Justice Dept. Blasts Special Prosecutors

The Justice Department, blasting special prosecutors for spending too much, taking too long and abusing their authority, told Congress today that it is opposed to the independent counsel law and will recommend that the President veto any attempt to renew it.

The official word on the law, in a letter to Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) from Assistant Atty. Gen. John Bolton, for the first time expressed the department’s opposition to congressional renewal of provisions in the 1978 Ethics in Government Act under which special prosecutors are appointed.

“If this bill is enacted, we will have no choice but to recommend its disapproval by the President,” Bolton said in the 10-page letter that was a critique of a bill drawn up by Levin that would extend the current law.

“Recent developments have confirmed our constitutional concerns about the dangers inherent in the operation of the independent counsel statute and have deepened our own and the public’s misgivings about whether this law can in fact fulfill the expectations of its supporters in 1978,” Bolton said.

He also took several current independent counsel investigations to task for duration, cost and abuse of authority.

“Independent counsel investigations have been costing the department between $30,000 and $50,000 per month per investigation,” Bolton said. “This high rate of expenditure is attributable in part to the fact that independent counsel are generally drawn from the ranks of successful private practitioners, for whom fiscal austerity appears to be a relatively unfamiliar concept.”

Bolton singled out as costly special prosecutor Lawrence E. Walsh’s Iran- contra investigation that Bolton said spent more than $250,000 in March alone and has “four offices in three different cities.”