Meese Vows to Aid Senate Probe in Presser Case

Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III pledged full cooperation Thursday with a Senate investigation into the Justice Department’s handling of its abortive case against Teamsters President Jackie Presser.

Meese told reporters at a news conference, “I don’t know what’s been asked for” by a Senate panel, explaining that he has left such details to subordinates. But he declared: “The department is cooperating fully with the Senate.”

Inquiry Launched

The Senate Governmental Affairs permanent investigations subcommittee has begun an inquiry into why the Reagan Administration spent 32 months investigating Presser’s alleged role in a payroll-padding scheme, only to abandon the case in July. Presser has been President Reagan’s lone political supporter among major labor leaders.

In a letter to Meese last month, the panel requested briefings by Justice Department officials on the case, as well as all files and correspondence relating to the matter.

Meese reiterated that he had not taken part in the decision to drop the case, saying the investigation was begun by his predecessor, former Atty. Gen. William French Smith. He added: “I wanted to avoid any possible implication of political interference.”

Charles Osolin, a subcommittee spokesman, said: “We welcome the attorney general’s remarks. Our investigation is proceeding. We look forward to the Justice Department’s cooperation.”

Meese declined to discuss any details of the Presser case. However, sources close to the case have said that the labor chief’s past role as an informant for the FBI raised a legal impediment to adoption of a federal prosecutor’s recommendation that he be indicted on payroll-padding charges involving his hometown union, Cleveland Local 507.

At the news conference, Meese also hailed this week’s national marijuana eradication drive as successful, saying that 342,635 plants have been destroyed and 175 persons arrested.

On Monday, he announced that 2,000 federal, state and local law enforcement officers had launched a series of raids in all 50 states to try to eliminate domestic cultivation of marijuana at hundreds of known sites.

Crop Sites Reported

“As citizens see that we’re serious about our marijuana crackdown,” Meese said, “they are reporting more locations of these crops to law enforcement officials.”

On a related matter, he said the department’s National Institute of Justice soon would sponsor a series of 30-second public service announcements over 400 television stations to dramatize the need for citizens to report murders, assaults and other violent crimes to police and to testify against criminal suspects.