Hubbell Case Raises Question: Who’s in Charge at City Hall?

When then-Airport Commission President Ted Stein decided to hire President Clinton’s friend Webster L. Hubbell for a high-powered lobbying job, he didn’t feel he had to discuss the potentially controversial and dangerous move with Mayor Richard Riordan.

Instead, Stein got the green light from a man who is probably the most influential person in the Riordan administration even though he has no official connection with government. He is Bill Wardlaw, a wealthy lawyer-businessman and the mayor’s closest advisor and former business associate.

Later, when Hubbell’s problems with the law became front-page news, and Stein decided to fire him, the Airport Commission boss again ran it by Wardlaw instead of Riordan. These glimpses of life behind the Riordan Curtain are found in the transcripts of City Controller Rick Tuttle’s investigation of how and why the city hired Hubbell.

As you know, Hubbell is First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton’s former law partner who resigned as the third-ranking Justice Department official amid controversy involving overbilling at his old law firm. He subsequently pleaded guilty to federal mail fraud and tax-evasion charges. And in the report of his investigation, Tuttle accuses Hubbell of greatly exaggerating the amount of work he did for the city.

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It took a determined Controller Tuttle and a former federal prosecutor, Steven G. Madison, to go up against the powerful group of Democratic insiders--all Clinton friends--around Riordan and pry open City Hall’s closed doors, even if just a little.

Tuttle put together a high-powered team to investigate Hubbell’s involvement with the airport. The team members took depositions for their investigations and released them this week.

Madison, now in private practice, successfully prosecuted former Rep. Walter Tucker III (D-Compton) for extortion and tax evasion and took part in the government’s winning cases against former Compton City Councilwoman Patricia Moore and the Los Angeles police officers charged with beating Rodney King. Another investigator was James P. Armstrong, a former federal regional inspector general who is now Tuttle’s director of auditing.

Under Madison’s questioning, Wardlaw told how airport chief Stein, then a senior advisor to the mayor as well as president of the Board of Airport Commissioners, hired Hubbell.

The Riordan administration was then engaged in a battle in Washington against the politically powerful airlines to divert $58 million in funds usually used for airport maintenance to expand the Police Department. To accomplish this, the administration felt it needed more lobbying clout.

“‘Mr. Stein said, in essence, that he was considering hiring Mr. Hubbell, and what were my thoughts with respect to that,” Wardlaw said. “My response was that if he thought that would assist in getting the city $58 million, I was for it. And that was basically the sum and substance of the conversation.”

That was it, the green light. Wardlaw didn’t say he had to run it by the mayor. In fact, Riordan didn’t learn about it until after Hubbell was hired. Only then, Wardlaw said, “I probably did” discuss it with Riordan.

Nor was Riordan involved when Hubbell was fired. Hearing Hubbell was pleading guilty, Stein called Wardlaw. “Mr. Stein indicated to me that it was in the best interest of the city to terminate the contract with Mr. Hubbell,” Wardlaw said. “I concurred.”

The city controller’s investigation also sheds light on why the Riordan administration hired Hubbell when he was facing legal troubles.

By then Hubbell was looking for work. His name was proposed to Stein by another member of the Clinton political network, Alan Arkatov, a former political consultant.

Arkatov said Stein had asked him for suggestions for lobbying help. Arkatov said he recommended several names, including that of Hubbell, who was a friend of Arkatov and Arkatov’s wife, Mary Leslie. Leslie had been a top official in the Clinton presidential campaign, a former deputy director of the Small Business Administration and had served as one of Riordan’s deputy mayors.

“Web [Hubbell] and his wife traveled in a certain circle my wife and I were friends with,” Arkatov said. “And so just the fact that he was available and we thought him very qualified raised him on my radar screen.”

Arkatov said he checked out the idea with another Wardlaw, Bill Wardlaw’s wife, Kim, who has been appointed a federal judge by President Clinton. Judge Wardlaw said in her deposition that Arkatov asked her “what do you think of the idea if the city of Los Angeles were to hire Web Hubbell to help out in Washington with respect to the airport. . . .” Judge Wardlaw said, “I remember saying . . . that I didn’t think it was a bad idea.”

Where, I wondered, was the mayor in all this?

It was not, Bill Wardlaw told me, a mayoral level decision. “At the time, we were hiring numerous consultants at the airport,” he said. “We were engaged in a battle, and the goal the mayor set was bringing $58 million downtown for the LAPD.”

Don’t the transcripts at least hint that Wardlaw is the real boss at City Hall? “That’s flattering but untrue,” he said. “It is not my relationship with Dick Riordan. I know who is the boss and who makes the decisions.”

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All this was done without a vote of the Airport Commission, the public body appointed by Riordan and confirmed by the City Council to supervise the airport.

What’s frightening is the decision-making process exposed by the affair--one with no accountability, close to the vest, off the top of the head and with the mayor out of the loop.

Mayor Riordan likes to say it’s always easier to get forgiveness than permission. After this, maybe he’ll be willing to concede there should be exceptions to his rule.