O.C. Congressmen Go After Special Counsel Law : Government: Dornan and Cox claim partisan abuse of prosecutor powers. They vow to drastically revise law, which must be renewed this year, or to urge Bush veto.

Two Orange County congressman are leading a Republican attack on the law that created special counsels to prosecute crimes committed by high-ranking government officials. The legislation expires at the end of the year.

In a hearing Wednesday sponsored by the Republican Study Committee, Reps. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove) and Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach) said special prosecutors appointed at the behest of a Democratic Congress have abused their authority, wasted millions of dollars and run roughshod over the constitutional doctrine of separation of powers in their pursuit of members of two successive Republican administrations.

That contention was strongly disputed by Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), a senior member of the House Judiciary Committee who drafted the 1987 amendments to the independent counsel statute. The law originally was passed as part of the Ethics in Government Act of 1978, largely in reaction to the Watergate scandal, which began unfolding 20 years ago Wednesday.

“The notion that it’s partisan is quite wrong,” Frank said in an interview after the hearing. “The independent counsel statute was first created by a Democratic Congress under a Democratic President.

“It’s nonsense to think you don’t need it in this kind of climate.”

Cox and Dornan were particularly critical of Lawrence E. Walsh, the special prosecutor in the Iran-Contra case who brought charges against former Marine Lt. Col. Oliver L. North. His conviction was reversed on appeal. On Tuesday, Walsh obtained an indictment against former Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger for allegedly participating in a cover-up of the affair.

He is the latest of more than a dozen men charged in connection with the scandal. In most cases, charges either have been dismissed on technicalities or defendants have pleaded guilty to misdemeanors and been sentenced to brief jail terms, relatively small fines or probation and community service. In addition to Weinberger, two high-ranking CIA officials still await trial.

“(Tuesday’s) indictment . . . is evidence that the system is not working properly,” Cox said. Referring to Walsh’s 5 1/2-year investigation of the Iran-Contra events, the congressman added, “$30 million has been expended in pursuit of what can only be called bad cases.”

Frank, on the other hand, pointed to another independent counsel’s pursuit of allegations of fraud and abuse at the Department of Housing and Urban Development under the Reagan Administration. “The indictments that are now going on of people who (allegedly) stole money at HUD, I think they’ve got some pretty good cases,” Frank said.

Referring to Weinberger’s indictment, Dornan said prosecutions under the independent counsel statute “inherently seem to come to the fore during an election period.”

The 1978 law that created independent counsels, as the special prosecutors are known, must be reauthorized this year. Cox and Dornan vowed to lead a fight either to radically modify the legislation, or persuade the President to veto it if it passes Congress.

The independent counsel statute created a three-judge panel empowered to appoint special prosecutors to investigate allegations of wrongdoing involving the President, vice president, Cabinet officials, senior White House aides or the director or deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency or the Internal Revenue Service.

The panel acts on the request of the attorney general, who is required to conduct a preliminary investigation of any allegations to determine if further examination is warranted. The law also specifies that a majority of either party on the Senate or House Judiciary Committee can ask the attorney general to seek appointment of a special prosecutor.

Despite the requirement that the attorney general must make the request, Cox said, “It is functionally Congress that is in the driver’s seat behind these prosecutions.”

Among those who testified at Wednesday’s hearing were Theodore B. Olson, a former Reagan Administration attorney who was the target of a special prosecutor’s investigation in the 1980s. The prosecutor ultimately determined that Olson, accused of lying to Congress, had committed no crime and did not seek an indictment.

“There is an absurdly low threshold that triggers” the statute, Olson said. “What protects our liberty in this country is the separation of power. The combination of legislative power and (the) executive power (to prosecute), with that combination there is no liberty.”