New York Times lead editorial:
July 16, 1998
The Finance Fracas: Freeh v. Reno
Louis Freeh is a lawyer and former Federal judge who has spent his
life interpreting and enforcing the law. As Director of the Federal
Bureau of Investigation, he leads the agents investigating White House
fund-raising during 1996 and the possibility that the Chinese Government
funneled money to the Democrats in an effort to influence the election and
American policy. Now we have learned in an important public forum, the
Senate Judiciary Committee, that Mr. Freeh told Ms. Reno last December
that she was flatly misreading the Independent Counsel Act when she
refused to acknowledge her conflict of interest and appoint a special
prosecutor to investigate the fund-raising of her boss, President Clinton.
Hurray for Louis Freeh! Yesterday Senator Fred Thompson read into the
record a memo in which Mr. Freeh told Ms. Reno "it is difficult to imagine
a more compelling situation for appointing an independent counsel."
Senator Orrin Hatch, who normally treats Ms. Reno with deference, took
the trouble of explaining to her the obvious meaning of the discretionary
clause that requires an Attorney General to remove herself from a case
when her superiors may be involved in her department's investigations.
Ms. Reno got a little more rattled than usual. She was grumpy that the
American people got to learn what their F.B.I. Director thinks. But she
was, she made it clear, unswayed by everyone's silly insistence that this
section of the Federal code means what it says and that she ought to obey
it.
Look, this is getting exasperating. Ms. Reno keeps celebrating her
stubbornness as if it were some sort of national asset or a constitutional
principle that had legal standing. It is neither. It is a quirk of mind or
personality that has blinded her to the clear meaning of the statute requiring
attorneys general to recuse themselves when they are sunk to the axle in
conflict of interest. It is a quirk that is preventing Congress and the
American people from getting the benefit of landmark legislation aimed at
political corruption.
Moreover, that benefit is being denied at the moment when we need to
know the truth about a threat to American political principles -- the
possibility that an autocratic superpower with an interest in buying access
to the White House tried to sway the choosing of a President.
Mr. Clinton, the alleged beneficiary of Chinese money, has an obligation
here that transcends whatever trouble an investigation would cause him
and the core of advisers who planned and monitored Democratic
fund-raising. Some years ago, when Ms. Reno was locked in the
ceremony of her own recalcitrance, Mr. Clinton ordered her to appoint an
independent counsel on Whitewater for reasons of conflict of interest. This
is a more momentous matter, and Mr. Clinton is a lawyer too. It's time for
him to emulate Mr. Freeh's service by explaining to Ms. Reno the law's
requirements -- and the right of the American people to have the benefit of
a statute clearly written and duly passed by their representatives.
nytimes.com |
