Conyers Charges Thornburgh Harasses Black Officials : Race relations: The Mayor Barry drug probe and the planned retrial of a congressman are cited. The attorney general denies the accusation.

A leading black congressman took Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh to task Wednesday for “harassment of black elected officials,” citing the investigation of District of Columbia Mayor Marion Barry and the government’s decision to retry Rep. Harold E. Ford (D-Tenn.).

Thornburgh, testifying before the House Judiciary Committee, dismissed the accusations by Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) as “totally and absolutely false.”

The attorney general, raising his voice to be heard over Conyers, who was temporarily sitting as chairman of the panel, said matters of race, gender, national origin or political affiliation “simply do not enter into the investigative or prosecutive decision.”

“No one would be more concerned than I to determine that any of those extraneous factors were to enter into a decision to investigate or to prosecute any American citizen,” the attorney general told the committee.

“I used to believe that,” Conyers shot back. “I don’t believe that any more.”

The exchange, which occurred during a hearing on the Justice Department’s fiscal 1991 budget authorization, illustrates what Conyers sees as rising resentment over criminal prosecution of black officeholders, which he called “a matter of deepening concern.”

In January, after Barry’s indictment on charges of cocaine possession and lying to a federal grand jury, NAACP Executive Director Benjamin L. Hooks said that the charges might be part of a pattern of “selective enforcement of the law” against elected black officials.

At the time, Thornburgh rejected the suggestion “in the strongest possible terms.”

Conyers, referring to last month’s hung jury in the trial of Ford on charges of doing political favors in exchange for bank loans, contended that his House colleague had devoted years and millions of dollars to his defense.

He objected to the Justice Department’s decision to retry Ford and possibly to seek a change of venue in the case. He said the move “strikes many people across the land as absolutely astounding.”

“There’s no way you can expect me to wait for another court in another venue in Tennessee to retry a congressman who has been begging the department for trial for months and months . . . and, now that he has been acquitted, you tell me to relax . . . .”

“Congressman, congressman,” Thornburgh shouted, “he was not acquitted.”

“Well, the jury was hung, and they released him,” Conyers said. “And a change of venue means that you’re now going after him, after years of this, another time.”

In the Barry case, Conyers criticized the government for its use of a female friend of the mayor “for entrapment purposes.” Barry initially was arrested after allegedly smoking crack cocaine with a former girlfriend, Rasheeda Moore, in a Washington hotel room.

“We’ve had millions of dollars of wiretaps, surveillance, leaks from the grand jury,” Conyers said. “It’s an incredible story of how justice shouldn’t work. An impression of fairness is nowhere to be found.”

Conyers did not mention additional charges brought against Barry last week. The new allegations accuse Barry of obtaining, using and providing cocaine over a six-year period and do not appear to depend as heavily on Moore’s testimony as the earlier indictment.

“I suggest it is somewhat premature to characterize the proceedings you have referred to prior to their completion,” Thornburgh said. “Rep. Ford awaits retrial. Mayor Barry awaits trial. I trust our judicial system to deal fairly with persons regardless of their characteristics who are brought before court on serious criminal charges.”