Time for D.A. to Face Issues

Information coming out about the district attorney’s office leaves the public with no better answers, only more questions.

The latest and strangest shoe to drop: One of Tony Rackauckas’ top investigators was wearing a wire around the office, taping conversations without his boss’ knowledge. Michael Clesceri, the assistant chief of investigations for the district attorney, was doing a little extracurricular snooping for state Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer, who has been at odds with Rackauckas for several months.

Rackauckas reportedly was drawing up a response to a critical letter from Lockyer when the taping revelation dropped from the sky.

The district attorney also was taken to task in an Orange County Grand Jury report for poor management, misusing taxpayer money and intervening in cases that involved his political cronies. Rackauckas brushed the jury report aside, saying the grand jury had been influenced by his political enemies. That response incensed Lockyer, whose office had helped with the probe.

The Case of the Wired Investigator is a puzzling affair. Rackauckas’ continual denials of wrongdoing and Lockyer’s continual innuendo deprive the public -- which pays for their offices and their investigations -- of crucial information. Rackauckas is refusing to address the allegations and continual hubbub that surround his office. He shrugs off findings that he was misusing an investigative fund to wine and dine lobbyists. He even changed office policy to allow the expenditures, though he later reversed course.

Rackauckas’ retort to criticism is that all this is the work of old-timers in his office who are out to get him. That line has lost whatever thin veneer of credibility it once had, because Clesceri isn’t part of the old political guard.

He was, at least up until the taping revelations, a trusted investigative chief for Rackauckas who even so agreed to go behind his boss’ back for the attorney general.

So it’s time for Rackauckas to own up, publicly and privately, to the problems in his office.

Lockyer has been equally adept at obfuscating. His investigators found no criminal wrongdoing by Rackauckas, but Lockyer has publicly taken on the Orange County district attorney in speech and letter for unspecified mismanagement. Once his mole in Rackauckas’ office was revealed, Lockyer went on the offensive, saying that although he lacks the evidence to prosecute a crime, “I’ve never seen a district attorney get so close to the line repeatedly.” Strong words. So what were those close-to-the-line actions? Lockyer isn’t saying.

In fact, a day after those statements, he said that Clesceri wasn’t targeting Rackauckas. Lockyer said he authorized the taping to assist in an earlier probe requested by Rackauckas. During that probe, they found evidence that someone in the district attorney’s office had lied to a law enforcement official.

According to a Lockyer spokesman, such lying could be a crime, although once again the office failed to lodge charges against anyone. “At a minimum, it’s unethical,” the spokesman said.

Such a conclusion hardly calls for a legal brain; the question is, does it call for enlisting one of the district attorney’s allies in a sub rosa operation? Just what is it we’re supposed to be worried about in Rackauckas’ office?

We don’t know. And until Lockyer and Rackauckas are willing to be open with the public, we won’t know.