Julie Hiatt Steele is losing her home on July 30. It's not because she was foolish with her money or that some
medical tragedy sucked away her savings. She got caught up in the vast right-wing conspiracy to get the Clintons.

If you don't remember Julie, it's not surprising. She was a peripheral character in the get Clinton melodrama.
When Kathleen Willey came forward with allegations that Clinton groped her in the Oval Office, she asked
her "good friend" Julie Hiatt Steele to tell Newsweek's Michael Isikoff that she (Willey) had told her (Steele)
about the incident and how upset she was.

Julie didn't want to do the interview because the story wasn't true, but agreed to help Willey out, providing the
interview was "off the record." Isikoff changed the rules and went with Steele's confirmation of Willey's story.
When word got back to Steele, she recanted, explaining to Isikoff that she'd lied as a favor to Willey and she
wanted no further role in this mess.

Isikoff ignored her and went with the original story. Steele went on Larry King and denied everything. That's when
Kenneth Starr got involved. He hauled Steele before a grand jury to indict her for lying to Larry King.
I'm not making that part up. She was threatened with being charged with obstruction of  justice for not agreeing
to lie about Willey's story.

Then Starr started playing hardball. He threatened her with jail time (40 years by her account). He had his agents
look into the procedures surrounding the adoption of her little boy, threatening to take him away from her.
Her legal bills drove her to bankruptcy and her fundraising efforts yielded a net loss.

In a story filled with corrupt politicians and their lecherous hangers on, Steele was the one innocent bystander swept up
in tide of scandal mongering. I feel for her, I really do. People talk about how much money washes around Washington.
These political muckety-mucks can lose perspective by spending so much time with sycophants and lobbyists.

So when an outsider gets pulled into the pit (as Julie refers to it) the financial results can be devastating.
Julie is writing a book.
I intend to buy it and read it.
 

Mike Reed
http://mike.reed.org/archives/journal/July01/072401.html