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Cisneros Probe Stirred Worries Of Democrats

By R. EMMETT TYRRELL Jr. and BRIAN McGUIRE
January 16, 2006

WASHINGTON - A long-awaited report detailing an independent counsel investigation of a former secretary of housing and urban development, Henry Cisneros, outlines a coordinated effort by Clinton administration officials to first block and then limit the probe as a way of taking pressure off an administration that was already beset by scandals.

The report, by independent counsel David Barrett, is scheduled for release on January 19. Details of it have been disclosed to The New York Sun by persons familiar with its contents.

The release of the report coincides with the end of an investigation that began in 1995 with Mr. Barrett examining events surrounding Mr. Cisneros's nomination. During his FBI background check, Mr. Cisneros lied about adulterous relations, his payments to a mistress, the extent of his income, and his tax filings with the Internal Revenue Service.

Mr. Cisneros, a former San Antonio mayor, eventually pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of lying to the FBI. He paid a $10,000 fine and was pardoned by President Clinton on Mr. Clinton's final day in office.

Democrats have complained about the length and expense of Mr. Barrett's investigation, which cost more than $23 million when it closed this month. The report, excluding appendixes, runs to 428 pages. In it, Mr. Barrett is said to argue that Mr. Cisneros's mistress delayed the first half of the investigation by lying to a grand jury that was reviewing evidence in the case and that the second half was impeded by top Clinton administration officials.

Prior to serving as independent counsel, Mr. Barrett had a 30-year career practicing law in Washington. He served as special counsel to the House of Representatives' Ethics Committee from 1978 to 1979. Robert Bennett, a veteran of Washington's political and legal battles, said of Mr. Barrett: "I have known him for a long time. He's a straight shooter. I have very high regard for him. He's a man of integrity and honor."

People familiar with the report say Mr. Barrett's narrative focuses on the actions of a former chief of the Public Integrity Section of the Department of Justice, Lee Radek, and a former assistant chief counsel for criminal tax matters at the IRS, Barry Finkelstein. A Clinton friend and former IRS commissioner, Margaret Richardson, is not mentioned in the report despite earlier speculation that she would figure prominently, a source familiar with the report's contents said.

At issue in the second half of Mr. Barrett's investigation were the implications of a 1994 appearance that Mr. Cisneros's mistress, Linda Medlar, made on the program "Inside Edition." There she detailed the amount of money she had received over the years from Mr. Cisneros, triggering the call for an independent counsel. The interview raised questions about whether Mr. Cisneros had concealed substantial amounts of income from the IRS over a period of several years.

Spurred by Ms. Medlar's report of monthly gifts from Mr. Cisneros that ran into the tens of thousands of dollars annually, a regional IRS office in San Antonio, Texas, began looking into possible tax violations by the Cabinet official. When the office of the independent counsel decided for similar reasons to look into possible tax violations, it asked the attorney general at the time, Janet Reno, for expanded jurisdiction and access to the findings of the ongoing IRS investigation.

According to people familiar with the report, an alleged effort that followed aimed at shutting down the regional IRS investigation and at blocking the independent counsel from accessing its findings constitutes the bulk of Mr. Barrett's report. They say it details an effort by Mr. Finkelstein to have the regional IRS investigation relocated to Washington, D.C., where it was eventually closed, and a simultaneous effort by Mr. Radek to ensure that the attorney general did not approve an expansion of the independent counsel's investigation.

The report is said to lay blame for the length and cost of the inquiry on Messrs. Radek and Finkelstein and to hint that the two men were taking di rection from the White House. The two former Clinton administration officials are said to deny emphatically the charges in an appendix to the report.

A key element of the independent counsel's case, persons familiar with the report say, is a memorandum written in 1997 by a former chief of the criminal investigation division for the IRS's South Texas District, John Filan, to the chief inspector of the IRS in Washington. In the memo, Mr. Filan accuses Mr. Finkelstein of ordering the unprecedented removal of a regional investigation to Washington. The memo also claims that Finkelstein directed his subordinates to kill the case and that he worked in tandem with senior officials at the Department of Justice to make sure the case was not referred to Mr. Barrett for potential prosecution.

The removal of a regional IRS investigation to Washington is "extremely unusual," according to a former assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Andrew McCarthy. Mr. McCarthy worked briefly for the independent counsel.

"In my 20-year experience I am unfamiliar with any similar behavior," Mr. McCarthy said. "The reason for field offices is to work the cases, not have Washington work the cases."

The Barrett report is said to show that Ms. Reno hampered Mr. Barrett's efforts at demonstrating tax violations on the part of Mr. Cisneros by limiting his investigation to one year of tax records. Successful tax evasion prosecution typically requires establishing a pattern of behavior over several years.

Mr. Barrett's report also is said to show that a former head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Louis Freeh, recommended the appointment of an independent counsel against a draft recommendation by Mr. Radek.

In one key passage, the report is said to relate a conversation among Justice Department officials in which Mr. Radek expresses concerns about putting Ms. Reno in a politically difficult situation if he were to recommend that she seek appointment of another independent counsel when two others were already at work.

In another passage, Mr. Radek reportedly claims that Mr. Cisneros committed no tax violation, though Mr. Radek admits to reviewing only eight of hundreds of Mr. Cisneros's checks.

Republicans have suffered from a cascade of scandals in the past year and are now bracing for the testimony of a lobbyist, Jack Abramoff, who agreed to name names in a plea deal surrounding his indictment on fraud charges earlier this month. Allegations of a coordinated effort during the Clinton administration to block the appointment of an independent counsel and then limit his scope could raise questions about the Clinton years at a time when many Democrats are pressing the former first lady, Senator Clinton, to run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008.

The Barrett report, which was completed in August 2004, does not appear to contain the bombshell evidence of a conspiracy directly involving President Clinton and his wife for that some conservatives had been hoping for, sources familiar with its contents said. But its detailed account of efforts by Messrs. Radek and Finkelstein to block and limit the inquiry could strengthen the hand of Republicans who fought unsuccessfully to have the full contents of the report released.

A three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in Washington, D.C., instructed Mr. Barrett in October to close his office and publish his report "with all deliberate speed." The court also told Mr. Barrett that he must first redact from the report a number of details that it said should remain private.

As reported earlier, approximately 120 pages of the report have been redacted by the three-judge panel. Persons named in the report are now in a position to block prosecution since the statute of limitations has expired for any offenses that were committed. They have reviewed the report, and their responses are said to be added on to the report as an appendix, along with the memo by Mr. Filan.

Sources familiar with the report said several of the responses accuse Mr. Barrett of impugning them to divert attention from the time and expense of his inquiry. Attorneys for individuals mentioned in the report filed more than 100 motions with the court panel involved, including some seeking to prevent publication of the entire report.

Among the most explosive allegations in the report, persons familiar with its contents say, are claims that the White House was aware of Mr. Cisneros's possible tax violations and his misstatements to FBI investigators vetting him about payments to Ms. Medlar before the appointment of an independent counsel. The report says Mr. Clinton ignored the concerns of his transition team about Mr. Cisneros's relationship with Ms. Medlar because he regarded them as minor and was determined to have him in his Cabinet because he is Latino.

The report also claims that Mr. Cisneros offered to resign when questions about his false statements surfaced in the middle of Mr. Clinton's first term. The report suggests that Mr. Clinton's counsel, Lloyd Cutler, advised against resignation, saying that the presumption of innocence was on his side.

The report also will show, sources said, that the Clinton transition team did not release the full FBI report on Mr. Cisneros to members of the Senate Banking Committee who reviewed Mr. Cisneros's nomination. One member of the transition team, the report says, told Mr. Cisneros not to worry about Ms. Medlar coming up at the hearing.

In making its case for a conspiracy, the Barrett report is expected to show that senior members of the Justice Department originally agreed that an investigation of tax evasion was warranted. It cites an assistant attorney general for the Criminal Division, Robert Litt, as saying it would be "an act of lawlessness" not to give the independent counsel power to investigate Mr. Cisneros's taxes. Later, to the grand jury empaneled by Mr. Barrett, Mr. Litt denied making such a claim.

The report also is expected to show that Mr. Barrett was threatened with removal by senior Justice Department officials when he sought an expansion of his investigative powers and that the Bush administration also sought to block his efforts at expansion. Bush administration officials said in the early days of Mr. Bush's first term that they did not want to be distracted by the scandals of the previous administration.

Mr. McGuire is a staff reporter of the Sun. Mr. Tyrrell is the founder and editor in chief of the American Spectator, a contributing editor to The New York Sun, and an adjunct scholar at the Hudson Institute.