Whither Justice?
Attorney General Janet Reno deserves tough questioning
when she appears today before the Senate Judiciary Committee. The
biggest question is the same one people have always asked about her
tenure: Is Janet Reno's Justice Department part of the problem or part of
the solution?
The problem is not primarily culpability; it is accountability. Sufficient,
serious questions have been raised about the manner in which this White
House raised money for the last Presidential campaign that the public at
least deserves some answers. It can use the voting booth this fall and in
2000 to vote thumbs up or down on those answers. But instead of
providing a solution to a problem of public trust, Ms. Reno's Justice
Department continues to perform in a manner which ensures that these
questions will drift away like so many soap bubbles.
Yesterday, as an example, her department hoisted what surely appears to
be another boulder onto the stonewall around the Starr investigation. Justice
announced that it would appeal to the full U.S. Court of Appeals the recent
order by a three-judge panel that Secret Service officials testify in the
independent counsel's criminal probe of the Lewinsky affair.
The Justice Department's attempt to create an entirely novel "protective
function" privilege on President Clinton's behalf has now been rejected
twice by the courts. Though the appeals panel noted the idea was not
entirely unreasonable, it concluded that the investigatory needs of this case
outweighed any such privilege. Translation: There's enough here to merit
getting to the bottom of it.
Relatedly, a federal appeals court ruling is imminent on yet another White
House privilege claim--that of Clinton counselor Bruce Lindsey that his
conversations with the President are protected by attorney-client privilege
and therefore he may refuse to answer questions before the Starr grand
jury. Translation: Because Bruce Lindsey has a law license, anything he and
Bill Clinton ever talk about is "privileged." Ergo, the Clinton-Lindsey
partnership is accountable to no authority under U.S. law.
As a consequence, these matters will most likely wander the long and
winding road toward a final reckoning with the Supreme Court sometime
around October. Talk show hosts will conclude that the American people
are tired of it all. Translation: Stonewalling works.
It might be truer to say that people are not so much tired as they are
discouraged. They become discouraged, for example, when they read a
story on the New York Times front page yesterday that the Justice
Department's campaign finance task force is on a slow boat to oblivion.
Some 21 months after allegations of significant improprieties surfaced,
Times' reporters Don Van Natta and David Johnston write, "law
enforcement officials concede they have no big cases to show for their effort
and express doubts that they will obtain evidence to warrant prosecution of
senior White House or Democratic Party officials." Justice officials doubt
they will ever get answers to "the heart of the inquiry: whether there was a
plot by the Chinese military behind contributions to the Democratic Party."
Earlier this year, Senator Fred Thompson's investigating committee voted
out a report identifying six campaign finance figures--senior DNC operative
John Huang, Indonesian tycoons James and Mochtar Riady, fund-raisers
Charlie Trie and Maria Hsia, and businessman Ted Sioeng--as having ties
to the Communist regime in China. The principals have denied the
accusations, and Democrats on the Thompson Committee contended the
evidence was inconclusive.
With the exception of the glad-handing former Little Rock restaurateur
Charlie Trie, no one who could remotely be termed a central figure has
been indicted. The others rounded up by the Justice task force are all small
fry, as reflected in Monday's indictment of Thai businesswoman Pauline
Kanchanalak for making more than $600,000 in illegal donations to
Democratic Party entities from 1992 through 1996. Ms. Kanchanalak lit out
for Thailand a long time ago, destroying records on the way out.
Ms. Reno's appearance before the Judiciary Committee should serve as a
reminder that Monica Lewinsky is not Mr. Clinton's only problem. The
heart of the campaign finance scandal, as we have noted before, rests in the
Oval Office, not in Beijing. The President himself launched John Huang's
career as a senior DNC fund-raising emissary at a September 13, 1995,
meeting that included Mr. Huang, James Riady of Indonesia, Arkansas
operator and Asia-traveling middleman Joseph Giroir, and Bruce Lindsey,
who as we know is bound by attorney-client privilege.
Indeed, the unifying theme of all Mr. Clinton's problems--from the
Whitewater investigation to the present day--is one of obstructive intent.
Don't ask the Clinton team about anything because they don't have to
tell--and never will. For the record, the Judiciary Committee should make
this Administration's Attorney General explain one more time why her
Justice Department is the solution to the needs of public accountability.
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