Independent Prosecutor

WASHINGTON -- Justice Department investigators have obtained a November 1995 White House memo with handwritten notations that appear to contradict Vice President Al Gore's account of his fund-raising phone calls during President Clinton's re-election campaign, government officials said yesterday.The notations indicate that at a meeting Nov. 21, 1995, Gore and several campaign officials discussed how some of the large "soft money" contributions being raised by the vice president for use only for general campaign purposes by the Democratic Party would be diverted to accounts to directly finance the Clinton-Gore re-election effort, the government officials said.

WASHINGTON -- After a year of resisting an independent campaign finance inquiry, Attorney General Janet Reno changed direction yesterday, formally asking a judicial panel to appoint an outside prosecutor to investigate Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt's role in his agency's action to kill an Indian gambling project.Reno asked the panel to instruct the new counsel, the sixth one to be appointed during the Clinton administration, to look at whether Babbitt lied to Congress and whether the decision to kill the project was "criminally corrupted."

That's the trouble with the bay. Too many oysters and not enough crabs.Son, become an independent prosecutor. They always need one more.If India needs the bomb, Pakistan does, which means Iran does, and Afghanistan and then Tajikistan. You get the idea."Homicide" without Andre Braugher won't be more than second degree manslaughter.Pub Date: 5/13/98

The Justice Department's top prosecutor for campaign finance abuses privately told Republican senators last week that he had urged Attorney General Janet Reno to seek an independent prosecutor to investigate President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore, but was rebuffed by Reno and other advisers, law enforcement officials said yesterday.The prosecutor, Charles LaBella, who was brought in six months ago to revive a drifting campaign finance inquiry, is preparing to return to San Diego as interim U.S. attorney.

WASHINGTON -- FBI Director Louis J. Freeh has given a long memorandum to Attorney General Janet Reno in a last-ditch appeal to persuade her to seek an independent prosecutor to investigate campaign finance abuses, law enforcement officials said yesterday.Reno is expected to reject his advice today, and that prospect has opened the most serious division between them in the more than four years that they have worked in unusually close harmony as the country's highest law enforcement officials.

WASHINGTON -- Attorney General Janet Reno, embarrassed by missteps and discord in the Department of Justice's campaign-finance investigation, will replace the top federal prosecutor and FBI agent in charge of the inquiry with more experienced senior personnel.The reshuffling by Reno, announced by the Justice Department yesterday, is an attempt to get control of the agency's most important investigation, one that has created serious internal tensions and accusations that she has refused to seek an independent counsel in an effort to protect the White House.

WASHINGTON -- Attorney General Janet Reno has decided to ask a court to appoint an independent prosecutor to investigate President and Mrs. Clinton's Arkansas land investments as soon as Congress enacts a law renewing her ability to do so, senior Justice Department officials said yesterday.Ms. Reno herself came close yesterday to saying she would use the law to ask a panel of judges to appoint an independent counsel to investigate allegations surrounding the Clintons' investment in the Whitewater Development Co. of Arkansas before Mr. Clinton became president.

Los Angeles.--Will Robert Bork be appointed the new special prosecutor in the inquiry regarding Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy?If last week's selection of Republican stalwart Kenneth Starr as the special prosecutor for Whitewater indicates how the three-judge panel makes decisions, the selection of Mr. Bork might not be as absurd as it sounds.The judges are supposed to make their selection from a list of senior attorneys with judicial or prosecutorial experience and reputation for impartiality.

Attorney General Janet Reno is right for the wrong reason when she says she will not yield to Republican calls for a special prosecutor to look into allegations concerning Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown. Mr. Brown has been accused of accepting a $700,000 fee to help lift the trade embargo on Vietnam.Ms. Reno said her reason for not appointing a special prosecutor was that there still would be an apparent conflict of interest if she, a co-member of the Clinton cabinet with Secretary Brown, selected the independent prosecutor.

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration rebuffed House Democrats yesterday and refused to seek the appointment of an independent prosecutor to investigate whether officials violated the law by trying to aid Iraq before the Persian Gulf war.The decision may spare President Bush some political embarrassment in this year's campaign, but the attorney general insisted that politics did not influence the decision. Democrats immediately attacked the decision as part of a politically motivated cover-up.

Videotapes showing workers at a liberal advocacy organization dispensing tax advice to a couple posing as a pimp and a prostitute have sounded alarms among Maryland nonprofit groups, which acknowledge they could be vulnerable to similar tactics. "It's a general warning to everybody," said Peter Sabonis, chief counsel for Maryland Legal Aid. "It wouldn't surprise me if we've had enemies of our program come in here in all of our offices and try to show we're violating our congressional restrictions and using our money illegally."

WASHINGTON -- The independent prosecutor who has been investigating accusations of corruption involving Alexis M. Herman, the secretary of labor, said yesterday that he has concluded that Herman did not break any laws and should not be indicted. Herman, the fifth Cabinet officer in the Clinton administration to come under scrutiny by an independent counsel, was accused by a former business partner of engaging in a plan involving kickbacks and solicitation of illegal campaign contributions to the Democratic Party.

WASHINGTON -- Justice Department investigators have obtained a November 1995 White House memo with handwritten notations that appear to contradict Vice President Al Gore's account of his fund-raising phone calls during President Clinton's re-election campaign, government officials said yesterday.The notations indicate that at a meeting Nov. 21, 1995, Gore and several campaign officials discussed how some of the large "soft money" contributions being raised by the vice president for use only for general campaign purposes by the Democratic Party would be diverted to accounts to directly finance the Clinton-Gore re-election effort, the government officials said.

That's the trouble with the bay. Too many oysters and not enough crabs.Son, become an independent prosecutor. They always need one more.If India needs the bomb, Pakistan does, which means Iran does, and Afghanistan and then Tajikistan. You get the idea."Homicide" without Andre Braugher won't be more than second degree manslaughter.Pub Date: 5/13/98

The Justice Department's top prosecutor for campaign finance abuses privately told Republican senators last week that he had urged Attorney General Janet Reno to seek an independent prosecutor to investigate President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore, but was rebuffed by Reno and other advisers, law enforcement officials said yesterday.The prosecutor, Charles LaBella, who was brought in six months ago to revive a drifting campaign finance inquiry, is preparing to return to San Diego as interim U.S. attorney.

WASHINGTON -- After a year of resisting an independent campaign finance inquiry, Attorney General Janet Reno changed direction yesterday, formally asking a judicial panel to appoint an outside prosecutor to investigate Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt's role in his agency's action to kill an Indian gambling project.Reno asked the panel to instruct the new counsel, the sixth one to be appointed during the Clinton administration, to look at whether Babbitt lied to Congress and whether the decision to kill the project was "criminally corrupted."

WASHINGTON -- FBI Director Louis J. Freeh has given a long memorandum to Attorney General Janet Reno in a last-ditch appeal to persuade her to seek an independent prosecutor to investigate campaign finance abuses, law enforcement officials said yesterday.Reno is expected to reject his advice today, and that prospect has opened the most serious division between them in the more than four years that they have worked in unusually close harmony as the country's highest law enforcement officials.

WASHINGTON -- Attorney General Janet Reno, embarrassed by missteps and discord in the Department of Justice's campaign-finance investigation, will replace the top federal prosecutor and FBI agent in charge of the inquiry with more experienced senior personnel.The reshuffling by Reno, announced by the Justice Department yesterday, is an attempt to get control of the agency's most important investigation, one that has created serious internal tensions and accusations that she has refused to seek an independent counsel in an effort to protect the White House.

Los Angeles.--Will Robert Bork be appointed the new special prosecutor in the inquiry regarding Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy?If last week's selection of Republican stalwart Kenneth Starr as the special prosecutor for Whitewater indicates how the three-judge panel makes decisions, the selection of Mr. Bork might not be as absurd as it sounds.The judges are supposed to make their selection from a list of senior attorneys with judicial or prosecutorial experience and reputation for impartiality.

WASHINGTON -- Attorney General Janet Reno has decided to ask a court to appoint an independent prosecutor to investigate President and Mrs. Clinton's Arkansas land investments as soon as Congress enacts a law renewing her ability to do so, senior Justice Department officials said yesterday.Ms. Reno herself came close yesterday to saying she would use the law to ask a panel of judges to appoint an independent counsel to investigate allegations surrounding the Clintons' investment in the Whitewater Development Co. of Arkansas before Mr. Clinton became president.