A Plea Bargain, a Health Plan-- a Conflict? : A mutual lawyer is only the latest interest that Rostenkowski and Clinton share.

First, the facts:

* The House Ways and Means Committee is the most powerful committee in Congress. Membership is highly prized and aggressively sought. Even junior members acquire a certain cachet among their colleagues. They also get noticed by lobbyists, who pay inordinate attention to what goes on in Ways and Means--and to the political fortunes of its members. Not for nothing is the hallway outside the committee hearing room known as “Gucci Gulch.”

* The Ways and Means chairman, Rep. Dan Rostenkowski (D-Ill.)--”Rosty”--is one of Washington’s most famous faces and a man no President can safely ignore. That’s because the committee’s jurisdiction includes the crown jewels of the modern state, including international trade, Social Security and welfare entitlements, tax bills of every description and health-care financing. President Clinton has become particularly dependent on Rostenkowski because his political future is staked on matters that must pass through Ways and Means before they become law. Clinton’s only notable legislative achievements to date, the North American Free Trade Agreement and his tax bill, both owe their success to Rostenkowski’s formidable clout. Nothing will happen on welfare reform unless Rostenkowski nods and, without him, Clinton’s health-care reform proposal doesn’t have a prayer.

* Not surprisingly, the President and the chairman have become political intimates. The President went out of his way to support Rostenkowski during a hotly contested primary earlier this year, even appearing at a Chicago fund-raiser. (Memory does not recall the last time a sitting President made a personal appearance during a congressional primary fight.)

* Rostenkowski has been in political hot water since 1992, when it was revealed that the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington was investigating him for fraud, misuse of government funds and payroll padding. Rostenkowski denies the charges, but indications are that a felony indictment is near. Under the rules of the House, a felony indictment would require Rostenkowski to resign as Ways and Means chairman, a step that would almost certainly doom the President’s prized health-care proposal. On the other hand, something less than a felony indictment would enable Rostenkowski not only to retain his chairmanship but also to avoid the shame and burden of grave criminal sanction.

* Rostenkowski dismissed his first lawyer last year and retained Robert Bennett--yes, the same respected criminal defense attorney who became a household name a few weeks ago when the President tapped him to defend against Paula Corbin Jones’ sexual-harassment charges.

* The Rostenkowski investigation is clearly headed toward its denouement. Plea-bargaining is under way between Bennett and the Justice Department, although it is not clear who is negotiating for the government. One story has it that Atty. Gen. Janet Reno will follow the recommendation of the U.S. attorney, come what may. Another has it that Bennett, dissatisfied with progress at lower levels, is seeking to take the negotiation “upstairs” within the department. But neither the ordinarily garrulous Bennett, nor Reno nor the White House is commenting directly. The major participants, in short, are being unusually mum about one of the more dramatic events now on the Washington stage.

Now, some questions:

Do you suppose the White House might have a political interest in the outcome of the plea-bargaining with Rostenkowski? Do you think it likely that someone in the White House may have spoken to someone in the Justice Department about it? Do you think it likely that the President has spoken with his counsel (or vice versa) about it? What do you suppose goes through the minds of Justice Department political appointees when the man they know to be the President’s personal lawyer negotiates on behalf of the President’s most powerful ally on Capitol Hill?

What do you suppose Clinton’s lawyer is saying to Rostenkowski’s lawyer about all this? To avoid a conflict or an appearance of a conflict, it is sometimes necessary for one lawyer to wall himself from others in the same firm, but how does an attorney erect a Chinese Wall within his own brain?

Does anything about the foregoing bother you? If a non-felony plea bargain is negotiated, would you be surprised? Before that happens, don’t you think it would be a good idea if the press started asking some hard questions?