Reno Defends Investigation of Starr Probe

Bluntly rejecting a challenge to her authority, Atty. Gen. Janet Reno told a panel of judges Monday that they have no power to stop her from investigating how independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr has carried out his grand jury inquiry into the Monica S. Lewinsky affair.

Starr, in his own court papers, agreed that the judges who appointed him should not try to stop the attorney general--at least for the time being. While not endorsing Reno’s legal position, Starr said that the court should take no immediate action because a conservative legal foundation that has sought to block her inquiry had no authority to make such a request.

It would be better, said Starr, for the court to await his own complaint about Reno--if he should file one--before deciding whether to intervene in the dispute.

Reno and Starr took their legal positions in response to an order last month from a panel of three appeals court judges who said that they wanted to determine if Reno’s plan to examine Starr’s conduct should be halted. The judges were responding to a plea for such action from a conservative group known as the Landmark Legal Foundation.

Panel’s Powers Limited, Reno Says

The court took Monday’s filings under advisement without further comment. Court officials gave no time frame for a ruling.

Reno, in her papers, said that nothing in federal law allows the judges who appoint and oversee outside prosecutors “to prohibit the attorney general from inquiring into whether ‘good cause’ exists to remove an independent counsel.”

The powers of this special panel are limited, she said. Although the judges have the power to name independent counsels at the request of the attorney general and to receive their final reports, nothing in the Independent Counsel Act passed by Congress in 1978 gives the panel the power to stop an attorney general from firing a special counsel, Reno declared.

If she can fire a counsel, she certainly can investigate one, Reno argued.

“Inherent in the attorney general’s removal power is the authority to investigate allegations of misconduct that come to her attention and to ascertain the relevant facts,” she said.

Reno said this is clear because the act requires the attorney general, upon dismissing an independent counsel, to file a report with the court and the Congress “specifying the facts found and the ultimate grounds for such removal.”

Justice Department officials have expressed concern about allegations of misconduct by Starr and his deputies in several areas. These have included their interrogation of Lewinsky, a former White House intern, about her affair with President Clinton without her lawyer present and charges that Starr’s aides might have misled Justice Department officials about their previous contacts with lawyers associated with Paula Corbin Jones’ sexual harassment lawsuit against the president.

Congress Unhappy With Counsel Act

Starr and his deputies have defended their initial encounter with Lewinsky, saying that she was never in custody. They have also denied trying to mislead the attorney general, who requested the expansion of Starr’s authority into the Lewinsky matter, about their sources of information.

The dispute arises as a bipartisan consensus has developed in Congress that the Independent Counsel Act should be rewritten or allowed to lapse when it expires on June 30.

Starr suggested in his court filing that, although Landmark’s petition should be dismissed, a better case for the court to consider would be “an independent counsel who claims to be aggrieved by the attorney general’s alleged failure to comply with the act.”

He noted that federal law is silent “as to the attorney general’s power to investigate the conduct of a duly appointed independent counsel.” Such an investigation could well intrude upon the independence of such a prosecutor, Starr said.