Fund-Raising Probe Marred by Infighting

Quarrels between the Justice Department and the FBI over the appointment of an independent counsel to investigate campaign finance abuses had a “devastating impact” on relations among those investigating fund-raising abuses, officials acknowledged in a report obtained Friday.

The differences--Justice’s determination that no special prosecutor was warranted and the FBI’s support for one--have surfaced before. But the General Accounting Office report, based on interviews with several key players, described the disagreements and their impact in detail.

Lee Radek, chief of the Justice Department’s public integrity section, spoke to congressional investigators, as did FBI officials, about the bitterness that has enveloped the department’s Campaign Finance Task Force, created in December 1996.

Atty. Gen. Janet Reno has kept the investigation under Justice Department control, unswayed by arguments by Republican lawmakers, FBI Director Louis J. Freeh and former task force chief Charles LaBella.

The animosity became so severe that Freeh, seeking an expansive probe, ordered his agents to strike out on their own to interview White House and Democratic Party officials. Cautious prosecutors not only opposed the move but told the GAO that the agents virtually paralyzed the task force’s operations for weeks.

Eventually, the prosecutors and agents had to be separated on separate floors.

“Mr. Radek said that he believed that the FBI was too anxious to recommend the need for an independent counsel and that in his opinion the information gathered did not justify seeking the appointment of an independent counsel,” the report said. “He added that their disagreement over this issue had a devastating impact on the relationship between the FBI and PI [the Public Integrity section].”

A Justice Department statement said Friday that “it is not news that there were fundamental disagreements in 1997 between prosecutors and FBI investigators,” but it contended that Reno and Freeh “moved decisively” to bring in new leadership and address the problems.

“Nothing in the report suggests that the frictions continued beyond that time, and one only need look at the task force’s success record to see that any personal disagreements that may have existed three years ago did not affect the task force’s work product,” the department said.

The report found there were severe differences in the investigative approach, with the Justice prosecutors seeking to build the investigation methodically, “from the ground up,” and the FBI agents trying “to pursue several investigative tracks simultaneously.”

Justice officials wanted “to avoid prematurely tipping off potential witnesses and investigative targets,” the report said. It added that Radek “did not believe specific predication existed . . . to justify all the investigative tracks proposed by the investigators.”

The task force has charged 25 people and one corporation for violations of campaign finance laws.