Thornburgh Denies He Hid Drug Report : At Confirmation Hearing, Panama Issue Comes Up

Attorney general nominee Richard L. Thornburgh denied at his confirmation hearing today that he was involved in withholding from Congress a 1975 report detailing alleged drug trafficking by Panamanian officials.

There was sharp questioning about the report by several Senate Judiciary Committee members at a generally friendly hearing in which the former Pennsylvania governor was widely praised as the choice to succeed Edwin Meese III.

A report in the Wall Street Journal said Thornburgh participated in withholding the Justice Department report while serving as chief of the department’s criminal division under President Gerald R. Ford. The department report was said to focus on narcotics trafficking by military authorities in Panama.

But the nominee denied involvement.

‘Not My Province’

“Any decision with respect to what would be forthcoming to Congress would be the decision of the attorney general,” who then was Edward Levi, Thornburgh said.

“I made no such decision. It was not my province to make that type of decision,” he said.

Several senators said they wanted to see the Justice Department report for themselves, and Thornburgh said he will try to obtain it for the panel unless the report contains information that cannot be disclosed, such as names of confidential sources.

Noting that the report reportedly detailed an assassination plot, Sen. Howell Heflin (D-Ala.) asked Thornburgh if he shouldn’t have a better recollection of the 1975 events “if there was a plot to assassinate an official in a foreign government.”

‘Plethora’ of Reports

Thornburgh said the department at the time was investigating “a plethora” of reports of U.S. intelligence agency plots after a report on such activities by then Vice President Nelson Rockefeller.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) asked Thornburgh about several reports that he “gave no-bid contracts to political cronies” while Pennsylvania’s governor. Thornburgh denied the allegation.

The former governor specifically rejected any connection between the state’s giving Merrill Lynch business to sell Pennsylvania Turnpike bonds, and Thornburgh’s election the following year to the Merrill Lynch board.

Thornburgh said the war on drugs will be his top priority if he is confirmed by the Senate as attorney general.

“Clearly, in this nation today, law enforcement officials have to regard the scourge of narcotics and dangerous drugs as public enemy No. 1,” he said.”