Beverley Lumpkin: Halls of Justice
W A S H I N G T O N, July 28, 2000 -- PR NEEDS A LITTLE BRUSH-UP
The San Francisco Daily Journal, has discovered that a number of federal prosecutors are refusing to attend training sessions at Justice’s National Advocacy Center in South Carolina, in sympathy with the NAACP’s boycott of that state for continuing to fly the Confederate battle flag on state capitol grounds.
Enterprising reporter David Houston called several U.S. attorney’s offices around the country and discovered that most were leaving the decision whether to travel to South Carolina for training up to prosecutors’ individual consciences.
But the spokeswoman for the office in Jackson, Miss., was quoted as responding: “We don’t have many black [assistant U.S. attorneys] and the white ones probably just don’t care.”
CLINTON AND RENO ON WACO REGRETS
In his own April interview with campaign finance prosecutors, sneakily released by the White House the same night the Mideast talks collapsed and George W. Bush’s V.P. choice of Dick Cheney became known, President Clinton in passing seemed critical — in a way he never had before — of Justice’s handling of the Waco catastrophe.
The president explained he didn’t remember a reported meeting with Indonesian businessman James Riady on April 19, 1993, because he was “totally preoccupied” with Waco, adding: “And I gave in to the people in the Justice Department who were pleading to go in early, and I felt personally responsible for what had happened, and I still do. I made a terrible mistake.”
Reno seemed unperturbed by his remarks, however: “I think everybody who has been touched by Waco would like to be able to undo it. But the real issue is we don’t know what he [David Koresh] would have done on his own in the long run. And so I think all of us, the president, I am sure, and others, think, ‘What could we have done to have prevented the tragedy?’”
She did make clear that shortly before the tear-gassing operation had begun she had briefed the president: “When I talked to him that Sunday afternoon, I advised him; we discussed it; and we went ahead.”
SPECTER STILL HANGS OVER DANFORTH
Speaking of Waco, the indefatigable Arlen Specter almost immediately upon the release of John Danforth’s report called him to testify.
Justice of course believes Specter has been hounding it on several issues, notably campaign finance, Chinese espionage investigations, and Waco.
But Specter could not have been pleased to hear some of the former Missouri senator and Waco investigator’s testimony: “And if there’s a moral to the whole story of Waco and the aftermath, and particularly, the so-called cover-up aspect, to me the moral is that little things can be blown into very big things by fear, by people just being afraid for their own skins. … And I think that somehow we have totally over-blown our willingness to just trash people on the basis of mistakes. … honest, even though bad mistakes, are assumed to be just evil acts … So what turns out to be a flaw ends up into some kind of an expose, where there is a total blurring of the line between … human foibles on one hand and really bad acts on the other.”
NOT EXACTLY RACING TO MAKE A DECISION
Reno’s response to task force chief Robert Conrad’s recommendation that she appoint a special counsel to investigate whether Vice President Al Gore lied during his April interview will probably come in the next two weeks.
She has vaguely indicated she’s waiting to hear more recommendations from some of her senior staff, possibly including something in writing from the FBI, although the best-known secret in town is FBI Chief Louis Freeh’s agreement with Conrad (or for that matter anyone who favors an outside counsel on campaign finance).
As one aide put it, rolling his eyes, she always wants to talk to every last person and hear every last argument before making a decision. The fact there’s no deadline certainly doesn’t help. There is virtually no likelihood she will accede to his request.
TACKLING CARNIVORE-PHOBIA
Last week Reno had said she wanted to “review” Carnivore, the FBI’s new e-mail sniffer.
This week, she said “as a result of that review, we’re contemplating a two-step process. The first step will be to have an individual expert or a group of experts, probably from an academic community, conduct a detailed review of the source code.
“Those experts will report their findings to a panel of interested parties, people from the telecommunications and computer industries, as well as privacy experts.”
She said she’s very anxious for the process to get under way, and that the FBI is currently meeting with industry reps and privacy advocates to develop a protocol for the review.
FOLLOWING THE MONEY IN NEW JERSEY
It is certainly true, as the New York Times recently reported, that prosecutors are now examining the role New Jersey Sen. Robert Torricelli’s personal and campaign staff may have played in the numerous cases of illegal contributions made to his 1996 campaign.
But it is far from clear yet, according to Justice officials, that anything will come of it. It’s basically a no-brainer, once the task force had rolled up all the illegal donors, to follow the trail into the office and see what if anything the candidate’s staff may have known about the violations.
A source close to Torricelli says prosecutors still have not identified any problem with anybody in the senator’s office or on his campaign staff.
The senator, who has been told he’s not a target, is cooperating with the investigation, according to the source.
Beverley Lumpkin has covered the Justice Department for ABCNEWS for 14 years. Halls of Justice appears every Friday.