U.S., Citing No Criminal Intent, Clears Envoy of Funds Misuse

Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III has decided not to seek an independent counsel to investigate allegations involving U.S. Ambassador to Switzerland Faith Ryan Whittlesey, the Justice Department disclosed Friday.

In a report filed with a special three-judge panel, Meese, citing the lack of necessary criminal intent, said there are no “reasonable grounds” to think that further investigation would produce “a viable criminal case” in connection with an $80,000 embassy fund that Whittlesey raised from private donors.

Sources said the principal investigator in the case, in the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section, had recommended that an independent counsel be named. The investigator argued that an outside prosecutor should examine whether Whittlesey had improperly assisted major donors to the fund, sources said.

The Justice Department report in effect clears Whittlesey of wrongdoing and ends the investigation, officials said.

Meese’s report said: “There is no direct evidence that a donation was made to Ambassador Whittlesey’s gift fund in return for the performance of an official act.”

Meese also said that the allegations “occurred at a time of great personal stress for the ambassador and concern over perceived efforts to discredit her.”

Whittlesey’s attorney, Michael Horowitz, said that “her vindication is all the sweeter for having come at the end of the exhaustive process called for under the independent counsel statute. . . . She looks forward to continuing to serve the President in an important and sensitive job.”

Rep. Daniel A. Mica (D-Fla.), chairman of a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee whose staff interviewed Whittlesey for eight hours last week, said his inquiry appeared to indicate “poor judgment” by the ambassador but “no criminal intent.”

Meese declined to disqualify himself in the case. The attorney general was Whittlesey’s guest last year at a $385 embassy dinner party in Bern that the report said was improperly charged to both the gift fund and her official $45,000-per-year entertainment fund.

Despite “other possibly improper expenditures,” the report said, there was no evidence that Whittlesey was informed about State Department rules that require such funds to be spent primarily on citizens of the host country.

The Justice Department probe began in September after newspaper reports about Whittlesey’s gift fund, which she used largely to entertain visiting American conservatives, business leaders and Administration officials.