Task Force to Tackle Corporate Crime?

W A S H I N G T O N, July 12 -- A lot of people outside the Justice Department seem to believe that President Bush's new corporate fraud task force is going to make a huge difference in the new war against corporate crime.

Or, that at a minimum it will shift the blame and focus from the White House to Justice.

At Justice itself, the announcement was greeted by at least one prosecutor with a barnyard epithet. Others merely rolled their eyes and pronounced it to be strictly PR, or window-dressing.

Hasn't anyone been paying attention, they want to know, to all the cases we've been pursuing already? Do they think we've just been sitting on our hands? There's also not a little irony in the fact that just a few weeks ago many were severely criticizing Justice for being too harsh to poor Arthur Andersen.

But Michael Chertoff , the assistant attorney general for the criminal division, showed himself to be a good soldier, saluting smartly and marching up to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to testify about the task force.

His appearance before Delaware Democrat Joe Biden's Senate Judiciary subcommittee had been long planned, to address the subject of penalties for white-collar crime. But it certainly didn't take a genius to figure out that following the president's speech the task force would be Topic A.

In his prepared remarks, Chertoff took pains to note what was being done already: "... We have not hesitated to proceed with criminal cases against corporate executives, accountants, and others who have abused their positions of trust and authority for personal gain or for other improper purposes by breaking the existing laws. Some have called us too aggressive, but those voices seem to be growing more faint as ever more egregious business practices are exposed to public scrutiny. We are proud of the work we have done, and continue to do, both here in Washington and at the many United States attorneys' offices around the country ... ."

He described the new task force in terms only a bureaucrat could love: It will "provide direction," "improve cooperation," "recommend policy and legislative changes" and "significantly enhance the department's existing ability." Just to be clear: This task force will not investigate, will not prosecute, will not run cases.

This task force is completely different from the Enron task force. That was set up specifically because the U.S. attorney's office most particularly involved was completely conflicted. A team of investigators and prosecutors from other U.S. attorneys' offices with experience in white-collar crime had to be put together to run the case.