
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, February 28, 1991                   TAG: 9102280073
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

CRANSTON SINGLED OUT IN ETHICS PROBE

The Senate Ethics Committee on Wednesday found "substantial credible evidence" of misconduct by Alan Cranston, but said no further action is warranted against four other senators for intervening with federal thrift regulators on behalf of Charles Keating.

The six-member committee's unanimous report set the stage for possible censure of Cranston, D-Calif., by the full Senate.

But the committee effectively closed the case against the other four members of the so-called Keating Five, even though the conduct of two - Sens. Donald Riegle, D-Mich., and Dennis DeConcini, D-Ariz., - "gave the appearance of being improper."

The committee also found that Sens. John Glenn, D-Ohio, and John McCain, R-Ariz., "exercised poor judgment" in their actions on behalf of Keating, the one-time owner of the failed Lincoln Savings & Loan.

All of the Keating Five stoutly denied any wrongdoing. Cranston charged he had been "unfairly singled out." The others pronounced themselves vindicated.

Before acting further in Cranston's case, the committee must send him a statement detailing the specific charges against him and give him a chance to respond.

The committee said in a resolution it found "substantial credible evidence" that "Sen. Cranston engaged in an impermissible pattern of conduct in which fund raising and official activities were substantially linked."

All five senators met both with Keating and with enforcement officials to discuss his troubled thrift at a time when regulators were investigating the institution.

Keating and his associates donated $1.3 million to the campaigns and political causes of the five lawmakers, most of it while the Federal Home Loan Bank Board was conducting its examination. Lincoln Savings was seized by regulators in April 1989 at a potential cost to taxpayers of more than $2 billion.

by CNB