WASHINGTON INSIGHT

JUSTICE VACUUM: Odd goings-on at the Justice Department add to unease over the absence of a confirmed attorney general. Career attorneys are shaking their heads at the 11th-hour decision by Acting Atty. Gen. Stuart Gerson to support the seating of a new jury in the bank fraud trial of Rep. Harold E. Ford (D-Tenn.). He backed efforts by Ford and the Congressional Black Caucus to replace the 11-white, 1-black panel in Memphis. . . . Gerson, a Republican holdover from the George Bush Administration, denies moving at the behest of the White House, where officials are known to be grateful that Memphis Congressman Ford helped President Clinton carry western Tennessee last November. Gerson acknowledges consulting Webster Hubbell, a golf partner of Clinton who currently serves as the Justice Department’s liaison to the White House. But he says that was only because Hubbell once lived in Memphis. An angry federal judge rejected the government motion, questioning Hubbell’s authority in the matter. And the U.S. attorney in Memphis resigned in protest over the move. . . . Hubbell, operating out of an office down the hall from the vacant attorney general’s quarters, refuses to talk with reporters. But Administration sources insist that the White House did play a role in the Ford affair.