Durenberger Made Passionate Plea for Mercy

Sen. Dave Durenberger (R-Minn.) unsuccessfully pleaded with the Senate Ethics Committee not to call his financial dealings “reprehensible” and not to recommend that he be denounced by the full Senate, it was disclosed Friday.

“Nothing more than a strong reprimand is appropriate,” Durenberger argued in a confidential letter to the committee on July 12, six days before it urged that he be not only denounced but fined more than $100,000.

Durenberger made the letter and an accompanying memorandum public in conjunction with the committee’s release of its formal findings in the case and a report by its special counsel, Robert S. Bennett.

The senator’s letter represents his most detailed defense and passionate plea for mercy, although his attorney, James Hamilton, made many of the same arguments at public hearings last month.

“I particularly object to the characterization ‘reprehensible’ that special counsel would use to brand my conduct,” Durenberger said in referring to the term recommended by Bennett and eventually adopted by the ethics panel. “This word conjures up the impression of detestable, malicious conduct, but special counsel himself has ruled out such a finding. You, my colleagues, who know me know that . . . I am not venal or malicious.”

The Minnesota senator was found guilty by the committee of using a book promotion deal to evade Senate limits on speech honorariums; improperly obtaining rent reimbursements from the Senate on an apartment he owned; accepting prohibited limousine service from lobbyists, and converting a campaign contribution to personal use. The case will come before the full Senate, probably later this month.

In his appeal for clemency, Durenberger said he trusted that the committee “will take into account the already devastating effect on my life and career this investigation has had. The process has been a sanction in itself.”

He noted that the only other senator who has been formally denounced, former Sen. Herman E. Talmadge (D-Ga.), “should have known of the criminal conduct in his office” surrounding campaign contributions. In contrast, Durenberger said, there was no criminal conduct in his case and, moreover, he had relied on the advice of numerous lawyers, the staffs of two Senate committees and the Federal Election Commission.

In recommending that Durenberger be denounced, the six-member committee chose a term that is stronger than reprimand but slightly weaker than censure. It did not consider the ultimate punishment--expulsion from the Senate.

In its report, the panel noted that “severe emotional and traumatic events” in Durenberger’s personal life--the death by cancer of his first wife, a separation from his second wife and financial problems--had “impaired his judgment.”