..The Department of Justice gets a bad rap in all this. Their work has been exemplary and even-handed in virtually all of their involvement with the OIC and the Clintons, yet Reno is burned in effigy by know-nothing Republicans who take out their mounting frustration on anything that moves.
Thanks for that absolute nonsense from a fully committed know-nothing. The New York Times has detailed Reno's obfuscation repeatedly and have stated that she runs the department as if she were Clinton's personal attorney. Most have come to the conclusion that her justice department is the easily the most politicized in recent history and that Reno is either stupid or corrupt. You can now add the San Jose Mercury to the list of major papers that have decided to expose Reno:
Reno fails to see bones of a scandal
A prosecutor should look into Gore's case
EVIDENCE that Democrats violated campaign finance laws in the 1996
presidential election keeps poking up from a shallow grave, gathering into a
pile of bones at the feet of Attorney General Janet Reno.
''It's a skeleton; call in the coroner,'' urge many of those around her in the
Department of Justice. ''No,'' says Reno, grinding the bones into exceedingly
fine powder: ''It's only calcium.''
Last week, the ever-inscrutable Reno ordered yet another lab test: a 90-day
inquiry into whether Vice President Al Gore lied to Justice Department
officials about fundraising calls he made. Once again, she is delving into
minutiae, instead of recognizing that the whole matter of Democratic
fundraising should be turned over to an independent prosecutor. Once again,
she is focusing on lesser infractions instead of recognizing the bigger patterns
of scandal.
Last year, Reno concluded that an independent counsel wasn't required for
the fundraising controversy, since it appeared Gore broke no campaign laws
when he hit up donors by phone from the White House. Since then, evidence
has surfaced that contradicted Gore's testimony.
The immediate issue pertains to a 19th century law, written before the
telephone's invention, that prohibits officials from soliciting campaign funds on
federal property. Gore admits he made calls from the White House but says
they were exclusively for ''soft money'' for the Democratic Party, a kind of
fundraising that's not covered by campaign laws. But the latest evidence, a
memo from a meeting Gore attended, indicates that a third of the money was
to go directly to candidates' campaigns -- and so would fall under the law.
The infraction that Gore may have committed would be petty compared with
the allegations that Democratic fundraisers in 1996 solicited millions of dollars
of illegal donations from foreigners and then laundered the money to make the
contributions look legal.
But the timing, amid President Clinton's troubles, is terrible for Gore, who has
benefited from his image of Mr. Pure, the anti-Bill. And the implication that he
may have lied in a coverup would be more damning than the violation itself.
That was the lesson of Watergate, and it appears to be the public's view of
Clinton's sex scandal.
Reno, who prides herself on her own independence and probity, may not be
acting to protect Gore. And she may not be purposely delaying her decision
until after the November elections, as some Republicans have charged.
But she is being obtuse about her responsibility under the special counsel law.
She is being narrow in its possible application. And, at the threat of a
contempt of Congress citation, she is refusing to disclose memos from FBI
Director Louis Freeh and from Charles LaBella, the former head of her own
campaign finance task force, urging an independent counsel to look into a
range of fundraising charges.
The law is clear: There's a conflict of interest when the attorney general has to
investigate the president who appointed her. If there are serious allegations of
wrongdoing against the president or high officials in the Executive Branch, an
independent counsel should be named.
Reno has applied the special prosecutor law liberally in her tenure -- so much
that we are reluctant to see it used again. But allegations of serious fundraising
violations, of which Gore's phone calls are a minute part, are credible and
compelling.
Reno should reconsider the advice she has been given and invoke the law one
more time.
mercurycenter.com
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