Jim Wright makes it the old-fashioned way

National Review, Oct 23, 1987 by Cort Kirkwood

JIM WRIGHT MAKES IT THE OLD-FASHIONED WAY

IT IS TIME for the Reagan Justice Department to mount an official investigation of growing corruption charges against Speaker of the House Jim Wright. The allegations against Wright have been mounting for months, and they are now echoed not only by partisan opponents but in establishment organs like the New York Times and Newsweek. But Wright still sits in the Speaker's chair, confident that he has nothing to fear either from his colleagues who run the House ethics committee, or from a preoccupied and intimidated Reagan Administration.

The Administration, of course, fears that any Justice Department investigation of Wright would be denounced, by the Democrats and their numerous allies in the press, as a political act. In this the Democrats would be entirely correct. It would be a political act. Indeed, it is almost a political obligation.

Politics is a game that works for the voters only when both sides play. The Reagan Administration has held the most powerful political mandate of any Administration since FDR's. Yet it has largely wasted that mandate while the Democrats have busily used their gerrymandered majority in Congress and their friendly relations with the media to stop Republican initiatives by playing the scandal card, usually with no scandal in evidence. What, after all, did Anne Gorsuch do?

The Republican response to this has been mostly to whine about the Democrats' politicizing justice. But the Democrats politicize everything. It is their trademark.

Unfortunately, this tends to suggest that the Democrats are not going to be dissuaded from their current course by appeals to principle. A little deterrence is in order. If the Republicans believe in their mandate, and recognize that it is being frustrated by the superior political skills and inferior scruples of the Democrats, they have no choice but to fire a couple of shots across Democratic bows.

It's not as if Wright doesn't deserve it. The charges suggest that he has used his office for personal gain, exerted improper influence on behalf of constituents, and used the power of his office to win federal benefits for business associates.

The influence-peddling charges center largely on Wright's dealings with some shaky Texas savings-and-loan associations. In September of 1986, Wright pressured Edwin Gray --Chairman of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board (FHLBB), which runs the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation (FSLIC), making Gray the chief regulator for S&Ls--to ease up on Dallas real-estate syndicator Craig Hall, whose shaky loan portfolio was a target for FSLIC foreclosure. According to Newsweek and other published sources, after Wright's intervention Gray worked out a deal with Hall whereby FSLIC would take less drastic action, a move Gray later admitted was extremely unusual.

In October, after Gray had offered to be of further help if Wright should need him, Wright intervened on behalf of Thomas Gaubert. Gaubert was a former finance chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, who had raised $9 million for House candidates during his tenure. He had been removed from the management of his savings-and-loan for what FSLIC said was fraud. It has been reported that, after Gaubert's attorneys met with Wright, Wright talked to Gray, who in turn met with Gaubert, an unprecedented action under the circumstances. After that meeting, Gray made the important and extremely unusual concession of appointing an independent counsel to investigate Gaubert's claims that the FSLIC action against him was unfair. (According to Newsweek, Gray later said: "It is very difficult when you have a man complaining who is very close to the next Speaker of the House.') Unfortunately for Gaubert, the counsel concluded that though the government had erred in several procedural ways, the investigation should continue. The special counsel did not recommend that Gaubert be reinstated in his S&L management position.

Last winter, Wright went to work on behalf of the Vernon Savings and Loan Association, of Vernon, Texas, to delay a threatened FSLIC takeover. FSLIC did delay action until April, by which time 96 per cent of Vernon's outstanding loans were delinquent. Ultimately, though, FSLIC acted, suing Vernon's officers for allegedly defrauding the S&L of $40 million. The case is still pending. As we go to press, one Vernon official is fighting extradition from California on related charges.

Wright's attempt to intervene gains in significance when one considers that he had once used Vernon's private jet on behalf of Majority Whip Tony Coelho's Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. The committee did not pay for the plane or for entertainment aboard High Spirits, Vernon's yacht, until July, well after the committee's use of the plane and the yacht was revealed in the press. The total bill reached nearly $50,000.

Up to a certain limit, intervening with federal regulators on behalf of local businesses is just good constituent service. But when the constituents are high-flying real-estate dealers, major political fundraisers, or businessmen who show a tendency to invite their congressmen aboard private planes, it is reasonable to suppose that something more may be going on. Certainly, Wright's behavior warrants official examination.