Critics Cause Bush Cabinet Search to Stumble

President-elect George Bush’s search for Cabinet officers stumbled Wednesday as his expected choice for transportation secretary, Samuel K. Skinner, came under fire and conservatives continued to grumble about the virtually certain selection of Dr. Louis W. Sullivan as secretary of health and human services.

Skinner’s troubles surfaced when Sen. Howard M. Metzenbaum (D-Ohio) issued a press release that renewed conflict-of-interest charges involving his performance as U.S. attorney in Chicago in the mid-1970s.

In response, Skinner said that he had “conducted himself in accordance with Department of Justice guidelines” and that he looks forward to questions during his confirmation hearing.

Meanwhile, Sullivan, whom Bush has staunchly supported in the face of attacks by anti-abortion activists, submitted to a three-hour session with Bush aides and congressional conservatives. Sullivan won grudging support when he made what Rep. Vin Weber (R-Minn.) called “important commitments” to policy positions insisted on by anti-abortion groups.

Some Still Displeased

Bush aides also vowed to place several members of anti-abortion groups in key HHS positions under Sullivan, sources said. Nevertheless, many conservatives vowed to continue to battle Sullivan’s confirmation by the Senate.

“He has now been rehearsed on what he has to say, and he is now mouthing all the correct positions,” said one conservative close to the negotiations. “There’s enormous skepticism.” The twin skirmishes apparently ruled out Bush’s hope to complete the selection of his Cabinet by Christmas. But aides said that both of the prospective appointments appeared to remain on track.

The charges against Skinner, who now heads the Chicago Area Regional Transportation Administration, were first aired two years ago as part of an investigation that Metzenbaum was conducting into the safety of the popular artificial sweetener NutraSweet.

Documents reviewed by Metzenbaum’s aides raised questions about whether Skinner may have slowed a criminal investigation of NutraSweet’s manufacturer, G. D. Searle & Co., at the same time that he was preparing to join the company’s Chicago law firm, Sidley & Austin.

The documents contained no proof of any legal or ethical violations. But Metzenbaum, whose aides said Wednesday that their inquiry “went as far as we could go without subpoena power,” demanded a full FBI investigation of the questions involving Skinner.

Skinner’s supporters rallied behind him. “Skinner’s as honest as the day is long,” said Tyrone Fahner, a former Illinois attorney general and a former deputy to Skinner. “He wouldn’t take a dive for anyone or anything.”

The disputed events began in January, 1977, when the Food and Drug Administration formally asked Skinner’s office to launch a grand jury investigation into whether Searle, one of the nation’s largest drug manufacturers, fraudulently concealed test results indicating that NutraSweet could cause health problems. The FDA also asked for an investigation of similar allegations involving a Searle blood pressure medication.

The next month, Skinner met with lawyers from Sidley & Austin to discuss the case. But a few weeks later, after newly inaugurated President Jimmy Carter had made clear that Skinner would not be asked to remain in office, Skinner withdrew from participation in the case and revealed that he had “begun preliminary discussions with the law firm” about a job.

In his recusal memo, Skinner directed his assistants to continue looking into Searle but to allow his successor, Thomas Sullivan, to decide whether a grand jury investigation should be conducted.

Metzenbaum contended that Skinner’s decision to withdraw from the case and leave it to his successor effectively stalled the investigation for four months until Sullivan took office--a delay that he said brought the prosecutors close to the expiration of the statute of limitations on the NutraSweet case.

A grand jury eventually was convened, but only to investigate the allegations concerning the blood pressure drug. No prosecutions resulted.

Several of Skinner’s former deputies, noting that Skinner’s assistant promptly directed prosecutors to prepare the case for the grand jury, said that the investigation had not been delayed by Skinner’s actions.

Lame-Duck Actions

Defending Skinner’s request that the final decision be deferred to his successor, they pointed out that the incoming U.S. attorney was a Democratic appointee who might have been offended by lame-duck actions by the predominantly Republican office.

“He did the better thing, and he’s still getting hammered for it,” Fahner said.

The controversy over Skinner erupted days after Bush was prepared to name him as his choice for transportation secretary. But the announcement was delayed because Bush aides wanted to pair Skinner with at least one nonwhite appointee.

“They put Skinner off for days so that they could have someone else to put up on stage with him,” one transition aide said. “And now this.”

Meanwhile, Sullivan, in quest of the nomination as health secretary, went through an intense session over hamburgers at the Bush transition office with Robert Teeter and Craig Fuller, the co-directors of Bush’s transition staff, and three congressional leaders of the anti-abortion movement, Reps. Weber and Christopher H. Smith (R-N.J.) and Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah).

Sullivan, the dean of Atlanta’s Morehouse School of Medicine, “assured (us) that he is not hostile to our positions,” Weber said later.

Weber said that Sullivan, who would be the first black named to Bush’s Cabinet, told the group that he not only is personally opposed to abortion--except in cases of rape or incest or when the mother’s life is endangered--but that he supports a constitutional amendment to overturn the 1973 Supreme Court decision that made the practice legal.

That position flatly contradicted Sullivan’s views as quoted Sunday by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The newspaper reported that Sullivan had said in an interview, referring to abortion, that “there should be that right, and indeed that is the law as it stands now.”

In Washington this week, Weber said, Sullivan told his interrogators that he “stumbled badly” in that interview and misspoke.

Sullivan’s commitments, fell far short of what the right-to-life groups were hoping for on several key issues. The educator continued to say that he favors medical research using tissues from aborted fetuses, and he indicated that he would oppose a ban on research into new drugs that could induce abortions early in pregnancy.

Opposes Confirmation

J. C. Wilke, president of the National Right to Life Committee, said that the group would continue to oppose Sullivan’s confirmation.

Sources familiar with Wednesday’s meetings said that more important than Sullivan’s words--which many movement members continue to doubt--are assurances by transition team officials that anti-abortion activists will be placed in high-ranking jobs in the department.

One potential appointee, Kay James, an official of the Right to Life Committee and head of Black Americans for Life, sat in on Wednesday’s meetings with Sullivan.

In addition to the projected nominations, Bush advisers suggested that the vice president is moving closer to a decision on his labor secretary, with former National Labor Relations Board member Patricia Diaz Dennis a leading candidate.

Picks Communications Director

Bush named David Demarest, a member of the Bush campaign and transition teams, as his White House communications director.

And sources said Surgeon General C. Everett Koop is expected to remain as the nation’s chief physician, completing a term that is not scheduled to end until November, 1989. Koop, who launched a crusade against tobacco and has evolved as the Reagan Administration’s most visible spokesman on AIDS, “has so many things on his schedule this year that he almost has to stay on,” HHS Department sources said.

Staff writer Douglas Jehl contributed to this story.