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Politics : Bill Clinton Scandal - SANITY CHECK -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: cody andre who wrote (67172)	10/29/2000 11:32:44 AM
From: Tom Clarke	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 67261

Bush election win could bring investigations of Clinton, Gore By MARK HELM Copyright 2000 Hearst Newspapers WASHINGTON -- A victory for George W. Bush on Nov. 7 could spell more legal trouble for President Clinton because a new attorney general would take a fresh look at ongoing Justice Department investigations into possible campaign finance violations. Attorney General Janet Reno has resisted calls by many Republicans and some Democrats to ask for independent counsels to look into possible campaign fund-raising violations by Clinton, Vice President Al Gore and other high administration officials. In deciding not to seek outside investigations in some cases, Reno rejected the advice of her department's lead campaign finance investigator, Charles LaBella, and FBI Director Louis Freeh. Both men concluded that there was enough evidence of possible wrongdoing by top administration officials to warrant taking the investigation away from the Justice Department and handing it to an independent counsel. Although the independent counsel statute expired in June, Reno still has the option of turning over any investigation where possible conflicts of interest could arise to a special prosecutor outside the Justice Department. An attorney general in a Republican administration would likely take a new look at these cases. If Gore wins, it seems unlikely that Reno's successor would reverse her decisions. "A lot of people have been unhappy about the way these investigations have been handled," said former independent counsel Joseph DiGenova, a Republican. "The new attorney general will have to look at them, and some decisions will need to be made about where they go." Michael Uhlmann, a former Justice Department prosecutor and policy adviser to the Reagan and Bush administrations, said: "The cloud hanging over these investigations needs to cleared up once and for all. People need to know if this was just a simple disagreement between Reno and others or whether it was something more." The department's overall campaign finance investigation has focused on irregularities by the 1996 Clinton-Gore campaign and the Democratic Party -- particularly the funneling of foreign contributions to the Democratic National Committee. Specific investigations into top administration officials include: · A probe into whether the president tried to evade federal campaign spending limits in his re-election campaign through the use of "issue advocacy" advertisements paid by the Democratic National Committee. · A probe into whether Gore lied to federal investigators about fund-raising phone calls he made from the White House and whether he knew campaign funds were being raised at a Buddhist temple in Hacienda Heights, Calif. · A probe into whether then-White House aide Harold Ickes committed perjury before a Senate committee when he testified about a possible connection between union contributions and the White House's involvement in settling a Teamsters strike. chron.com