Edwin in Wonderland

Just as we had begun to think there was nothing more that Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III could do to outrage the nation in his final days in public office, he has produced another howler.

In a speech at the National Press Club, Meese attacked two of his former aides, saying that if they had conducted a “competent and thorough” inquiry of his conduct there would have been no reason to turn the case over to independent counsel James C. McKay. Pressed for details of the aides’ supposed incompetence, Meese said that “no one had talked to me” before referring the matter to the special court that appointed McKay.

The problem is that, as so often has been the case with Meese, he doesn’t seem to know what he’s talking about. A host of Justice Department officials say that former Assistant Atty. Gen. William F. Weld, one of the aides whom Meese attacked, did in fact meet with the attorney general on April 16, 1987, to urge that he answer questions about his connections with Wedtech Corp. and his long-time friend, E. Robert Wallach. The next day, according to the Justice Department’s own records, two FBI agents questioned Meese.

Furthermore, on Tuesday, former Deputy Atty. Gen. Arnold I. Burns, the second aide, produced for the Senate Judiciary Committee a letter that seemed to contradict Meese’s remarks to the National Press Club. The letter, written by the attorney general’s own lawyers, urged Burns to submit all matters concerning Meese to a court-appointed independent counsel; the letter, dated May 11, 1987, arrived the very day Burns had to decide what to do about the Meese probe. So, if Meese and his attorneys believed 14 months ago that it was correct to appoint an independent counsel, why are they complaining now?

The answer may be, as Burns told the Judiciary Committee, that Meese lives in an “Alice in Wonderland world, a world of illusion . . . a world in which up was down and down was up.” Meese is so detached from reality, so incapable of admitting his own errors of judgment and acts of impropriety, that Burns said not even a shot of sodium pentathol, the so-called truth serum, could make him face up to the truth.

The truth is that Meese, by trading favors with Wallach, disgraced his office and demoralized the Justice Department. Whether he also violated the federal law that prohibits the acceptance of gratuities is a matter on which experienced lawyers clearly disagree: McKay, after a 14-month investigation, decided that there was no case; Weld, the former head of the criminal division and a more aggressive prosecutor, said that there was enough evidence to send Meese to jail and told President Reagan so after he and Burns resigned in protest.

What is clear to us is that Meese violated the ethical guidelines requiring officials to avoid acts that give even the appearance of impropriety, and he deserves to be censured. What we can’t figure out is why Meese, who announced his resignation on July 5, continues to occupy his office at the Justice Department. He ought to clean out his desk and leave now, sparing the rest of us further adventures in wonderland.