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Janet Reno: Never Better
Janet Reno
Monday, October 13th 1997: This week's pundit television was dominated by Attorney General Janet Reno looking "above the fray" on Tim Russert's "Meet the Press." Russert, America's favorite Sunday interviewer hosted the Attorney General for more than fifteen minutes in a Rare-for-Reno one on one. While Reno is openly available to reporters at her weekly Thursday press get-togethers, the opportunity to see her close up was refreshing and served to make Republicans calling for her impeachment look smaller than usual.
Reno, the toughest of gentle gentlewomen, delivered her message loud and clear while managing to embarrass the New York Times' erroneous reports that her letter to chief Republican antagonist Henry Hyde did not, by any stretch, clear the President of campaign finance wrongdoing.
Reno told Russert that her investigation of the White House is far from over.
"Nothing has been closed, and nobody has been exonerated, " she said.
Reno also pulled the machiavellian strings of GOP hearts when she intimated she might very well interview Bill Clinton himself during her now-protracted look at potential violations of campaign law.
One surprise - Reno seemed to say that the specific White House location of fundraising events remained an important issue to her. That surprised me, thinking she might have dropped that direction after it had backfired on her so elegantly last week.
While titillating Republican spin doctors with a possible presidential "interview," Reno also made it clear that the Justice Department had not uncovered any evidence to suggest that top Administration officials had committed any crimes. Such a finding would trigger the appointment of an independent counsel.
In her classically controlled manner, Reno took Republicans to task for threatening her personally and for engaging in what I and others call political extortion in their lame attempts to force her to appoint a special prosecutor.
"What I am trying to do is to make sure that I follow the evidence and follow the law. I don't follow innuendo. I don't follow shrill accusations. I gave an oath to the American people that I was going to try to do my part in upholding the law and upholding the Constitution and making sure the laws in this country were implemented the right way," she said.
"Don Newt"
As only Reno can, she made shrill Newt Gingrich out to be the buffoon he is for calling her a "fool" for not appointing a special prosecutor. One would think Gingrich is the true fool in this mix as his own campaign finance crimes are still the subject of federal investigations. If Reno wasn't such an honest prosecutor she might well indict the Speaker who, in my opinion, is eminently indictable.
On Sunday, Reno said of Gingrich, "What we're trying to do is to conduct the best, most through investigation we can, and one of the things I can't do is tell the speaker what we're doing in the course of the investigation. I've got to do it the right way -- building it carefully. I'm going to try to do that no matter what names the speaker calls, no matter what people say."
Reno is due to testify before the GOP's Kangaroo Kongress this week in a well-orchestrated Republican assault on the independence of the Attorney General and the Justice Department. What they'll get is a cool and controlled professional who'll make them look like trailer-park trash when it's over.
A growing number of Republicans - the type with palpable minds - are becoming restlessly vocal about the wisdom of pursuing the "Gingrich-Lott-Thompson-Burton School of Circus Democracy." They rightfully fear the backlash impact on next year's congressional elections, which could find voters ready to dump Republican incumbents who've succeeded in making a mockery of the legislative process and truth in general. Already Lott is quietly under fire strongly enough to challenge his leadership next year, Gingrich remains the most loathed politician in America and Thompson has all but committed national political suicide. Dan Burton, who's House committee began its laughable oversight hearings on campaign finance last week, is seen as such a failure that Gingrich may be forced to cut off his funding rather than allow Burton another few months as Poster Boy of the Inept.
Reno's co-star this weekend was highly respected White House Counsel Charles Ruff, who took the full burden for not telling Reno about the White House coffee video tapes when he met with her Thursday, a day after the tapes were "discovered." But I must say, Ruff wasn't too convincing.
"I should have told her," Ruff told the tired panel of pundits on ABC's "This Week." "I should have made sure that my staff was telling the people they were talking to at the Justice Department. I did not. I regret it, and I've said that publicly and privately to the attorney general."
Dan Burton - Poster Boy for the Inept
But his explanation was weak: "I simply was not focused on the prospect of her (statement).... It had nothing to do with any effort to conceal any information. We would never do that for the Department of Justice or anyone else. And we haven't."
On the other side of the aisle, Dan Burton was again making a nut of himself on CNN when he told Frank Sesno that Reno was "... trying to stand in the way of a good investigation."
"She's fighting for the president of the United States instead of doing her job," dumb Dan sputtered.
Poor Sesno, he was stuck with the most boring interview of the day.
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