Meese in Justice Dept. Seen as an ‘Alice in Wonderland’

The Justice Department’s former top prosecutor laid out publicly for the first time Tuesday the criminal case that he believed should have been brought against Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III for accepting gratuities from E. Robert Wallach allegedly in return for official actions he took that benefited his longtime friend.

“There were simply too many official acts performed by Mr. Meese to benefit Mr. Wallach and too many things of value conferred by Mr. Wallach on Mr. Meese” for a prosecutor to conclude that it was all done “in the name of friendship,” former Assistant Atty. Gen. William F. Weld told the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Former Deputy Atty. Gen. Arnold I. Burns, who resigned with Weld on March 29 to protest Meese’s mounting legal problems, told the Senate panel that Meese lives at the Justice Department in “an Alice in Wonderland world . . . of illusion.”

“If Mr. Meese were given a shot of sodium pentothal,” Burns said, referring to the chemical commonly known as truth serum, he would “cling to the thought that he committed no crime . . . no wrong . . . no act of impropriety . . . no ethical violation . . . no error of good taste or bad taste, that he comported himself properly (and) if he had it to do over again, he would comport himself in the same way.”

Burns and Weld, responding to committee members’ questions, provided details of the meeting they held with President Reagan and Vice President George Bush on April 20 to explain why they had resigned three weeks earlier.

Weld said the session at the White House was “fairly grim.” Burns said Reagan “seemed distressed” and Bush was “florid, very upset.”

Weld, in outlining the criminal case he would have brought, said during his testimony that he was relying on the same notes he had made on an envelope for his White House presentation.

In detailing the illegal gratuity charges he would have sought against the attorney general, Weld listed what he called 63 “facts,” ranging from Wallach’s advertisement of his close relationship with Meese from 1981 to 1987 to his arrangement for Meese to receive a $260,000 mortgage loan.

And he cited Meese’s help for the Wedtech Corp. and his actions involving a proposed Iraqi oil pipeline, matters in which Wallach had interests.

Job for Wife Cited

Weld said also that Wallach had arranged a $40,000-a-year job for the attorney general’s wife, Ursula, with the Multiple Sclerosis Society in December, 1985, with Meese’s knowledge. Starting around that time, Weld said, Meese was promoting Wallach as a candidate for alternate delegate to the Human Rights Commission, a position that holds ambassadorial rank.

Earlier this month, Meese said he would resign by early August, contending that a 14-month investigation by independent counsel James C. McKay had “completely vindicated” him.

Richard Thornburgh, who has been named to succeed Meese, held his first meeting with top Justice Department officials Tuesday and is expected to be swiftly confirmed at a hearing set for Aug. 5.

Burns and Weld had asked that their testimony be delayed until after McKay’s report, which was issued last week. Weld explained why he and McKay had differed over a possible Meese indictment, with McKay concluding that there was no substantial evidence that Meese had acted to benefit Wallach for anything other than friendship.

Federal Violations Seen

McKay, although finding no evidence to prosecute Meese for accepting illegal gratuities, did conclude that he had probably violated federal conflict-of-interest and tax laws four times while serving as attorney general. But McKay cited several factors for deciding against prosecuting Meese on those grounds.

Weld said his difference with McKay turned on their view of Meese’s state of mind, which would be “critical” to any prosecution. He said he regarded himself as on “the aggressive end” of the spectrum of prosecutors on the state-of-mind question, but not “the crazy end.”

Weld said his view that Meese should be prosecuted related “only to Mr. Meese’s relationship with Mr. Wallach and not to his personal taxes or Iran-Contra or conflict of interest or the other allegations that have been raised against Mr. Meese over the course of the past year and a half.”

“I simply felt that, in trying to do favors for his friend, Mr. Meese was drawn in over his head and over the line of what the law allows,” Weld said.

Doesn’t Think Meese Is Venal

Although saying that he does not believe Meese to be “venal,” Weld said that, if the facts of the case had been presented to him as the U.S. attorney in Boston--the job he held before coming to Washington--and the official involved had been deputy regional inspector of the Housing and Urban Development Department, “I would have approved the case for prosecution.”

Weld said he would have “taken a hike” from the Justice Department regardless of whether he believed that Meese’s conduct had violated the gratuity statute.

“I had concluded that Mr. Meese’s conduct over the years had given the appearance of partiality to Mr. Wallach and constituted the use of Mr. Meese’s public office for Mr. Wallach’s private gain,” Weld said.

White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater, asked Tuesday about the meeting between the President and the two resigning Justice Department officials, said Reagan “simply did not believe their charges and did not give them merit.”

Talked With Fried

Weld disclosed that he had notified Solicitor General Charles Fried 24 hours before resigning of his intention and that the two of them had discussed the question of Fried’s possible departure “at some length.”

“Why didn’t you just plain resign, instead of trying to organize a cabal?” Sen. Gordon J. Humphrey (R-N. H.) asked.

Weld said he and Burns had tried to steer a “calibrated middle course” between announcing their departure on the stairs of the Justice Department in a blast at Meese and sneaking out of the department at midnight.