Reno Advances Probe Into Gore Fund-Raising

Atty. Gen. Janet Reno moved a step closer Friday to asking for an independent counsel to investigate Vice President Al Gore, but she bluntly rejected a request by some House Republicans for an outside prosecutor on a wider range of campaign fund-raising allegations, including bribery of President Clinton.

The preliminary inquiry, presaging a decision of great significance for Gore and the 2000 political race, in part will explore how much he knew about the uses of the political donations he was soliciting in 46 telephone calls that he made from the White House.

It also will address the relevancy of an election law written for one era being applied in another.

In opening a preliminary inquiry in the sensitive case, Reno advised a special court here that she found the facts and legal issues surrounding Gore’s actions to be so complex that she could not determine in an initial 30-day review whether the evidence was sufficiently specific and credible to suggest that he had violated federal criminal law.

Consequently, her move to the next phase under the independent-counsel law should not be read as a signal that Reno is likely to ask that an outside prosecutor take over the case, Justice Department officials said.

Reno issued a letter late Friday in which she explained her basis for rejecting the call for an independent counsel’s investigation of various high-profile aspects of the campaign fund-raising controversy. Her letter responded to a voluminous request one month ago from all 20 Republican members of the House Judiciary Committee.

Reno’s 10-page letter provided her most detailed comments to date on five separate allegations raised by the Republicans:

* The alleged bribery of the president, through political donations made by individuals or companies, including Los Angeles-area businessman Johnny Chien Chuen Chung; former Little Rock, Ark., restaurant owner Yah Lin “Charlie” Trie and the Indonesia-based Lippo conglomerate.

“We are aware of no specific and credible evidence--indeed, we are aware of no evidence whatsoever--indicating that the president may have demanded, sought, received or accepted . . . any of these donations or contributions in quid pro quo exchange for official action, or participated in any criminal conspiracy to do so,” Reno wrote.

Moreover, the attorney general said federal law does not prohibit providing access to a decision-maker in exchange for a campaign contribution.

Courts “have held that such access in exchange for political contributions is not an ‘official act’ that can provide the basis for a bribery or extortion prosecution,” she said.

* The alleged unlawful use of government facilities by the president--through his hosting at the White House of overnight guests in the Lincoln Bedroom and fund-raising “coffees.” Reno concluded that these events were lawful because she found no credible evidence that Clinton solicited campaign funds at them.

* Alleged “tax violations” by Gore in connection with a fund-raising event that he attended in April 1996, at the Hsi Lai Buddhist Temple in Hacienda Heights. Reno said a Justice Department task force she oversees has been “thoroughly investigating that event,” adding:

“To date, we have discovered no information that indicates that the vice president may have violated the laws you cite, or any other law, in connection with the Hsi Lai Temple event.”

* Alleged “extortion of campaign contributions” by Gore. Reno noted that the GOP committee members relied on anonymous complaints about Gore’s fund-raising, depicted in a Washington Post account.

“The vice president . . . is entitled to seek the financial support of the public,” Reno wrote. “A mere request by him for the assistance of potential [campaign] donors is not extortion; nor is it a request for a bribe.”

* Alleged violations of federal election law by Clinton and Gore, related to their campaign’s acceptance of illegal foreign-based contributions. Reno wrote that the task force “has to date uncovered no evidence indicating that either the president or the vice president engaged in conduct constituting a violation of the [election law].”

Reno’s sweeping rejection of the Republicans’ request is certain to spark renewed partisan rancor from those who contend that the fund-raising controversy demands the far-reaching investigative effort of an independent counsel.

“Appointment of an independent counsel to investigate both the president and vice president is inevitable,” said House Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.). “The longer her delay in doing this, the longer it will take to get answers the American people deserve.”

In conducting both the initial 30-day review and the expanded preliminary inquiry of Gore’s fund-raising calls, Justice Department investigators cannot use such standard prosecutorial tools as a grand jury, plea bargaining, grants of immunity from prosecution or the subpoenaing of witnesses.

Under the law, Reno must open a 90-day preliminary inquiry if she is unable to resolve the initial questions. But in Gore’s case the inquiry must be completed by Dec. 3--60 days from Friday--because it was the Sept. 3 letter from House Republicans, answered by Reno Friday, that triggered the 90-day clock, a Justice Department spokesman said.

Reno made no comment on a 30-day inquiry she ordered regarding similar telephone solicitations Clinton may have made. Reno has until Oct. 15 to complete that assessment.

Clinton has said he does not remember making any fund-raising phone calls but that he may have. Harold Ickes, his former deputy chief of staff, told federal investigators that he was present in October 1994, when Clinton made several solicitation calls from a study in the residential quarters of the White House.

In Tampa, Fla., on Friday, Gore said he and his lawyers would continue to cooperate with Reno’s ongoing review. Ginny Terzano, Gore’s press secretary, said she did not know whether the vice president would meet directly with Justice Department prosecutors.

“The vice president and his lawyers will continue to do everything to make sure the Justice Department has the most accurate and complete information available,” Terzano said.

In a prepared statement, Gore said: “When the first 30-day period was begun, many of the people who analyzed this and who wrote about it said from the very beginning that it was inevitable that it would go longer than 30 days because of all of the papers they had to review and all of the work that had to be done.

“Evidently that is what has happened, so it will be extended. We will continue to cooperate fully and completely during this stage of the preliminary review. I remain confident that everything that I did was legal and correct.”

The attorney general wrote Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) last March that she did not believe that an independent-counsel inquiry was warranted--ostensibly because Gore had raised “soft money,” which is not subject to federal election law restrictions. By law, these donations are intended for generic party-building purposes.

However, Reno decided to open the 30-day initial review of Gore on Sept. 3 after it was reported that the Democratic National Committee diverted $100,000 of the money he raised to accounts used for “hard-money” campaign purposes. Such donations used to advocate the election of partisan candidates are restricted by federal law.

In addition to assessing whether Gore explicitly raised the restricted hard money, Reno is confronted with other legal and factual questions as she evaluates whether to recommend appointment of an independent counsel.

There is disagreement among lawyers on whether federal law prohibits either the vice president or the president from soliciting donors by phone from the White House.

Federal law, most recently amended during the Carter administration, makes it illegal “for any person to solicit or receive any contribution . . . in any room or building occupied in the discharge of official duties” by either an employee or officer of the U.S. government or by anyone being compensated with federal funds.

Critics of Gore’s actions say the law is sufficiently clear to make his fund-raising phone calls worthy of investigation by an independent counsel. The vice president’s defenders note that the law, first enacted in 1883, was intended to prevent federal officials from extorting their subordinates for campaign money.

The Pendleton Act barred officials from soliciting or receiving campaign money from within a federal facility. It made no reference to soliciting by way of the telephone, which was invented in 1876 but was not widely used until many years later.

Justice Department guidelines say “prosecutable violations [of the law] may arise from solicitations that can be characterized as “shakedowns’ of federal personnel.”

The law has never been used to prosecute a federal official for soliciting someone who is not a federal employee or contractor.

“The idea behind the Pendleton Act in large part was to weaken patronage and political pressures on the federal labor force,” said Gary Libecap, an author and law professor at the University of Arizona.

“The intent of the law--the intent of Congress at that time--was to try to separate more clearly the government and the machinery of government from political pressure.”

Libecap added: “I don’t think the Pendleton Act was aimed [at the vice president or the president].”

Republicans were quick to criticize Reno’s statement Friday that “the complexity of the factual and legal issues” prevented her from resolving the evaluation of Gore within 30 days.

Said Jan W. Baran, a former general counsel to the Republican National Committee: “I don’t know what the ‘complex’ facts are. He [Gore] is a person. He solicited. He did it in the White House. There appears to be specific evidence from credible sources that activities were engaged in that were covered by the [independent-counsel] statute.”

A defender of Gore, White House Special Counsel Lanny J. Davis, said an independent-counsel investigation of Gore is not warranted.

“The law for 100 years or more has never been applied to telephone calls made to a private individual not on government property,” Davis said. “Members of Congress have made fund-raising calls. . . . The law was never enforced. Are we really saying that, for the first time in the history of this law, an independent counsel should be triggered because the president and the vice president choose to make a phone call from the West Wing rather than crossing the street? That cannot be what the law is about.”