Time: Mon Aug 18 10:36:43 1997
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Date: Mon, 18 Aug 1997 10:30:20 -0700
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From: Paul Andrew Mitchell [address in tool bar]
Subject: SLS: Janet "Rhino" Proves She's as Rotten as Her Boss (fwd)
<snip>
>
>Investor's Business Daily - Guest Editorial (08/15/97)
>
>Janet Reno Shows Her Situational Ethics
>By Mark Levin
>
>Mark R. Levin is president of Landmark Legal Foundation,
>a public-interest law firm. http://www.landmarklegal.org/
>He served as chief of staff to former Attorney General Edwin Meese III.)
>
> Back in the '80s, then-Attorney General Edwin Meese was held up as the
>ultimate partisan. But when push came to shove, he appointed an independent
>counsel to investigate an alleged scandal. The current attorney general,
>Janet Reno, refuses to take such a principled stand, despite her rhetoric.
>
> On Dec. 4, 1986, Meese, at the request of President Reagan, asked a
>federal court to appoint an independent counsel to investigate the so-called
>Iran-Contra matter. Reagan and Meese wanted to assure the public that an
>investigation of allegations reported in the media would be examined fully
>without any perceived influence by officials in the administration.
> Meese didn't have the requisite information compelling him to ask for an
>independent counsel - namely, specific information from a credible source
>that a crime may have been committed by a senior Reagan administration
>official.
> Instead, he used his discretionary authority to argue that it was in
>''the national public interest'' for an independent counsel to investigate
>possible wrongdoing. Soon after receiving Meese's request, Lawrence Walsh
>became independent counsel.
> At the end of the Bush administration, the Independent Counsel Act
>expired. In 1993, the Democrat-controlled Congress pushed to renew it. The
>two most prominent advocates of the law were the new president, Bill Clinton,
>and his new attorney general, Janet Reno.
> In fact, on May 14, 1993, Reno -the only attorney general, Democrat or
>Republican, to support the Independent Counsel Act - urged the Senate
>Governmental Affairs Committee to restore it. She cited, among other things,
>the Iran-Contra investigation.
>
> ''I believe,'' she testified, ''that this investigation could not have
>been conducted under the supervision of the Attorney General and concluded
>with any public confidence in its thoroughness and impartiality.''
>
> Reno not only endorsed Meese's use of his discretionary authority, but
>went much further.
> She told the Senate committee: ''The reason that I support the concept
>of an independent counsel with statutory independence is that there is an
>inherent conflict whenever senior executive branch officials are to be
>investigated by the department and its appointed head, the attorney general .
>. .
>
> ''The act thus served as a vehicle to further the public's perception of
>fairness and thoroughness in such matters, and to avert even the most subtle
>influences that may appear in an investigation of highly-placed executive
>officials.''
>
> But today, Reno refuses to seek the appointment of an independent
>counsel to investigate the campaign fund-raising scandal swirling around Bill
>and Hillary Clinton and Vice President Al Gore.
> Last Jan. 27, Lee Radek, who's running the Justice Department's
>campaign-finance probe, rejected Landmark Legal Foundation's request that
>Reno appoint an independent counsel to investigate Gore's participation in an
>illegal fundraiser at a tax-exempt Buddhist temple.
> Radek, writing for Reno, replied: ''With respect to the role of the Vice
>President, neither your letters nor any other information known to us at this
>time about the Temple suggest that Vice President Gore - or any other person
>covered by the provisions of the Independent Counsel Act - engaged in
>criminal conduct in connection with the event.''
>
> Radek misstated the law's requirements. The standard is whether Gore MAY
>have violated certain federal laws, not whether, in fact, he ''engaged'' in
>criminal conduct - a decision our Constitution places with a judge and a
>jury, not Justice Department prosecutors.
> In other words, the issue under the independent counsel law is who
>investigates this conduct, not whether a high official is conclusively guilty
>of a crime.
> But isn't Radek's response irrelevant? After all, Reno is on record
>supporting an independent counsel whenever an investigation would be in ''the
>national public interest.'' Clearly, the campaign fund-raising scandal merits
>the appointment of an independent counsel, under Reno's own past reasoning.
> The scandal includes possible governmental and commercial espionage by
>the Communist Chinese, illegal campaign solicitations and fundraisers at the
>White House involving the president, first lady and vice president,
>money-laundering, and illegal contributions to the Democratic National
>Committee and the Clinton legal defense fund.
> Reno has abandoned her 1993 Senate testimony. Today, she is deaf to her
>own arguments. Instead, she embraces Bill Clinton's public suggestion that an
>independent counsel should be avoided in this case. The only attorney general
>to support this law now refuses to comply with it.
>
> Mark R. Levin is president of Landmark Legal Foundation, a
>public-interest law firm. He served as chief of staff to former Attorney
>General Edwin Meese III.
>
>////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
>Copyright (c) 1997 Investors Business Daily, All rights reserved.
>Transmitted: 8/14/97 8:36 PM EDT (r1ab2nnx)
>
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Paul Andrew Mitchell : Counselor at Law, federal witness
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