Posted on 11/18/2001 4:23:42 PM PST by Jean S
With the resignation of a top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, senior Democrats have stepped up their calls for the end of investigations into two prominent Senate Democrats.
Senate Majority Leader Thomas Daschle (D-S.D.) said the resignation of U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White from the Southern District of New York should mean an end to the separate probes into Sens. Robert Torricelli (D-N.J.) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.).
"It's time to move on," Daschle said Thursday, shortly after White's announcement. "It's time to bring it to a close, and perhaps this might serve as a catalyst to do just that."
Since early this year, White's office has been in charge of the investigations into Torricelli, accused of campaign irregularities and taking illegal gifts from a donor, and Clinton, regarding a last-minute Clinton administration pardon of four Hasidic men and the huge number of votes their hometown gave the Senator in her 2000 race.
In connection with pardons, White was also examining the controversial decision by former President Bill Clinton to pardon fugitive financier Marc Rich, whose ex-wife Denise became a large soft-money donor to Democrats in the months leading up to the pardon.
Announcing her decision last week, White didn't refer to the political cases still left on her plate, but said her resignation, effective Jan. 1, left enough time for "an orderly transition of pending matters."
But it's likely that it will be months before a replacement for White is selected, vetted, sent to the Senate and confirmed, particularly with Congress headed for adjournment at some point next month. The New York media have floated several potential successors to White, from a top aide to Gov. George Pataki (R) to a onetime aide to former Sen. Alfonse D'Amato (R) to former Whitewater prosecutor Robert Ray.
Any nominee will have to first get through the Democratic-controlled Judiciary Committee, where Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) is a senior member.
Just as important, a Democratic aide noted that Chairman Pat Leahy (D-Vt.) has continued a "blue-slip" policy that requires both home-state Senators to sign off on nominees to the federal bench, U.S. Attorneys offices and the U.S. Marshals Service.
That policy effectively gives Clinton the ability to reject - by not returning a positive review of the nominee, on a blue slip of paper - any nominee to take over the office that is handling the investigation into her and her husband.
Neither Schumer's nor Clinton's offices would comment on speculation about who would succeed White or the roles they would play in making that selection.
In the Torricelli case, White was the third different lead prosecutor to handle the federal case, beginning with the U.S. Attorney's Office in New Jersey, which recused itself several years ago when the state's top federal prosecutor was nominated to the federal bench.
The case was then handled by the Justice Department's Campaign Financing Task Force in Washington, which secured guilty pleas from six contributors who evaded contribution limits through "straw donors." The task force was disbanded last winter and the Torricelli matter was handed over to White, whose office specialized in white-collar crime cases.
By giving the Clinton and Torricelli cases to White, a Clinton administration appointee whose first major case was the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the Justice Department also sought to avoid charges it was conducting partisan investigations into prominent Democrats.
White's departure will leave Justice without that veneer, leading some to believe that the probes are going to quietly end with no indictments - or at least should end now.
"It's time to wrap it up," said Sen. Jon Corzine (D-N.J.), a prominent defender of Torricelli who has contributed $10,000 to the Senator's defense fund. "It would be timely to have it wrapped up when you have a change in U.S. attorneys."
Torricelli's office declined to comment, but his lead lawyer, Theodore Wells, who for months declined to comment publicly, said in a brief interview Friday that the case is headed for its conclusion.
"Senator Torricelli is completely innocent, and Iam very optimistic that the investigation will soon be formally closed," said Wells, who has handled the gifts aspect of the case.
The campaign finance portion of the case appears to have withered away without any indictments. The five-year statute of limitations on the 1996 campaign has expired, and three former campaign aides who received official "target" letters exactly 10 months ago - Jan. 19, the last day of the Clinton administration - were never indicted.
There is some speculation, however, that the Torricelli case will end up back in Justice's Washington office, in the Office of Public Integrity, which oversees most corruption cases.
One senior Republican, Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.), argued against bouncing the Torricelli or Clinton cases around to different federal prosecutors. Both probes have been handled, at least recently, in the Manhattan office, and the Bush administration should just make a very prudent choice in who succeeds White "because of the highly sensitive cases" she has handled, Specter said.
"Every [other] place you go, you're going to find Republican appointees," said Specter, a senior member of the Judiciary Committee, who complimented White's work and said he was "sorry to see her go."
Some Democrats, however, have grown weary of her investigations, which have focused on Democratic targets such as the Clintons, Torricelli and the Teamsters. "She's a woman without a home," said one senior Democrat on the Hill, who accused her of lengthening the pardon and Torricelli probes to curry favor with the Bush administration "to simply prolong her term in office."
"She prolonged them for months for her own interests," the Democrat charged.
Justice Department officials did not return calls seeking comment for this story.
Even if White or her successor decides not to pursue an indictment of Torricelli or anyone in the pardon case, it's unclear whether there will ever be a public recognition of that decision.
Many federal investigations are concluded without any formal pronouncement that they are over, leaving the possibility that Torricelli will never get a formal clearance and could possibly have the investigation hanging over his entire re-election campaign in 2002.
BTW, welcome back. Missed your wit. (Although my monitor did stay clean the whole time you were gone <-------no spitting, you see!)
HEY DASH-HOLE!These are legal inquiries, not political ones. Perhaps you should keep your FREAKING LIBERAL NOSE out of the legal system.
Yah, what's with these people? Its like women's logic. You lose either way. :)
Interesting timing. How much did the DNC pay White to step down?
I like my idea.
No body has that sweet a voice and that sweet a public disposition without hiding something.
Where are the Dakota or Washington FReepers with the latest rumor about this twerp?
No body has that sweet a voice and that sweet a public disposition without hiding something.
Where are the Dakota or Washington FReepers with the latest rumor about this twerp?
I LOVE your idea. Brilliant!
I do too. Thats an incredible idea!
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