Special Prosecutor Law Draws New Momentum

Momentum to renew a post-Watergate law under which special prosecutors are appointed increased Tuesday, as a bipartisan pair of senators blasted the Administration’s opposition at a hearing.

Key legislators said that, until recently, there was little chance Congress would extend the law this year, largely because of criticism over the length and cost of the Iran-Contra investigation conducted by independent counsel Lawrence E. Walsh.

But recently there have been several new indications of support, including the decision of Republican Sen. William S. Cohen of Maine to join Democratic Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan in co-sponsoring a bill that would prevent the law from dying Dec. 14.

The 1978 statute, renewed in 1982 and 1987, provides for appointment of an independent counsel, or special prosecutor, to handle criminal investigations of top officials close to the President. The law grew out of the Watergate scandal’s 1973 “Saturday Night Massacre” in which former President Richard M. Nixon fired Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox.

At a hearing, Levin and Cohen pounced on Deputy Atty. Gen. George Terwilliger after he detailed the Bush Administration’s opposition to their bill and hinted at a veto.

Levin noted that Bush, while he was still vice president, said in July, 1988, that “I wholeheartedly endorse the concept of the independent counsel law.”

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who plans to introduce a renewal bill today, had said recently there was little chance that Congress would act before it adjourns in a couple of months.

But late Tuesday, he said that Democratic support was mushrooming because of Atty. Gen. William P. Barr’s opposition Monday to an independent investigation of the Administration’s pre-Persian Gulf War relations with Iraq.

Also, Frank added, Republican support is growing not only because of Cohen’s sponsorship of an extension bill but also because of the increased possibility that Democrat Bill Clinton may be elected President in November.

He explained that Republicans want to make sure that a Clinton Administration would be subject to the same independent counsel law that produced a raft of investigations and indictments against officials of the Ronald Reagan and Bush administrations.