Once Again, Two-Bit but Costly

Four years and $10 million later, an independent counsel’s case against former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry G. Cisneros has ended with a misdemeanor plea bargain--a whimper of a result.

The charges against Cisneros involved accusations that he lied to the FBI after his Cabinet nomination in 1992, admitting that he had paid money to former lover Linda Jones after their breakup but greatly understating the amount. Cisneros should have been fired when the discrepancy came to light in a suit filed against him by Jones. The payments, though not illegal, could very well have affected his confirmation to the Cabinet job. But the $10-million taxpayer-financed probe was ridiculous. The case collapsed altogether when Jones admitted editing the tapes she had made of her phone conversations with Cisneros.

Like the failed two-bit bribery investigation of former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy, the Cisneros case is more proof that Congress was right when it allowed the special prosecutor law to lapse in June.

Cisneros, now president of the Spanish-language Univision television network in Los Angeles, ran up a mountain of legal bills but faces only a $10,000 fine for his admission of lying. Jones, meanwhile, was convicted of bank fraud because her sister and brother-in-law financed an $85,000 house that Jones intended to live in and they lied to the bank about it.

Investigators used the charge as leverage to gain Jones’ testimony, then prosecuted her when her cooperation was found lacking. She is serving a 3 1/2-year prison sentence. Justice must be blushing, even if independent counsel David Barrett isn’t.