Bork Inquiry Angers County Legal Aid Chief : Director Is ‘Outraged’ at Questions Meant to Ferret Out Illegal Lobbying Against Nominee

An unusual congressional investigation into alleged lobbying by legal aid agencies in Washington and Detroit has sparked a bitter local controversy.

The inquiry focuses on allegations that some agencies serving the poor--sometimes a target of President Reagan’s budget ax--illegally lobbied last fall against Robert H. Bork, his nominee to the Supreme Court.

On Wednesday, officials of the Legal Aid Society of Orange County entered the fray.

Executive Director Robert Cohen said he will refuse to respond to questions which he considers too broad and which intrude on the rights of his staff of 21 paid attorneys and 250 volunteers.

The questions were posed in a letter of inquiry from officials of the Legal Services Corp., the primary source of funding for legal aid to poorer Americans. The corporation, which gave the Orange County Legal Aid Society more than $2 million of its $3-million budget, is conducting the investigation at the request of the General Accounting Office.

No officers, staff or directors acting as employees of the Orange County agency lobbied for or against the nomination of Bork, Cohen said. Several questions which ask directly about work-related political activity will be answered in the negative, he added.

With narrow exceptions, federal law prohibits local legal aid agencies which receive federal funds from engaging in political activity, partisan or nonpartisan.

The inquiry is nationwide, with letters sent to every group receiving money from the Legal Services Corp., according to Timothy Shea, the agency’s general counsel.

But Cohen said he will refuse to identify, as demanded, what material he or his staff received “which requested that action be taken on Judge Bork’s nomination.” The question is designed to determine both if local agencies lobbied and if they were asked to do so, Shea said.

Cohen said he is “outraged” that investigators would demand to know “what I’ve read.” Responding to the questions would place his agency in the position of a government informant and would impinge on the rights of employees, he declared.

“When we signed on to work or volunteer for legal services, it didn’t give the government carte blanche to go through our mail,” Cohen said.

The GAO inquiry focuses on newsletters and alleged opposition to Bork by a Detroit legal aid group and two associations of mental health lawyers and legal aid attorneys based in Washington, Shea said.

All three groups have received federal funds. The board of directors of the Wayne County Neighborhood Legal Services Corp., which received $2.8 million this year from Legal Services, took a public position opposing Bork, Shea said. The two Washington groups allegedly mailed flyers soliciting opposition to Bork, he said.

Shea stressed that the inquiry is not intended to gather personal information, only that related to agency work.

“I would expect most of our programs will answer that they didn’t take any (political) action,” Shea said. “I expect our inquiry will be difficult for those who did become involved. If they have any reservations about whether we’re asking over-broad questions, all they have to do is say no, we didn’t do anything on program time.”

Neither Shea nor Edward Dowd, in charge of the mailing, have received any inquiry from the Orange County group. But Shea acknowledged that other agencies have contacted him expressing concern about the sweep of the questions.

No local agency has ever been stripped of corporation funding for violating the ban on political activity, Shea said. No decision has been made on the Detroit program.

The Legal Services Corp. has been a regular target of the Reagan Administration. Last year was the first time that the Administration recommended any funding for Legal Services, suggesting a $250-million annual appropriation, a cut of about $50 million.

Cohen, who received the questions Monday, said his group “routinely” receives requests for action, both proper and political. He said it is Legal Aid’s responsibility to make sure it complies with the law. But disclosing such requests would undermine the agency’s effectiveness, Cohen argued.

“We would lose the confidentiality of our client community very fast if we were in the business of informing on them,” Cohen said.

Cohen acknowledged that he was not a Bork supporter.

“But whether or not I opposed Bork, it certainly is something I never brought to the office. I’m outraged they would ask what materials I’ve read,” he said.