Clinton Defends His Criticism of Judge

President Clinton on Tuesday defended his highly unusual criticism of a federal jurist’s handling of a drug case, saying that his comments were “appropriate” and denouncing the “overreaction” of critics who had charged that his goal was intimidation.

One day after U.S. District Judge Harold Baer Jr. reversed a decision to exclude evidence that had been widely criticized, Clinton said that he believes it “is proper for . . . the president personally to say if he disagrees with a judge’s opinion.” Federal judges’ lifetime tenure, he said, insulates them from pressure.

His comments came during a joint news conference with President Oscar Luigi Scalfaro of Italy, who was visiting the White House.

Baer, a Clinton appointee, had excluded from evidence 80 pounds of cocaine and heroin that were found in the car trunk of a confessed drug courier in Manhattan. Baer had ruled that police did not have reasonable cause to search the trunk even though four men standing nearby had run away when police arrived.

After Republicans assailed the ruling, the White House ferociously joined in, apparently seeking to undercut any suggestion that the administration was ambivalent about crime.

White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry had suggested that if Baer did not change his mind, Clinton might ask for his resignation.

The White House criticism brought a sharp reaction from several federal jurists, who said that the politicians’ harsh words would tend to intimidate the judge and undermine the independence of the judiciary. This week, Baer reversed his early ruling, with an apology, in a move that legal experts found extraordinary.

Although presidents have rarely criticized federal judges, Clinton asserted that a judge should “not be entitled, not only to lifetime tenure but to a gag rule on everybody else.”

Clinton said that he did not regret appointing Baer, whom he named in 1994. And he insisted that “we should not get into the job of characterizing judges based on one decision they make.”

Clinton tried to turn the criticism of Baer back on his Republican opponents, suggesting that they had raised the issue to conceal their own poor record on crime issues.

“It’s obvious what’s going [on] here. The people on the other side are sort of embarrassed about their crime record,” he said. He noted that they had opposed his crime bill and resisted his ban on some assault weapons, as well as other measures.

“They fought things that they used to say they were for,” Clinton said.

The White House’s criticism of Baer came at a time when some public opinion polls are showing crime to be the public’s No. 1 concern. The White House has consistently sought to deny Republicans that issue, which they have used effectively against Democrats in past presidential elections.

Separately, Clinton declined to criticize the communist opponents Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin is to face in a June election.

While the United States has gone to considerable lengths to support the Yeltsin regime in this election season, Clinton indicated that he was withholding judgment on any new successor government.

The repercussions of the elections, he said, “would depend entirely on how the new government proceeded, what would be their policy on political reform, on democracy and freedom, what would be their policy on relating to their neighbors. . . . We evaluate other countries based on what they do.”