Wright in Plea Bargain to Resign, Sources Say : Speaker Would Leave House if Ethics Committee Agrees to Drop Major Charges, Lawmakers Say

In a stunning reversal of strategy, Rep. Jim Wright (D-Tex.) has offered privately to resign both as House Speaker and as a member of Congress if the House Ethics Committee drops major charges against him, congressional sources said Wednesday.

In what amounted to a plea bargain, Wright offered to step down as Speaker immediately and to resign from the House within a few weeks, according to these sources. But the six Republicans on the 12-member committee insisted that the investigation into his personal finances should proceed.

“He wants too much and so there’s no deal,” said a knowledgeable Republican source. “He wants the slate wiped clean. He wants a deal right now. But they aren’t dealing.”

‘They Aren’t Dealing’

After a frantic day of on-again, off-again negotiations between Wright’s emissaries and Republican House leaders representing GOP members of the Ethics Committee, the talks appeared to be temporarily stalemated. There were no immediate plans for renewed discussions.

Nevertheless, Wright’s departure seemed inevitable. Rep. Mickey Leland (D-Tex.), a Wright defender, told reporters: “The die is cast.”

A Midwestern Democrat said that one of the Speaker’s closest friends told him Wright would be out of office by the end of the week and that there would be a replacement within a week. Rep. Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.), who as majority leader ranks second in the Democratic House leadership, is considered virtually certain to become Speaker if Wright leaves.

Still pending before the Ethics Committee are Wright’s motions to dismiss the two major charges against him. The Ethics Committee met late into Wednesday evening but adjourned until June 1 without deciding on the motions, leaving the Speaker and his agents with the Memorial Day holiday to work out a settlement.

If Wright quits under fire, he would be the first Speaker in American history to be forced from office for any reason.

Sources said that Foley was acting as a go-between in the delicate plea bargaining between Wright and the Ethics Committee.

Ethics Committee Republicans balked at taking part in such discussions. Rep. John T. Myers of Indiana, the top-ranking Republican member of the panel, said: “I don’t think it behooves a member of Congress to make a deal, or the Committee on Ethics. I don’t think it’s appropriate.”

Consequently, Foley was reported to be carrying on the discussions directly with House Minority Leader Robert H. Michel (R-Ill.), who, like Foley, has a reputation as a compromiser.

Foley intervened after Wright reportedly “blew up” in response to a position taken by the committee’s special counsel, Richard J. Phelan, during the indirect talks. Wright has accused Phelan, the aggressive Chicago attorney who conducted the 10-month investigation of the Speaker’s personal finances, of distorting facts and dominating the 12 committee members.

Shortly after Wright erupted at Phelan, he issued a brief statement indicating that he intended to fight the committee’s charges. But that declaration, apparently aimed at squelching the torrent of rumors that raced through the House chamber, did not halt the negotiations.

“I very firmly believe that my position is right,” the Speaker said in the statement. “I hope and trust that the committee will consider the matter on its merits and dismiss these charges. I eagerly await the time and opportunity when my side of this whole question may be heard clearly by my colleagues and the American people. To this end, I shall press ahead.”

As outlined by some sources in a position to know the outlines of a possible agreement, Wright proposed to leave if the committee would drop charges that he improperly had accepted $145,000 in gifts from George A. Mallick Jr., a Ft. Worth real estate developer.

The Speaker frequently has said that these charges offend him the most because they involve his wife, Betty, who is alleged to have received $72,000 in salary from Mallick without doing any work. Wright has tearfully defended her and said that he is fighting to save her reputation as well as his own.

According to some sources, the Speaker also wanted the panel to scrap charges that he wrongfully evaded a House limit on speaking fees by arranging bulk sales of his book to special-interest groups that heard his speeches.

Other sources, however, said that Wright agreed to quit even if the book charges were not dismissed. His resignation from the House would make the charges moot by depriving the committee of jurisdiction over him.

Rep. Robert G. Torricelli (D-N.J.), a member of Wright’s legal defense team, conferred during the day with Wright, Foley and Rep. Tony Coelho (D-Merced), who as the Democratic whip ranks third in the House Democratic leadership.

Later, Torricelli joined a closed session of the Ethics Committee. Asked by reporters if plea bargaining was going on, Torricelli silently shrugged.

Leaving the session, Coelho untypically uttered a terse: “No comment.”

Meantime, loyalist Texas friends of Wright denied the reports that he would resign and one of his attorneys, Stephen D. Susman of Houston, said that he was not aware of any plea bargaining. Susman said he was still preparing to defend the Speaker in a disciplinary hearing before the ethics panel that would follow whatever ruling it might make on the motions to dismiss the two main charges.

In a sign of the intensity of the talks about Wright’s future, Foley canceled plans to fly to Washington state Wednesday evening to attend the funeral today of former Sen. Warren G. Magnuson, a Democratic Senate power for many years until his defeat for reelection in 1980.

Foley and Michel, who conferred in the House chamber Wednesday afternoon, apparently had no further meetings scheduled, however.

Wright attended the usual Wednesday lunch with fellow members of the Texas delegation, where his strongest supporters in the House are found. Asked if they discussed recent statements by some Democrats urging the Speaker to quit, Democrat J.J. Pickle said:

“To a man, we told the Speaker not to even consider that in the slightest and you can be sure he won’t. . . . The Speaker was in better spirits today than he’s been in some time.”

Pickle brushed off the latest reports that Wright had offered to step aside if major charges were dropped. “There’s absolutely nothing to all these rumors,” he insisted.