U.S.

Reno Vetoes Ickes Investigation

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

January 29, 1999 / 5:38 PM EST / CBS

Attorney General Janet Reno has decided against the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate former White House deputy chief of staff Harold Ickes, CBS News Correspondent Phil Jones reports.

Reno's decision followed heavy Republican pressure to name a special prosecutor and conflicting advice from Justice Department aides. Ickes was accused of lying to Congress.

"There is no reasonable basis to believe that any additional investigation would discover additional evidence sufficient to prove that Ickes' testimony was knowingly and intentionally false," Reno said in a 35-page analysis of the case.

The attorney general reached her decision at the last minute of a six-month inquiry, the maximum time she was allowed under the independent counsel act. A special court ordered her conclusions released.

The decision cut off another possible avenue for transferring to an independent counsel a major portion of the Justice Department's investigation of 1996 campaign financing. That possibility had been raised because Ickes was central to the fund-raising effort behind President Clinton's re-election.

Late last year, Reno also refused to seek independent counsels to investigate President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore over 1996 campaign fund raising.

Her task force, which has charged more than a dozen people including prominent Democratic fund-raisers, continues to investigate the case.

Ickes was accused of lying in a Sept. 22, 1997, Senate Governmental Affairs Committee deposition about Clinton administration efforts on behalf of the Teamsters union in a 1995 strike against Diamond Walnut Co. The Teamsters had contributed to Democrats.

Ickes has denied wrongdoing.

The Senate panel asked: "What did the administration do regarding the Diamond Walnut strike?"

Ickes responded: "Nothing that I know of."

The question was repeated but there were no follow-up questions defining the terms more precisely.

"The serious defects in the questioning, the relatively insignificant nature of the underlying event, the extended lapse of time, and the absence of any perceivable motive to conceal create an insurmountable barrier to the proof of any potential criminal violation," Reno concluded.

In 1995, Ickes met with Teamsters leaders about the strike. A memo prepared for him noted the union gave $2.4 million to Democratic candidates in 1992 and suggested the administration consider helping on issues like the strike if it wanted continued support.

According to a Teamsters memo, Ickes said he asked then-U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor if he would urge Diamond Walnut to settle the strike. Ickes acknowledges asking Kantor to make a call.

Kantor says his call was not motivated by fund raising and the administration never tried to punish the company. Kantor said he merely asked the status of a possible settlement and applied no pressure.

A company executive testified there was no explicit threat but the company viewed the call as part of the Teamsters' effort.

Ickes' lawyers have said inquiries do not amount to executive action to end the strike.