Special Counsels Continue Work With Little Attention

Labor Secretary Alexis M. Herman calmly entered the U.S. courthouse here one day last fall and rode an elevator to the third floor. Unseen by reporters, she went behind closed doors to tell grand jurors that she had never accepted illegal payments to help business interests while she was a White House assistant.

Herman’s testimony was typical of the low-key approaches of four other independent counsels in the capital.

Unlike the circus atmosphere that attended Kenneth W. Starr’s investigation of President Clinton’s relationship with a former White House intern, the other special counsels have investigated administration figures with little fanfare--and, unlike Starr, they’re still on the public payroll.

In Herman’s case, independent counsel Ralph I. Lancaster has said he hopes to complete his work by late May, two years after his appointment. Herman is expected to be exonerated.

While legal analysts consider the influence-peddling accusations against Herman among the weakest cases to be investigated by special counsels, her case illustrates how expensive and inefficient the now-defunct independent counsel law proved to be.

As of March 31, 1999, the latest period for which figures are available, Lancaster had spent $1.4 million on this largely fruitless inquiry. The final cost likely will be more than twice that.

By last year, Starr’s investigation, then five years long, had cost more than $47 million. The other counsels had spent a total of another $37 million through last March, according to the General Accounting Office.

“Lancaster has fallen into the same trap as most independent counsels. He has undertaken a microscopic examination of the facts, the kind of prosecutorial myopia that comes with independent counsel status,” observed an ex-prosecutor familiar with the case.

“He thought he would be finished by the end of last year. Now he’s saying by the end of this spring,” the former prosecutor added.

Lancaster declined to comment.

Before Herman’s grand jury appearance, Lancaster, who is a Republican lawyer from Maine, went to the White House to question the president under oath about the allegations against her. The inquiry originated with uncorroborated charges from Laurent Yene, a West African businessman, that Herman, while a White House aide, had agreed to take a kickback on business she could generate for a private firm.

Clinton subsequently appointed Herman to head the Labor Department.

Independent counsel Donald C. Smaltz, whose investigation of former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy cost $21 million by the last GAO accounting, has defended the fact that he still is working, more than a year after a federal court jury cleared Espy of criminal charges.

Smaltz declined to estimate when he will be finished. With two lesser cases still on appeal, Smaltz said that he chiefly was “working on a final report.”

Legal analysts said final reports also are the main order of business for two other independent counsels who are still in office after investigating former Housing Secretary Henry G. Cisneros and Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt.

Cisneros, capping an inquiry by counsel David M. Barrett that cost more than $10 million, pleaded guilty in September to a misdemeanor count of lying to the FBI about the size of payments he made to an ex-mistress.

Babbitt was cleared by independent counsel Carol E. Bruce of allegations that he lied to a Senate panel about his role in rejecting an Indian casino in Wisconsin four years ago. That 18-month probe involved the questioning of 450 witnesses and cost $3.9 million.

Robert W. Ray, who took over Starr’s investigation last fall, also is described as drafting a final Whitewater report, although he still is working with a federal grand jury on matters he refuses to discuss.

While the special counsel probes of White House and other administration figures have cost more than $87 million, the final tab could be higher. That’s because any principal figures who were investigated but never indicted may apply to have their legal fees reimbursed by the government.