GOP Senators Increase Their Attacks on Reno

Republican senators Sunday stepped up their attacks on Atty. Gen. Janet Reno for refusing to seek the appointment of an independent counsel to investigate allegations of Democratic fund-raising abuses on behalf of President Clinton’s reelection campaign.

Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi said Reno and Senate Democrats had tried to “delay, block, obfuscate” on a range of campaign matters, including granting some witnesses immunity from prosecution to compel them to testify before a congressional committee investigating the matter. He called her “Gen. Stonewall Reno.”

Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania cited an allegation by a Southern California businessman--that he gave $50,000 for the Democratic Party to aides of First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton in response to their request--as the latest case necessitating an independent counsel.

The White House issued a statement again denying donor Johnny Chien Chuen Chung’s assertions, which were reported in Sunday’s editions of The Times.

On television interview shows, Lott, Specter and Sen. Pete V. Domenici of New Mexico accused Reno of political motivation. They maintained that allegations of questionable foreign-linked Democratic fund-raising involve such senior officials that the attorney general should seek an independent counsel rather than continuing a Justice Department inquiry.

Specter and Domenici are members of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, which is holding hearings on the campaign finance controversy.

“I am very disappointed in her performance,” Domenici said on CBS-TV’s “Face the Nation.” “She has lost a lot of credibility with this senator.”

The attorney general can ask a three-judge panel to name an independent counsel in the face of credible evidence that the president, vice president or a Cabinet member violated a criminal law. Reno has sought the appointment of four independent counsels since taking office.

Rebutting Specter on “Fox News Sunday,” Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.), another member of the Senate panel, said: “I don’t think there’s been an allegation of criminal wrongdoing by any of the small number of people covered by the special counsel law.”

Lott, appearing on NBC-TV’s “Meet the Press,” was particularly critical of “the incredible refusal and cavalier attitude of the Justice Department in not going along with immunity” for Buddhist nuns who participated in a Democratic fund-raiser at a temple in Hacienda Heights last year. The Governmental Affairs Committee nevertheless voted, 15-1, last week to grant immunity to four nuns.

This would prevent their Senate testimony from being used against them in a criminal trial, which prosecutors say makes it far more difficult to convict wrongdoers.

Justice Department spokesman Bert Brandenburg said that “where immunity might damage our criminal investigation, we’ve objected, as any good prosecutor would.” But he said the department did not object to immunity for 11 of the 20 requests by the Senate panel.

Chung, who has refused to cooperate with investigators unless he gets immunity, said he approached Evan Ryan, an aide to Hillary Clinton, in March 1995 in a bid to get visiting Chinese businessmen into the White House for various perquisites.

Chung said that after he offered to help the White House, Ryan conferred with Margaret Williams, then the first lady’s chief of staff, who told him he could help by assisting in paying off the costs of White House Christmas parties. Chung said he believed Ryan was acting at Williams’ behest and that by donating he could fulfill his requests.

Administration officials acknowledged that Williams received a $50,000 check from Chung in the White House and that she may have gotten Chung and his guests into lunch at the White House mess hall and arranged a photo with Hillary Clinton.

But they said it was Chung who insisted on making a contribution. Williams, they said, merely told him he could give it to the Democratic National Committee, and she passed his check on to the party.

“The allegations in today’s Los Angeles Times regarding solicitations of contributions or offers of favors in exchange for such contributions by the White House are untrue,” Special White House Counsel Lanny J. Davis said Sunday. “Neither Maggie Williams or Evan Ryan solicited a contribution from Mr. Chung nor promised him favors in return for a contribution.”

Davis cited a nationally televised comment in March from Chung’s attorney, Brian Sun: “As to the White House or the DNC sort of making promises that Mr. Chung was going to get A, B, C in return, that just didn’t happen.”

Sun responded that, in Chung’s account, the Torrance entrepreneur never said he received an explicit promise from the White House aides. Rather, he said, Chung was motivated by the hope of access.

Times staff writer William C. Rempel contributed to this story.