New York Times Lead Editorial September 2, 1998
Another Itty Bitty Reno Step
By authorizing a narrowly defined investigation of whether Harold Ickes
committed perjury in Senate testimony about the 1996 election campaign,
Attorney General Janet Reno is trying to buy some time and relieve the intense
Congressional pressure for an unfettered inquiry into President Clinton's fund-raising.
The House and Senate Judiciary Committees, which will interview Ms. Reno today,
will not be satisfied with this latest baby step. But they may regard the Ickes inquiry as
a sign that Ms. Reno is beginning to yield to the righteous demands from Congress and
her own Justice Department that she appoint an independent counsel.
Ms. Reno's determination to block an unrestricted inquiry into the Clinton fund-raising
machine has been a disaster for the rule of law. Both the director of the Federal
Bureau of Investigation and the former chief prosecutor for campaign finance, Charles
La Bella, have told her she is defying the Independent Counsel Act by failing to step
aside in favor of a prosecutor who does not answer to Clinton. Her defense of
soft-money contributions and expenditures directed by Ickes and Clinton guts the
Federal Election Campaign Act.
In a final report before moving to another post, La Bella urged his boss to authorize
the comprehensive investigation by an independent prosecutor. Today the Judiciary
Committees will continue their efforts to see the La Bella report and to prod Ms. Reno
into action. She is certain to resist because that report will amount to a scorching
indictment of her refusal for 18 months to let Federal law enforcement answer
fundamental questions about the integrity of the electoral process.
Looking at a small aspect of Ickes's testimony about an alleged favor to the teamsters
or at the question of whether Vice President Gore lied about his telephone solicitations
will not provide those answers. Only a broad examination of illegal foreign
contributions, alleged Chinese Government meddling in the election and the possible
peddling of White House favors in return for soft-money contributions can restore
public confidence and politicians' respect for campaign laws.
The 90-day preliminary inquiries into Ickes and Gore could eventually lead to the
appointment of a special counsel by the panel of Federal judges that administers the
Independent Counsel Act. But the La Bella report is said to argue that there is ample
evidence for a broader, faster inquiry. So far, Senator Orrin Hatch and Representative
Henry Hyde, chairmen of the two judiciary committees, have treated Ms. Reno with
courtesy and more patience than she has earned. Now that she has inched two small
steps in the right direction, it is time for them to persuade her to quit sitting on the La
Bella report and on the Federal investigators who can do the job she is shirking.
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