I just read several articles that said that it's a foregone
conclusion that after the 90 day review she will not name an IC for Gore because the criteria for meeting the Act are not met. The Strauss notes do not say a thing about what Gore knew, and until there is credible evidence that Gore knew that he was raising hard money, that's the way Reno is going to leave it. On top of that Reno has taken a sensible view that there should be "aggravating" circumstances to justify prosecuting someone under an opaque, turn-of-the-century law, such as repeated violations, strong evidence of knowledge that the law was being broken.
That's not what I'm reading...
(from the Oakland Tribune)
Gore on 'slippery slope' in probe of alleged lies
Furor brews over 'hard,' 'soft' money
Monday, August 31, 1998
By Roberto Suro
WASHINGTON -- It has been almost a year since Vice President Gore first faced a Justice Department investigation into fund-raising phone calls he made from his White House office.
But a few months after questions were raised, his troubles seemed to pass; by last December, Attorney General Janet Reno had decided against seeking an independent counsel to investigate the matter.
Now, Gore is the target of another investigation, formally announced by Reno last week. And this time, his legal problems may be much more serious, according to officials familiar with the case.
The initial probe involved questions about whether Gore had violated 19th century election laws prohibiting campaign solicitations on government property. This time investigators are looking at a much starker question: Did Gore lie to protect himself during that inquiry? When the matter first surfaced last fall, Gore's defenders argued that it would be ridiculous to go after a sitting vice president for violating a rarely invoked law laden with gray areas. After all, his allies insisted, no one would have questioned the legality of the calls if he had made them at a phone booth instead of his office.
Now, the issue is whether he intentionally made a false statement to federal investigators, a matter that legal experts say is a potentially straightforward felony.
Aside from the relative simplicity and seriousness of the allegations against Gore, legal experts say the vice president is in greater peril now than he was last year because of the way the independent counsel law specifically limits what matters Reno can consider in deciding whether to exonerate the vice president or press forward with a special prosecutor.
During the stage the current probe of Gore is in -- a 90-day preliminary investigation -- the law sets an especially high standard for judging a target's state of mind, requiring "clear and convincing evidence" that the person lacked criminal intent. In other words, when a top official is accused of making a false statement, an attorney general must seek an independent counsel unless there is proof that the official had no way of knowing the statement was false.
"No matter whether this is a good case or not, Gore is now on a slippery slope," a senior Justice Department official said.
Last year, Gore readily admitted making fund-raising telephone calls from his White House office but steadfastly insisted he had no reason to believe the calls were improper. When Reno first dealt with the issue in April 1997, she said the prohibition against fund-raising on federal property applied only to "hard money," the strictly regulated funds that are used to support individual political campaigns. Reno said Gore's calls were legal because the contributions went to "soft-money" accounts, the relatively unregulated funds that political parties use for campaign activities such as advertising or voter registration drives.
Then, on Sept. 3, 1997, The Washington Post published a report that some of the funds from the Gore calls had gone to hard-money accounts and within hours Reno ordered an investigation. Three months later, when Reno cleared Gore, the attorney general emphasized his own statements that he simply did not know that officials at the Democratic National Committee were routinely dividing up large campaign contributions between hard- and soft-money accounts, regardless of how the funds had been solicited.
In clearing Gore then, Reno stated, "there is no evidence that the vice president knew of the DNC practice of reallocating a portion of large contributions to hard-money accounts. Nor is there any reason to believe that further investigation would uncover such evidence."
But exactly that kind of potential evidence appeared unexpectedly this summer. In late July, Gore's office handed the Justice Department a DNC memo prepared for a fund-raising strategy session on Nov. 21, 1995, attended by Gore, President Clinton and a handful of top political aides.
The paper contained handwritten notations scribbled by Gore's former deputy chief of staff, David Strauss, that suggested that a decision to finance a Democratic Party media campaign with both soft money and fully regulated hard money was discussed at the meeting.
Although the notation suggests that Gore could have known that money he solicited from the White House went into hard money accounts, Justice Department officials at this point are not interested in reinvestigating the phone calls. In part, this reflects the fact that Reno shot down last year's investigation with so many legal
arguments that it would be difficult to reopen.
However, Gore's statements to investigators about his knowledge of DNC fund-raising plans are another matter. In other words, it is no longer the initial act that is in question, only whether there was an attempt to cover it up.
The Strauss notes indicate that Gore might well have known that part of the funding for the media campaign came from hard money accounts. During the past month, investigators have conducted interviews with DNC and White House officials involved in media campaign that also suggest Gore could have known that both hard and soft money was being used to pay for the television ads, according to Justice Department officials. As the investigation proceeds to the next stage, officials are going back over everything that might shed light on what Gore knew and when he knew it. |
