Reno Refuses to Take the Easy Way Out

For Atty. Gen. Janet Reno, the easy decision might have been to request appointment of an independent counsel to investigate whether President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore violated the law by making fund-raising solicitations by telephone from their federal offices.

Why not dump the issue, and the political heat, onto a special counsel? That might have silenced congressional Republicans who have been baying at the attorney general’s heels for a special counsel all this year.

But Reno does not shrink from tough decisions, demonstrating repeatedly that she is an independent chief legal officer for the nation. She sought independent counsels in six other cases and turned aside White House hints after Clinton’s reelection that her resignation would be welcome; these are not the actions of a presidential lap dog, which attorneys general have been on occasion in the past. In that light, we accept her legal reasoning that the phone calls made by Gore and perhaps Clinton did not constitute action that justified a full-blown probe by a special counsel and establishment of the investigative bureaucracy that would go with it.

There still may be cause for an independent investigation of fund-raising abuses involving the White House and the Democratic National Committee during the 1996 campaigns. But the linchpin of such a decision should not be a rarely enforced, 114-year-old law that was designed to prevent federal bosses from shaking down their employees for campaign contributions as a condition of keeping their jobs.

What Reno needs to do now is to bolster her credibility in this case with some indication that her own Justice Department investigation is up to the task. There are signs of that happening with a report in today’s Times that federal grand juries have been convened in Washington and Los Angeles to consider indictments arising from violation of fund-raising laws.

Predictably, Reno’s critics, especially Republicans in Congress, are howling, and Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.) is calling Reno before his fund-raising investigating committee next week to explain her action. She should welcome the invitation.

At the same time, the Republicans also might say why they denied funds to the Federal Elections Commission this year to hire more personnel to investigate cases of this sort. Even better, they might explain their continued opposition to any campaign finance reforms that would put an end to blatant fund-raising excesses.