GOP Lawyer Picked to Probe Whitewater : Presidency: Ex-N.Y. prosecutor Fiske is chosen as special counsel by Reno. He says he plans to question the Clintons about tangled S&L; affair.

Fulfilling a White House promise made in response to GOP demands, Atty. Gen. Janet Reno on Thursday appointed former U.S. Atty. Robert B. Fiske Jr., a Republican, as special counsel to look into the tangled Whitewater affair.

Fiske immediately pledged “a complete, thorough and impartial” inquiry into the matter, which involves investments by President Clinton and his wife, Hillary, in an Ozark Mountain resort and loans to the Clintons by a failed savings and loan.

Fiske also indicated that he is likely to take the unprecedented step of taking sworn statements from a sitting President. Asked if he planned to question the Clintons, Fiske replied: “I would certainly expect before this investigation is over, I would question both the President and the First Lady, and it would be under oath.”

A President has never been put under oath in an independent counsel investigation, although former President Ronald Reagan agreed to give a videotaped deposition in the trial of an Iran-Contra defendant.

Clinton indicated later that he was willing to be questioned by Fiske. “Whatever he wants to do . . . I didn’t do anything wrong,” Clinton said during an appearance on CNN’s “Larry King Live.”

The President also said that he is eager to have the issue settled. “The main thing I want to do is to just have that turned over to him so we can go back to work,” Clinton said. “I just want to do my job.”

In announcing Fiske’s appointment, Reno praised him for his reputation of “fairness and impartiality” and said that the ex-prosecutor from New York fulfilled her pledge last week to appoint someone “ruggedly independent.”

The new appointee, with Reno standing at his side, said he would recruit additional “experienced former prosecutors from across the country” to take over total control of the investigation from the Justice Department. Investigators will look into possible criminal wrongdoing in the cases of Whitewater Development Corp. and Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan.

Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.), who has led demands by his party for appointment of a special counsel, said he did not know Fiske personally but felt he was “extremely well-qualified.”

Fiske, 63, was appointed in 1976 as Manhattan’s federal prosecutor during the Gerald R. Ford Administration and was known as a hard-driving, hands-on U.S. attorney who focused on white-collar and organized crime prosecutions.

He was so well regarded in law enforcement circles that Democrat Jimmy Carter kept him in place after assuming the presidency in 1977. He has become a Wall Street lawyer prominent in white-collar defense work since leaving government service in 1980. He is a past president of the American College of Trial Lawyers.

Fiske told reporters Thursday that he demanded and received “very broad authority” from Reno as a condition of accepting the appointment. He said he would take a leave of absence Monday from his Manhattan law firm and would open an office in Little Rock, Ark., where a federal grand jury has been hearing witnesses in recent weeks.

His first steps will include obtaining a full briefing from Justice Department investigators who have been working on the Whitewater case, along with subpoenaed documents they have obtained. But he stressed that he would hire “a totally new staff of lawyers . . . so that we may conduct a truly independent investigation.”

“I should have people working for me who are not at the same time reporting to the attorney general,” he explained.

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Fiske will have assistance from a cadre of FBI agents, as is customary for independent counsels. FBI Director Louis J. Freeh “has assured me the FBI will be at my complete disposal,” he said.

He said the suicide last July of deputy White House counsel Vincent Foster “would be one of the things” encompassed by his probe. Among papers found in Foster’s office after his death was a file on the Clintons’ Whitewater investment.

Central questions to be answered in the Whitewater affair include whether the Clintons, as half-owners of the land-development venture, were aware that their partner and longtime friend, James B. McDougal, may have been co-mingling funds from his savings and loan in the land business’ accounts.

Also at issue is whether Clinton’s political influence as governor helped keep the high-rolling S & L open longer than it otherwise would have been, increasing the cost to the federal government of its eventual federal bailout. Bank examiners say the cost to taxpayers was $47 million.

Complicating the investigation is McDougal’s notoriously sloppy record-keeping, officials said.

Fiske said that he would complete his investigation “as quickly as I can consistent with doing the job right.” Asked if that might take several months, he said “probably more than months.”

Reno originally opposed demands from Congress that she appoint a special counsel, saying anyone she selected would be subject to charges of not being truly independent. The government had had a mechanism in place under which a panel of federal judges would appoint such independent counsels, but Congress allowed the statute to lapse.

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Reno capitulated, however, when Clinton, reacting to congressional and public pressure, asked her to make an appointment. She said Thursday that she had taken every precaution to guarantee Fiske’s “complete independence.”

“I wanted him to define the scope of his investigation and his staff,” Reno said. “I wanted him to be as independent as possible. I don’t expect him to report to me, I expect him to report to the American people. And I don’t expect to monitor this investigation.”

Under Fiske’s legal mandate, he has full authority to seek criminal indictments from a federal grand jury without Justice Department approval. At the end of his inquiry, he is required to make a full public report of his findings.

As to calls for a parallel congressional investigation of Whitewater, Fiske said, “I’m not concerned about that at this point.”

But he acknowledged that given the propensity of Congress to grant limited immunity from prosecution to important witnesses, “history shows it is difficult to conduct criminal investigations at the same time as congressional investigations.”

Fiske was a law partner and early adviser to Lawrence E. Walsh, the independent counsel who just completed a seven-year probe of the Iran-Contra scandal. Walsh found that congressional grants of immunity caused two convictions to be overturned.

Fiske, however, said the two investigations are “totally different.”

Dole, meeting reporters in Topeka, Kan., greeted the appointment with cautious optimism. “I don’t know Robert Fiske,” he said. “But my reaction is to wait and see what happens. They’ve chosen someone. That’s what we asked them to do.

“As far as I know, people who know him think he is extremely well-qualified, is independent,” Dole said.

He added: “He has some Republican leanings . . . but some of the conservative Republicans have not been happy with him.”

Dole was referring to opposition from conservatives when former Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh once proposed Fiske as his top deputy during the George Bush Administration. Conservatives, including Republican senators on the Judiciary Committee, raised such strong objections that Fiske’s appointment was dropped.

Fiske had incurred their ire when he chaired the American Bar Assn.’s committee that evaluated potential court nominees. Conservatives blamed him for the ABA’s tepid endorsement of the 1987 Supreme Court nomination of Robert H. Bork, who ultimately was blocked by the Senate.

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A graduate of Yale University and the University of Michigan law school, Fiske tried several important cases during his government career, obtaining the convictions of narcotics kingpin Leroy (Nicky) Barnes and Mafia-connected labor racketeers Anthony Scotto and Anthony Anastasio.

In both public and private life, Fiske has been known for his passion for detail.

Popular among former colleagues at the Justice Department and in his Manhattan law firm, he has a talent for breaking down a case to its essence and then arguing persuasively in court, associates said.

In recent years, Fiske was among defense attorneys who represented legendary Washington lawyer and power broker Clark M. Clifford in his successful battle against bank fraud charges in the BCCI banking scandal.

Sen. Alfonse M. D’Amato (R--N.Y.), who knows Fiske personally, calls him “one of the most honorable and most skilled lawyers anywhere.” During his four years in public office, Fiske supervised the drafting of thousands of indictments and obtained convictions of at least one defendant in 95% of his cases.

Profile: Robert B. Fiske Jr.

* Born: Dec. 28, 1930.

* Hometown: Darien, Conn.

* Education: Bachelor’s degree from Yale University, 1952; law degree from University of Michigan, 1955.

* Career highlights: Worked for law firm of Davis, Polk, Wardwell, Sunderland & Kiendl from 1955 to 1957. The following year, worked for U.S. Court of Appeals in Southern District of New York as assistant U.S. attorney. In 1961, rejoined his old law firm as an associate and in 1964 was made a partner. In 1976, President Gerald R. Ford named him U.S. attorney for Southern District. Returned to his law firm in 1980, where he currently works. He has been president of American College of Trial lawyers.

* Personal: Married Janet Tinsley, three children.

Source: Who’s Who in American Law