vacuum. It's part of a continuum.
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Comment from Julie Hiatt Steele: From a
trial held in the Fourth Circuit to the Supreme Court
is not a great leap. In fact, I was told the
Fourth Circuit is so conservative that even the Supreme
Court fears them! It's a circuit in which to
conduct show trials.
Raleigh, NC : So why wasn't Kathleen Willey credible?
Julie Hiatt Steele: Because she lied. She lied at every turn,
and couldn't even keep her own story straight.
And that's before you get to the mulititude of other allegations she
made that never saw the light of day.
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Defuniak Springs Florida : How close were you or still are, to the Clintons??
Julie Hiatt Steele: I have never met the Clintons. Regrettably,
I didn't vote for him. I grew to have
tremendous respect for both of them. I hope to one day. I've never
even been to the White House on a tour.
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Los Angeles, CA Hello Ms. Steele. I am
wondering about the veiled threat from Kenneth Starr
and Company iplying that the adoption of your
son was not legal. To me it was a way of saying,
"if you don't go along with us the way we want
you to, you could lose your son." Not to mention
the threat of going to jail for 30 years. Did
you get the impression they were threatening you if
you didn't say what they wanted you to say?
Julie Hiatt Steele: They DID threaten me. Either I could be indicted
or I could develop a new memory.
As far as my son was concerned, they knew that my son's Adam's adoption
was legal both in Romania
and this country.
Kathleen Willey told agents and the grand jury that Mickey Kantor came
to Richmond and threatened me,
which was completely false. She continued to say that even when I was
indicted. Absurd. The vicious thing
is that the OIC knew you couldn't get out of Romania without a child
you hadn't adopted legally, but sent
agents around Richmond implying that my son's adoption was shaky in
some way, which further alienated
me in the community. Willey had told the OIC that my son was the key
to my heart, and they used him
against me. I knew they couldn't take him, but I was concerned about
the damage they could do to him
psychologically. Come after me -- leave my child out of this. He's
been ostracized in school, treated badly
in the neighborhoods we lived in. He suffered as greatly as I did.
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Chicago, IL : Apart from Ken Starr, who
would you consider most guilty of trying to make you lie
about President Clinton? Is Michael Isikoff a
credible reporter, or a GOP agent?
Julie Hiatt Steele: He was one of the top agents. He, Jackie
Judd and Lisa Meyers were clearly agents
of the OIC. Michael Isikoff had a $600,000 check in his
pocket for the book he was writing. I don't like
or respect him, but I don't blame him as much as I blame Newsweek.
It's their job to reign him in.
They should have put him on leave if he couldn't be objective,
which he obviously couldn't.
Arlington, Virginia : What has happened
to your suit against the Newsweek reporter who first
reported the Willey grope?
Julie Hiatt Steele: It never went anywhere. It was dismissed.
I look back at that time and it's stunning how
badly I felt, and how little understanding I had of what was coming.
At the end of the day, though, you
can't just blame Isikoff. He was hardly alone. The press portrayed
the First Lady as crazy when she talked
about the "vast right wing conspiracy", when in fact she was absolutely
right.
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Easton, Maryland : What I don't understand
is why Starr was so fanatic. It just doesn't make sense for a
supposedly educated professional to have behaved
in the way he did without some underlying psychopathology.
Julie Hiatt Steele: I'm no analyst, but I think he was driven
by his desire to become a Supreme Court justice.
He had such a low threshhold of tolerance for anything that didn't
match his own rigid worldview. The other
thing is that he has no courtroom experience, no prosecutorial backround.
He never made a decision alone.
There really is such a thing as a gang mentality.
Richmond, Va : All you did was lie to the
press, you had no first hand knowledge as to whether or not
Ms. Willey was attacked by the President. How
does this put you at the center of this mess? It would
seem to the masses that you were simply a naive
pawn used in a game of political chess.
Julie Hiatt Steele: You're absolutely right -- I have no first
hand knowledge, as I repeatedly stated.
It's my opinion that it didn't happen. It's a FACT that she didn't
come to my house and didn't tell me
anything about being groped. As far as lying to the press -- at times
things were written that were false,
but none of those things came from me.
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Farmington Hills, MI : You asked, Do you
know why all the discovery in this case is under seal?
What does that mean? Can you use it in your suits,
or are you restricted from it?
Julie Hiatt Steele: I don't really think I can sue the government.
As far as why it's under seal,
they don't want you to know, folks. But you'll find out because
I'm going to tell you.
People would fall down if they saw what's in that discovery -- literally
stunned.
Yorktown, VA : Can we look forward to you
telling your version of what went down in book form?
If so, how soon?
Julie Hiatt Steele: That's my dream. It'll happen when I have
an agent and a publisher, and I have neither.
I haven't been turned down -- I just needed this time to heal before
telling my story. The point I'd like to
make is that for us the trial wasn't the end - it was the beginning.
Up to a year later, they were still
threatening to reindict.
Baltimore, MD : Why do you think the "liberal
media" did such a thorough search into (then)
President Clinton's background of womanizing
and cheating? I mean why would they do their job
and spread the truth about an adulterer, I mean
President Clinton?
Julie Hiatt Steele: They didn't. The rumors weren't based on
fact. Brodderick signed an affidavit
saying she'd never been raped. The Jones case was totally without merit.
The Willey allegation was
without merit. This notion of womanizing is built on a house of cards.
Cleveland, Ohio : I don't understand how/why
you had to give up your paid-for home.
Are you free to explain this?
Julie Hiatt Steele: It was because I went from no debt to immense
debt, and I lost my job after
being in a front page scandal. I had to borrow against the house, and
I couldn't keep up payments.
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Phoenix, AZ : Are you still a registered Republican?
Julie Hiatt Steele: No, absolutely not. I don't vote the Republican ticket the way I used to.
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Tulsa, OK : So tell us: What's in the discovery?
Julie Hiatt Steele: A condemnation of the OIC and the government that went after a twice-elected president.
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Tulsa, OK : What do you think of the DNC's refusal to embrace your cause?
Julie Hiatt Steele: I don't know them and they don't know me.
I never anticipated I'd be embraced or
supported. From my own perspective, I've been called everything from
an American hero to a Clinton whore,
and the reality is I'm none of those things. I just tell the truth,
and that's the fact. Being bullied was horrible,
but telling the truth was nothing.
Comment from Bart:
Did you catch this sentence: "I just needed this time to heal before telling my story."
YOU people gave her that time to heal.
When we "met" Julie, she was just getting thrown out of her home, and
he was STILL under the threat
of ANOTHER back-breaking, heart-ripping trial at the hands of those
sick bastards at the IOC.
She was still falling off that cliff, and showing more grace than Sarah
Hughes winning the gold.
We all know how the GOP feels about losing - and they hate losing
to a woman even more.
They were determined to break her, and nobody but Julie knows how close
they came.
All we know is that she stood up to them and she ultimately won.
By contributing financially, or just by sending encouraging letters
and e-mails, you have helped her
healing to take place. Again, nobody but Julie knows how far
down that healing path she has gone
or still needs to go, but I'll tell you one thing: When you meet
Julie in Washington DC on April 27th,
I predict you're going to meet one of the most exciting and charming
women that'll ever cross your path.
When you meet her, you're going to be damned impressed and you should
all
do a shot of Chinaco for yourself for contributing to
her "restoration."
...and doing two or three shots on April 27th will help her even more.
See you there,
...and another great job, Julie!