Fred Thompson

Fred Dalton Thompson, the prosecutor-turned-actor-turned-politician, seemed perfectly cast for the biggest role of his brief career as a U.S. senator: spearheading the investigation of campaign fund-raising abuses.

The imposing, 6-foot-5-inch Tennessee Republican, a divorced grandfather of five, burnished his credentials as the real-life minority counsel to Sen. Howard H. Baker Jr. during the Watergate hearings and, on the big screen, in such memorable roles as White House chief of staff in the movie “In the Line of Fire.”

He also established himself as a savvy lawyer-lobbyist in Washington, as a dapper man at home in the halls of power. But, during his maiden uphill Senate campaign in 1994, Thompson hopped into a red pickup truck and donned flannel shirts to run as a good ol’ boy, a straight-talking outsider touting such issues as term limits and campaign-finance reform. He won.

Tapped to deliver the GOP response to President Bill Clinton’s tax-cut address on national television one week after taking office, he further enhanced his star quality. Two years later, after gaining reelection to his first, full, six-year term with the most votes in Tennessee history, he was selected chairman of the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs.

Expectations were high as Thompson, 55, launched a $4.3 million inquiry into the stratospheric-spending 1996 campaign. Partisan sniping marred the probe from the outset, and Thompson prompted intense controversy when he used his opening statement to highlight allegations of a Chinese government plot to influence the U.S. elections.

As the Senate investigation approaches its Dec. 31 deadline, Thompson paused recently to reflect on its findings, fallout and impact. The interview took place in his sprawling Senate office, amid such mementos as a black-and-white photo of him at Baker’s side during the Watergate hearings. Alternately thoughtful, defensive and self-deprecating, as Thompson talked he rocked back on the rear legs of a Chippendale wing chair, testing the forces of wood and gravity.

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Question: What’s the most important lesson uncovered by your investigation?

Answer: I didn’t go into it expecting to see anything that shocked or surprised me. Human nature has not changed. People in positions of power and people who seek power will often stretch the limits. In this particular case, a system that was ripe for the plucking met some people who were eager to pluck . . . .

We’ve seen an unprecedented and systematic influx of illegal money, much of it foreign, facilitated by people who have taken the 5th Amendment, fled the country, some of whom worked in the White House. We’ve seen the White House used in an unprecedented way; the offices of the presidency and the vice presidency used in an unprecedented way; testimony about certain groups--Buddhists, Indian tribes--that were used in unprecedented ways.

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Q: You’ve criticized the White House coffees and Lincoln Bedroom sleepovers as fund-raising tools. What about Republican congressional leaders having lobbyists sit at the table when laws were being written?

A: First of all, you’ve got to look at it from the standpoint of what’s legal and what’s illegal. There’s a substantial legality question about using the White House. You’re not supposed to solicit contributions from the White House . . . .

I’ve never been one to try to justify anything Republicans are doing. I see, across the board, a system that requires huge sums of money, and both sides are engaged in the pursuit of that. When that happens, you’re going to have access questions, you’re going to have appearance questions . . . .

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Q: Do you think there is evidence that the president or vice president broke any laws?

A: I’m not going to answer questions like that . . . . I have said early and often that the cumulative effect of what we’ve seen has clearly called for the appointment of an independent counsel for a long time . . . . Congressional committees should not be throwing accusations of specific criminal activity on people in high places. We should lay out the facts, point the direction, express the appropriate concern and then have the prosecutors do that.

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Q: Some members of your own party, as well as Democrats and pundits, have portrayed your investigation as a disappointment if not a failure. Is that fair?

A: I could show you a stack of clips that have the opposite assessment . . . . I decided in the very beginning that there were going to be people who were going to be unsatisfied if I didn’t bring President Clinton’s head on a platter. There were also going to be people who were dissatisfied if I aggressively pursued the Democrats . . . . You make mistakes along the way, but I can’t be concerned about what other people think. My only guide has been what I thought was right and to try to shoot it down the middle. That means an aggressive investigation, but trying to be fair in the process in dealing with the other side. At the end of the day, my test will be whether or not when I get up Dec. 31 and say this is what I believe, most of the American people out there are going to say, “You know, that’s probably the way it is, because I’ve got a sense that Thompson’s telling us the truth.”

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Q: Some say your committee hearings will be judged successful if they help achieve campaign-finance reform or appointment of an independent counsel. Do you agree?

A: I never judge myself on things that are totally within the power of other people. But you’re in the right ballpark . . . . Frankly, I think both of those things have already been done . . . . The hard-money telephone calls came from us . . . . The [White House videotapes] tapes came from us. We’d been dogging them for months on that . . . . When we started the hearings, there was not the pressure, I think, that’s built now for an independent counsel. And we’ve had the first real debate on campaign-finance reform in 20 years. It’s been a good debate.

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Q: Realistically, what are the prospects for passage of the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance reform bill this year?

A: I don’t see any realistic prospect of that. But I think the genie’s out of the bottle now . . . . People may not realize it yet, but unlimited soft money is dead. It’s just a matter of time. There’s going to be more now than ever before. Members of Congress have now caught on to the game. I’ve run two campaigns in the last three years, statewide U.S. Senate campaigns. I didn’t [know anything] about soft money, but I do now. My prediction is that candidates or members are going to start having their regular organization, and then they’re going to have their soft-money organization. It’s a constant scandal waiting to happen.

I used to say it’s going to take either a scandal or somebody important getting beat on the issue. Well, we’ve had the scandal. Now I guess it’s going to take both. It will become a political issue. I’d like to see my party get ahead of that curve . . . . We’re supposed to be the reform party. We ran on the basis of changing the way Washington does business.

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Q: Do Republicans run the risk of hurting themselves at the polls by opposing genuine campaign finance reform?

A: Probably not that much, because I think the hypocrisy of the president on this issue is so apparent that it will probably offset, for a while, the problems of the Republicans.

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Q: Are you comfortable that the hearings have now resonated sufficiently with the American public?

A: I don’t think that’s the first thing people think of when they wake up in the morning by a hell of a long shot . . . [but] it’s seeping out more than what people realize . . . . People get a sense about a situation, about a person or a political figure--whether it’s Bill Clinton or those of us on the committee or whatever. It takes a while.

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Q: You said recently that you might as well refer fund-raising allegations to the Interior Department as the Justice Department. Do you really believe the Justice Department is that ineffective or unwilling to pursue these matters?

A: They needed a real wake-up call and I was trying to help give them that . . . . They’ve done things that have made me very angry in times past. They released a letter over there implying that an FBI/CIA-approved document that I used was other than what it was, and I thought it was a political shot. They kept information away from us that they have in their own files . . . . And when the [White House videotape] thing hit, that coalesced a lot of things for me in terms of the White House, in terms of the attorney general.

It’s just a matter of enough is enough. I have been fair to them. I have not held a lot of press conferences castigating them. I’ve tried to work the process fairly in the committee . . . . But enough is enough.

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Q: Do you believe it is possible for this Justice Department to undertake a credible investigation that would regain the confidence of people like yourself?

A: I think we’re entirely past that point. I know they’re scrambling to do that, but either way they go now the perception of justice being administered is going to be in danger. It would be just as bad if they were pressured into indicting people as if they were pressured not to. That’s always the case. High-profile criminal investigations are extremely sensitive, under any circumstances, and this one has just been taken to the nth degree. It’s just off the radar screen in terms of all of the sensitivity factors.

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Q: Some maintain that you made a mistake by attending Republican Party events that showcased potential presidential candidates for the year 2000 because this suggests you’re seeking to capitalize on the hearings. Why did you go to those events, even though you knew criticism would follow?

A: The only one that I think really could fit into that category of presidential sweepstakes, if you want to call it that, is the Indianapolis event. I’ve done some party things, but I’ve always done party things, and I’ve done some things for candidates and things like that. I haven’t been to Iowa, I haven’t been to New Hampshire--which I’ve avoided deliberately . . . . One of the reasons I did it . . . is because it gave me an opportunity to walk into the middle of a big bunch of grass-roots Republicans and tell them we needed to pass campaign finance reform and see how they liked it.

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Q: How did they like it?

A: They liked it fine. Maybe it was a little bit of the response to some of the criticism from some of my party members up here about what I was doing . . . . I wanted to see whether or not my supposition about that was correct: that the average Republican out there had an uneasy feeling about the way things were going . . . . So it’s not exactly like I’m out here running in these presidential sweepstakes. I’m not. But on the other hand, I’m not going to avoid things that I would naturally do if there’s some reason for me to go ahead and do it. I’ll stay out of New Hampshire and Iowa for a good while . . . Maybe forever. But it’s just a matter of to what extent you want to try to avoid criticism.

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Q: Some say the hearings were an opportunity for you to advance those aspirations, but that, within Republican ranks, you’ve hurt yourself by supporting campaign finance reform and making the hearings bipartisan.

A: Then there are some of those who say that it’s all due to my presidential aspirations and this is somehow a clever plot to win the New Hampshire and Iowa primaries by irritating all the Republicans . . . I have my own sense of where the average Republican is. Politically that’s all that’s relevant. I think sometimes we get out of touch. I think that I can irritate some so-called leaders every once in a while and not do myself any damage at all with the guy who goes out here and rings doorbells for his local candidate and is interested in the Republican Party.