Special Counsel Is Urged in White House Probe

Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.) asked the Justice Department on Monday to appoint a special outside counsel to investigate whether the White House engaged in obstruction by failing to surrender e-mails in the Clinton campaign fund-raising scandal.

The Republican chairman of the House Government Reform Committee said the Justice Department has a conflict of interest because its civil division lawyers are representing the White House in a lawsuit involving the e-mails.

The Justice Department cannot use its campaign fund-raising task force “to investigate yourself and the Justice Department lawyers who helped keep the e-mails from being produced,” Burton wrote Atty. Gen. Janet Reno. The department revealed the task force’s probe on Thursday.

“I call on you to appoint a special counsel to investigate the obstruction of justice charges against the White House,” Burton said.

Burton frequently has blasted Reno for failing to appoint an independent counsel to look into 1996 White House fund-raising practices, and his committee threatened her with a contempt citation in 1998 for refusing to turn over documents related to the Justice Department’s campaign finance probe.

Two White House contract employees say a presidential aide threatened them with dismissal and jail if they revealed computer glitches that resulted in possibly hundreds of thousands of e-mails not being reviewed for turnover to investigators.

At the hearing before Burton’s panel last week, three of the contractors said officials told them to keep quiet about the problem and said they could be jailed if word got out. Two other contractors at the meeting said they did not recall being threatened with jail, but all remembered being told to keep quiet.

The presidential aide, attorney Mark Lindsay, denied making threats but said he did ask the employees to keep quiet because he didn’t want them gossiping.

A conservative group whose lawsuit revealed the e-mail problem objected to appointment of a special counsel. “Who needs a special counsel when all they ever do is fail?” asked Larry Klayman, head of Judicial Watch.

The Justice Department is trying to suspend the part of Klayman’s lawsuit having to do with the e-mails so that the suit does not interfere with the criminal inquiry.

A Justice Department spokesman said that officials are reviewing Burton’s letter to see if “yet another investigator is necessary.”