Reno Defends Raid for Elian Amid Criticism

Faced with stepped-up attacks from Republican critics, Atty. Gen. Janet Reno on Monday mounted an aggressive defense of her decision to send federal agents to retrieve Elian Gonzalez in a predawn weekend raid, saying: “I have no regrets whatsoever.”

Reno said that although the negotiations with Elian’s Miami relatives continued until virtually the moment the raid began early Saturday morning, she decided that talks were going nowhere and that she had to act quickly for the safety of the boy. At 5:15 a.m., authorities stormed the Little Havana home where Elian was staying with family members, seized the boy and flew him to Washington, where he was reunited with his father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez.

“We just kept getting mixed signals . . . from a family that had given us hope and then pulled it back, said they would comply with the law and then said on several occasions that we would have to take the child by force,” Reno said in one of several television appearances she made Monday to answer criticism over her handling of the dramatic episode.

But her defense did little to mollify many critics on Capitol Hill, who continued to insist that the Clinton administration had acted with what Rep. J.C. Watts Jr. (R-Okla.), chairman of the House Republican Conference, called “overzealous vigor.”

Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, sent Reno a letter Monday demanding Justice Department documents connected to the raid, while Rep. Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, announced that his staff had opened a preliminary inquiry into the matter.

Today, Reno is scheduled to meet in a closed session with a small group of senators--both Republican and Democratic--several of whom have criticized her handling of the Gonzalez case.

“We want to ask some tough bipartisan questions that represent bipartisan concern,” said a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.), who initiated the meeting.

Meanwhile, the Justice Department filed a legal brief Monday before the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, seeking to clear the way for Elian’s return to Cuba.

The appellate court issued an injunction last week temporarily blocking the boy’s return--in part, the court said, because the Immigration and Naturalization Service never interviewed Elian about the petition for political asylum that his great-uncle, Lazaro Gonzalez, had filed on his behalf.

But in its brief Monday, the Justice Department said that the case is “not about whether Elian has spoken about asylum. It is about which of two adults will be allowed to speak about asylum for him: his father, with whom he has had a close relationship all his life until they were separated under traumatic circumstances last November, or a distant relative.”

Elian was found clinging to an inner tube on Thanksgiving, one of three survivors of a shipwreck that killed his mother and 10 others.

The appellate court is scheduled to hear oral arguments in the case next month. Justice Department officials say that Elian and his father are expected to stay in the Washington area as the appeal continues.

The boy’s Miami relatives tried unsuccessfully again Monday to see him. Clinton administration officials were noncommittal on whether they would work to arrange a meeting, with Reno saying that she wanted to see what experts recommend first.

Reno also said she would be open to meeting with the relatives herself. “I’m always happy to meet with people if there can be some good that comes out of it,” she said.

But the tone was more acrimonious in a slew of exchanges between the White House and Republican leaders on Capitol Hill, as each sought to win the battle over the court of public opinion.

White House spokesman Joe Lockhart accused Republicans in Congress and the Miami relatives of making “absurd” and “wildly inaccurate” claims about the raid. He said the relatives’ constantly shifting demands left government officials little choice but to seize the boy.

“No matter what anyone says, no matter how loudly they yell, no matter how impassioned their arguments are, when it came down to the very simple issue of would the Miami relatives respect the decision that the father had custody of the boy, the answer was always no,” Lockhart said.

He was particularly critical of House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas), accusing him of distorting the facts behind the raid in order to “play politics.”

But DeLay remained unrepentant. Jonathan Baron, a DeLay spokesman, said that Lockhart was resorting to “legal gibberish and word games to make himself feel better about an inexcusable and unjustifiable act. No one’s buying it.”

It remained unclear where the congressional second-guessing would lead, however.

For months, congressional critics have been all but powerless to reverse a Clinton administration policy that ultimately led to the action on Saturday to reunite Elian with his Cuban father. Several bills have been introduced to grant the boy U.S. citizenship or residency. All have languished.

John Czwartacki, Lott’s spokesman, conceded that Congress could not project the sort of force the administration wielded in the form of federal agents armed with semi-automatic weapons. But he said lawmakers could tap into the power of public opinion.

“We make laws. The executive branch enforces them. We certainly have some questions about how the laws that we make are enforced,” Lott’s spokesman said.

But a considerable number of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle supported the administration.

Their views were typified by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who said in a statement Monday: “I have said from Day 1 that Elian belongs with his father. I still think that. It was most unfortunate that Elian’s great-uncle refused to voluntarily transfer custody of the child to his dad, even after he was ordered to do so under an INS ruling.”

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Times staff writer Esther Schrader contributed to this story.