Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 16, 1994 TAG: 9401210002
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: D2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Who knows what it will prove to be? His reluctance to call for an independent investigation and his maneuvering to keep certain papers confidential have given the matter the air of scandal, regardless of whether he or his wife did anything wrong in their investment in the failed Arkansas real estate deal.
The questions go beyond their interest in Whitewater, the Ozark resort development in which they say they lost $69,000. The trail leads mainly to questions about their ties to their friends and partners in Whitewater Development Corp., James and Susan McDougal. James McDougal also owned Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan, an Arkansas thrift represented before state regulators by Hillary Rodham Clinton's law firm. Madison failed, costing taxpayers as much as $60 million.
Were Madison depositors' funds illegally diverted, either to Whitewater or to Clinton's 1984 gubernatorial campaign? As Arkansas governor, did Clinton exert improper influence to keep the S&L afloat after federal regulators said it was insolvent?
In announcing that she will appoint a "ruggedly independent" special counsel as quickly as possible, Attorney General Janet Reno made it clear that the Whitewater investigation will include Madison. It should be a comprehensive probe, and it should be carried out with as much speed as is judiciously possible, by a person regarded in both political parties as competent, fair and nonpartisan. And this should be allowed to happen without too much political grandstanding along the way.
The normally politically astute Clinton was either arrogant or naive to think his emphatic protests that he had done nothing wrong would make this messy issue go away - even if he did, indeed, do nothing wrong. Republicans, their steady drumbeat for a full accounting finally joined by members of the president's own party, have forced the administration to march to that beat. They have reason to savor their victory.
Instead, Senate Republican leader Bob Dole already has questioned Reno's ability to order a credible investigation, since she resisted appointing a special counsel until asked to do so by the president. Yet it was the political heat generated by the GOP that forced Clinton to make his request, which the attorney general can hardly ignore.
And Reno has said all along that her resistance to naming a special counsel was based on the likelihood that any investigator she appointed would be viewed as partial to the administration. She maintains there is a need in a case such as this for an independent counsel, who would be named by a special court. Dole's stated concerns justify her view.
Yet appointment of an independent counsel is not an option because Congress has failed to reauthorize the independent counsel law that was passed after Watergate and that expired in 1992. And Congress has failed to reauthorize the law because Republicans, infuriated by independent counsel Lawrence Walsh's Iran-Contra probe into Reagan administration misdeeds, have blocked it.
Given that fact, and Reno's deserved reputation for integrity, Dole would do well to reserve his criticism of any special counsel she appoints - at least until the appointment is made.
Calls by Dole and House Minority Leader Bob Michel for congressional investigations are ludicrous at this point. After all, unlike the Watergate and Iran-Contra scandals, no allegations of serious wrongdoing have been leveled against Clinton by even his toughest critics.
Such allegations might emerge as the investigation unfolds. Then again, they might not. Right now, there is only the pungent odor that surrounds any mingling of politicians with failed financial institutions - an all-too-common phenomenon during the savings-and-loan debacle of the 1980s, which the Reagan administration oversaw.
It is high time the Clintons, claiming they have nothing to hide, quit trying to hide whatever it is they say they don't need to hide - including the Whitewater file removed from White House aide Vince Foster's office after his suicide and before investigators arrived. Republicans are right to call for disclosure.
On the other hand, GOP leaders make the political nature of their apparent outrage a bit obvious with their eagerness to transform Whitewater into Whitewashwater or Whitewatergate. The special counsel should have a crack at the job before a new label for scandal is coined.
by CNB