Burton to push case against Clinton if Bush wins
Updated 1:59 PM ET June 11, 2000
By Peter Szekely
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Republican head of a House panel
investigating Democratic campaign fund-raising said Sunday he
will seek criminal probes of President Clinton and others if
George W. Bush is elected president.
House Government Reform Committee Chairman Dan Burton, a leading
congressional critic of the president and his administration,
said Clinton and Vice President Al Gore knew of illegal campaign
contributions and that Attorney General Janet Reno shielded them
from scrutiny.
"After this election, assuming we get a new attorney general, I
think I will be sending criminal referrals," Burton said on NBC's
"Meet the Press" program. "And the reason that I'm waiting is
that I don't think this Justice Department is going to do
anything."
Burton's comments suggested not only that he believes the Clinton
Justice Department is unwilling to deal fairly with partisan
matters, but that he is prepared to request criminal indictments
against Clinton, Gore and Reno if the November election brings in
a Republican administration.
Burton's committee, which has been investigating 1996 campaign
fund-raising for 42 months, last week made public two memos from
top Justice Department officials recommending that Reno appoint
an independent counsel to investigate Gore and other Democrats.
Despite pressure from congressional Republicans, Reno has refused
to appoint independent counsels to look into the 1996 allegations
against Gore and Clinton, leaving the probe to a Justice
Department task force that never brought criminal charges against
any senior White House officials.
Reno and her appointees in the department have made "a mockery of
justice" by shielding Clinton and Gore, Burton said.
WHITE HOUSE DISMISSES BURTON'S COMMENTS
White House Chief of Staff John Podesta dismissed Burton's
comments as part of a partisan investigation aimed at harming
Gore in the presidential race against Bush.
"I think it's becoming a smaller and smaller group of Americans
who actually pay attention to people like Chairman Burton, whose
main purpose, I think, is really to try to do political damage to
the vice president in the upcoming election," Podesta said on
CNN's "Late Edition" program.
Burton said he thinks both Clinton and Gore helped solicit and
knew of illegal contributions to their 1996 re-election campaign
through "straw donors" from China, Taiwan, Indonesia and South
America."
"I don't see how they could not be aware of it," said the Indiana
Republican.
When asked exactly what laws Gore would have broken by raising
campaign funds during his now famous appearance at a Buddhist
temple, or what charges could be brought against either Gore or
Clinton, Burton said he did not know.
"I believe that we need to narrow that down," he said. "I can't
give you the specifics of it right now."
Burton also cited a statement attributed to a Justice Department
official looking into allegations of campaign finance wrongdoing
that he was under pressure because Reno's future in her job
depended on whether or not an independent counsel was appointed.
But the official, Lee Radek, a career department official who
heads its public integrity section, said he could not recall
making such a comment and said the two officials who reported
that he had said it must have misunderstood him.
"I did not feel any pressure because of the attorney general's
job status," said Radek. "We were under pressure from the
Congress, from the press and particularly from the attorney
general who's a tough taskmaster to do a good job."
Radek said he recommended that Reno not appoint an independent
counsel to investigate Gore, unlike FBI Director Louis Freeh and
Charles LaBella, who headed a department task force. Their memos
recommending the appointment of an independent counsel were
released by Burton's committee last week.
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