National Perspective : Politics : Clinton Gets Triple Dose of Republican Criticism

President Clinton may have survived impeachment but he remains a favorite GOP target on Capitol Hill.

On Tuesday, one group of Republicans investigated the president’s offer of clemency to 16 radical Puerto Rican nationalists. Another group, led by Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), pushed for a inquiry into Justice Department actions. And still another group attacked the Democratic president for spending $72 million on three overseas trips last year, including one that sent 1,300 people to Africa, some as members of advance teams and others with the president.

The proposal by Hatch, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, would create a task force to investigate the Justice Department’s activities in the 1993 Branch Davidian siege near Waco, Texas, its plea bargaining in the campaign finance scandal and its handling of alleged Chinese nuclear espionage. Hatch proposed the task force to Republican and Democratic Senate leaders in a private meeting in the office of Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.).

“It certainly would be an investigation into whether or not the Justice Department is serving the American people as it should,” Hatch told reporters afterward. “The attorney general seems to be asleep at the switch while the White House runs the Justice Department.”

Under his proposal, a task force made up of three Republicans and two Democrats and headed by Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) would conduct the investigation. Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) expressed “real concerns” about a task force but said that he would discuss the proposal with Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Democrats prefer limiting the inquiry to the assault on the Branch Davidian compound and the fire that killed 80 cultists, including revelations that the FBI, after six years of denials, used pyrotechnic tear gas devices. Authorities continue to insist that the FBI’s use of the pyrotechnic canisters had nothing to do with the fire that engulfed the compound.

Former Sen. John C. Danforth (R-Mo.) has been appointed by Atty. Gen. Janet Reno to investigate the Branch Davidian disaster and has asked to interview witnesses before Congress does.

But, Hatch said, “our job is different. Ours is congressional oversight. . . . We’ll try to cooperate in every way but we’re going to do our jobs, regardless of what the special counsel does.” He vowed to confer regularly with Danforth, however.

The House Government Reform Committee, headed by Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.), also is looking into the department’s handling of the siege.

Earlier Tuesday, three GOP senators attacked Clinton for what they asserted was a record for presidential travel--186 days abroad and trips to 59 countries--and released a General Accounting Office report putting the costs of Clinton’s trips to Africa, Chile and China at $72.1 million. “I think this really is excessive,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.).

White House spokesman Joe Lockhart called the president’s travel “money well spent” because it opened markets for U.S. goods and advanced U.S. interests in promoting democracy and human rights.

The 11-day, six-country Africa trip was, by one day, the longest official visit of the Clinton administration. And because of the large number of Democratic contributors and Democratic elected officials, it was controversial from the start.

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Times staff writer Paul Richter contributed to this story.