GOP Senators Ask Reno to Rethink Decision

WASHINGTON — The Senate’s second-ranking Republican, Don Nickles of Oklahoma, called on Atty. Gen. Janet Reno on Sunday to reconsider her rejection of GOP requests for an independent counsel to investigate illegal foreign campaign contributions to the Democratic Party.

Both Nickles and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who initiated the request for an independent counsel, said they disagreed with Reno’s conclusion that there was “no credible evidence” of wrongdoing by the president, the vice president or other top administration officials in connection with the fund-raising.

Even if Reno does not change her mind, Nickles said, Republicans will hold congressional hearings and perhaps submit another formal request for an independent counsel probe. He indicated he expected the next request to contain specific allegations against top Clinton appointees.

“I’m disappointed in Atty. Gen. Reno’s decision,” Nickles said during an appearance on NBC-TV’s “Meet the Press.” “I hope that she’ll reconsider, and maybe there’ll be another request to her that is more specific.”

Instead of seeking an independent counsel, Reno created a special task force in the public integrity section of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division to review allegations of questionable fund-raising practices in the 1996 election.

Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.), who appeared on “Meet the Press” with Nickles, said he was satisfied with that decision. “I’m prepared to let the career prosecutors in the Justice Department make that judgment.”

The task force will decide whether federal prosecutors should bring criminal charges in this case or whether the matter should go to an independent counsel after all.

McCain’s request for an independent counsel probe was based on information uncovered by The Times and other newspapers indicating that the Democratic National Committee raised hundreds of thousands of dollars of illegal campaign contributions from foreign sources over the last year. Under U.S. election law, foreign citizens may contribute to American political campaigns only if they are legal residents of the United States, and foreign companies may contribute only through U.S. subsidiaries.

In response to the charges, the DNC has returned more than $1.5 million in contributions, either because they were illegal or because the source of the money could not be verified.

Thus far, however, most of the charges of illegal fund-raising appear to be the result of the activities of one party employee, John Huang, who was a mid-level bureaucrat at the Commerce Department before joining the DNC staff early this year.

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In those roles, Huang is not directly covered by the law that provides for the creation of independent counsels. The law states that an independent counsel can be named only to investigate alleged crimes by the president, vice president and top officials of the administration or the president’s reelection committee.

“There is no specific, credible evidence at this time that any individual covered by the provisions of the Independent Counsel Act has committed any federal crime,” the Justice Department said in a letter informing McCain of Reno’s decision. “To the extent that there are allegations of wrongdoing that may warrant criminal investigation, at this time they relate only to lower-ranking public officials, DNC employees and contributors.”

Nickles said Reno’s decision ignored the fact that Huang made frequent visits to the White House to meet with the president as well as other top administration officials.

He noted that the purpose of the independent counsel statute was to eliminate the possibility that Justice Department officials would investigate crimes by their superiors at the White House or elsewhere in the administration. This case, he said, seems to fit that criterion.

“If you have a top-level official, somebody who has been in and out of the White House like 80 times, both as an official of the Commerce Department and as a Democratic fund-raiser, I think there’s real problems, and I think it does go back to the White House,” he said. “So maybe she’ll reconsider. I hope she will.”

Likewise, McCain, appearing on ABC-TV’s “This Week,” noted that Vice President Al Gore was present when at least one illegal $5,000 contribution was collected from a woman at a fund-raising event at a Buddhist temple in Hacienda Heights.

Gore, denying any knowledge of the contribution, has said he was not even aware that the event was designed to raise funds.

McCain also pointed out that White House aide Bruce Lindsey has been accused of telling two presidential attorneys to lie about a meeting between Clinton and Huang’s ex-boss, James Riady, an Indonesian financier.

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McCain questioned whether Clinton’s relationship with Riady, also a big contributor to the Democrats, caused the president to abandon trade sanctions that had been imposed on Indonesia in retaliation for human rights abuses.

Reno has been criticized by Clinton loyalists as being too ready to request appointments of independent counsels to investigate alleged Clinton administration wrongdoing.

An independent counsel is appointed by a special three-judge federal court in response to a request from the attorney general. Three independent counsels are now investigating charges against administration officials. One was assigned to the Whitewater real estate venture, another to former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy and the third to departing Housing Secretary Henry G. Cisneros.