The latest item of evidence to the contrary turned up in a dispatch Sunday by the Washington Post's Thomas Edsall. That article noted a curious reference to Olson in "Crossfire," a memoir published two years ago by former Arkansas state trooper L.D. Brown. It recounts at some length his dealings with the American Spectator between 1994 and 1997.

Salon readers may recall that Brown was the trooper who gained some notoriety for accusing Bill Clinton of complicity in cocaine smuggling at a rural airport in Mena, Ark. That tall tale enthralled Tyrrell, and earned Brown about $10,000 in Arkansas Project payments plus several trips to Washington and dinners at Tyrrell's house.

The ex-trooper was also quoted extensively in Tyrrell's own far-fetched version of the Mena affair, which was featured in the Spectator's August 1995 issue. Plesczynski's 1997 memo refers disparagingly to Tyrrell's 1995 Mena story as "the Arkansas Project's last hurrah."

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According to Brown's memoir, he was introduced to Olson by Henderson, who also brought Hale to Olson as a client -- and who is identified in "Crossfire" as "a board member of the American Spectator and liaison to the magazine for Richard Mellon Scaife." (The date of the meeting isn't clear, but it certainly preceded the "shutdown" of the Arkansas Project by the Spectator board.)

Having left the state police, Brown needed advice about whether he should take a job in England, which he suspected might be connected somehow with the Clinton apparatus.

On Page 202 of "Crossfire," he writes: "Henderson offered to have Olsen (sic) talk with me and give me advice on whether or not to take the job. I traveled to Washington and met with Henderson and Olsen at Ted's office. I laid out the extensive story as Ted listened with interest. Ted is an exceptional lawyer and I trusted his advice explicitly (sic). It was with this opinion that I took what he said to heart."

And so on -- the point being that this little anecdote, if true, indicates yet another contact between Olson and Henderson, and yet another set of connections between the conservative lawyer and the Arkansas Project.

Perhaps L.D. Brown should be added to the Senate Judiciary Committee's witness list so that he can explain his acquaintance with the man who would be solicitor general.

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