August 20, 1998
The Other Scandals
President Clinton's remaining defenders assert his problems
arise from a sexual vendetta, but meanwhile a host of other scandals has
been pushed off the front pages. Take, for example, the ongoing saga of the
Teamsters Union: its illegal election, its convicted money-launderers, and its
connections with AFL-CIO headquarters and the Clinton-Gore campaign.
The Teamsters mess would presumably be covered
if Janet Reno actually did appoint an independent
counsel on the broader Clinton-Gore campaign
funds violations, but she has not done so. She is
again reconsidering, under pressure of a possible
contempt of Congress citation, and the latest
speculation is that she is contemplating that an
independent counsel look at the fundraising activity
of former deputy White House chief of staff Harold
Ickes. Now, Mr. Ickes isn't a covered person
under the independent counsel act, and FBI director
Louis Freeh has just told Congress that the
President and Vice President are under active
investigation.
Still, in a House deposition Dick Morris reported that Mr. Ickes chaired a
meeting in which union officials proposed to coordinate their campaign
advertising with the Democratic Party's, a violation of the campaign-finance
act. And there are also concerns that Mr. Ickes may have committed
perjury in his testimony about the solicitation of donations and White House
efforts to help the Teamsters.
In 1996 taxpayers forked over some $20 million to supervise a 1996
Teamsters election; the union has been under court supervision since a 1989
consent decree to cleanse it of organized crime influence. First elected
Teamster President as a "reform" candidate, Ron Carey was only narrowly
re-elected in 1996, after which he launched the headline-grabbing strike
against the United Parcel Service. But it turned out his campaign had
embezzled $1.5 million from the union's treasury, routing it through the
"public interest" group Citizens Action and back into the Carey campaign
coffers. The election was set aside, and Mr. Carey was not only barred
from running he was ousted from the union. Following the notion that
possession is nine-tenths of an argument, however, his deputies continue to
run Teamster headquarters.
There they are obstructing a new election. U.S. District Judge David
Edelstein, who oversees the Teamsters, was so frustrated by the union's
refusal to spend $4 million for printing ballots and other election expenses
that he ordered the entire executive board to appear in his New York
courtroom to explain themselves. He withdrew the order this week, but the
stalemate continues and a postponement of the rerun election is now certain.
In addition Michael Cherkasky, the court-appointed elections officer, has
just found that by retaliating against officers of a rival campaign, acting
Teamsters President Tom Sever has committed "very serious" violations of
election rules.
Meanwhile, Mary Jo White, the ambitious U.S. Attorney in Manhattan,
continues to investigate criminal violations relating to the election. A year
ago she secured several guilty pleas to embezzlement and conspiracy from
Carey aides. The trail clearly points higher into AFL-CIO ranks. Martin
Davis, a Carey consultant who entered a guilty plea, claims that Richard
Trumka, the secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO, agreed to help launder
the Teamster-owned funds through Citizen Action and into the Carey
campaign. Mr. Trumka has twice invoked the Fifth Amendment on this
issue, but nonetheless remains as number two to AFL-CIO chief John
Sweeney. Mr. Sweeney has ruled that the ban against holding union office
while invoking the Fifth doesn't count.
Kenneth Conboy, the former federal judge who ousted Mr. Carey,
revealed illegal efforts on behalf of Mr. Carey by officials of other unions
and the Democratic National Committee. Gerald McEntee, the president of
the AFSCME public employees union, has acknowledged soliciting an
illegal $20,000 contribution from an AFSCME vendor and then channeling
the money to the Carey campaign. Judge Conboy also found that Mr.
Carey personally phoned Clinton-Gore '96 finance director Terry McAuliffe
to thank him for raising what Mr. Conboy calls improper campaign funds.
When Ms. White got the first guilty pleas a year ago, her office asked
Congressional investigators to avoid interfering with her criminal
investigation. With the exception of one recent plea bargain by a minor
Carey fundraiser, not much has happened since. Congressional committees
are losing patience. "The investigation is very strange and very slow," says
Rep. Pete Hoekstra. Unless further indictments are forthcoming shortly, the
effect of Justice's prosecutions will be to bury the Trumka matter and other
embarrassments about Labor's political efforts until after the fall elections.
It is little wonder that Congress is losing patience with Mr. Clinton's Justice
Department. Without the distraction of sexual entertainments and angry
Presidential speeches, the Teamsters saga would look like an ongoing
scandal of major dimensions.
interactive.wsj.com |
